There’s also danger if celebrities unartfully
choose to profit off the virus. Social media
experts warn that this may not be the time to be
pushing products for gain.
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson walks toward that
line when he relentlessly floods his Instagram
account to highlight and hype the brand of
tequila he owns.
“You really need to be sensitive to your
audience, and you need to be very careful if
you want to walk that line,” says Schaffer. “It is a
dangerous subject. A celebrity is only as good
as their community. It can work against them as
quickly as it works for them.”
Despite this new and unvarnished look at celebs
and the pushback it has triggered, Sreenivasan
is skeptical that anything will really change once
normal life resumes.
“We’ve had this conversation forever,” she
says. “We’re going to move on until the next
problem comes, and we’ll have this inequality
conversation again.”