A lot of people imagine that celebrities have it pretty easy. You might think that being famous gives you carte blanche to do whatever you like and say whatever you think. But you'd be sadly mistaken. In fact, being famous simply puts you under the spotlight 24/7, and makes you an open target on social media for all manner of trolls, bullies and critics. After all, the general public won't care: no matter what mud you sling at celebs, people will ultimately assume that their money and fame will shield them from harm.
One celebrity who you might assume is impervious to detractors and trolls is American rapper Post Malone. Post (real name Austin Richard) has been doing pretty well for himself critically and commercially lately, despite (or perhaps because of) his eccentric appearance and goofy manner. His first album, entitled 'Stoney' went platinum three times and hit the top of the charts. Meanwhile his follow-up album, Beerbongs & Bentley, has been a smash success, and broke the first day streaming records on Spotify, boasting a whopping total of 78.7 million streams worldwide.
Yet despite all this, it seems as though he still has his haters. This week Post seems to have made the mistake of Googling his own name to see what people of him. And suffice to say, what he found wasn't pretty. He tweeted: "never googling myself ever again lol. got called a walking STD and a human sir bubble by 2 different publications. deleted safari after lol. if anyone is having a tough time keep rocking guys. never let anybody tell you shit. you are awesome. [sic]" Wow; thank god that I'm not famous enough to Google myself. It sounds like it can be pretty rough.
One person who has never had a bad word to say about him is Ariana Grande's ex Mac Miller, who in a recent Rolling Stone interview opened up about a potential collaboration with Post in the near future. Miller stated: "Me and Post have been talking about doing an album. So we got together. And then Frank Dukes has worked on a bunch of my records, but we had never met, so he came through too. And then Thundercat appeared and we all started jamming. We were just having a great time."
A number of Post's critics have also accused him of cultural appropriation as a result of his being a white rapper, and Lil B famously called him out over it on Twitter back in October 2017. When interviewed about the subject by Dana Cortez on her eponymous talk show, Post stated: " Coming into my own and really figuring out who I am and what kind of music I want to make and how I want to really shift the culture and shift the genre… now I think, with this last album, I’ve shut a lot of people up that just wanted to call me a cultural appropriator or a one-hit-wonder. It doesn’t bother me anymore that people question me. I just want to keep making the best music I can.”
Well, it sounds as though Post has a healthy attitude towards people who want to tear him down. I think we could all learn a little something from him, don't you?
.jpg_mfwOs5?tr=h-184)