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As wrong as it may seem, many people look up to Chris Brown. Jeff Perera believes it’s time Brown takes some responsibility for his actions.
Originally appeared at Higher Unlearning
Go ahead,
Tell me how he’s such a great performer and I need to drop it…
Tell me how Rihanna seems to like bad boys and shouldn’t have gotten him upset, or that she asked for it…
Tell me how someone like Charlie Sheen have a lengthy list of violence against women and gets a pass, so Chris should too…
Tell me how _________ is such a great song, and it’s all about the music.
Tell me how I need to forgive people’s mistakes and allow for folks to be human.
Tell me how I need to get a life and stop hatin’…
Here’s the bottom line on this: Chris Brown is a role model, whether we like it or not.
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Recently when Chris Brown was asked by paparazzi outside the Gotha nightclub to comment on Frank Ocean revealing he is bisexual, Brown responded by saying, “Man, no homo!”.
For those unfamiliar with the term, here is a short video regarding the phrase ‘No Homo’:
Chris and Frank apparently have had issues going back to 2011 and included this footage of Brown’s cousins chasing Ocean. I wrote a previous Higher Unlearning piece exploring Chris Brown’s childhood and history with violence. We go into detail about his history of violent and homophobic behaviour including a true account of his violence towards Rihanna.
So, as we explain in that post, Chris loves to go to Twitter and make spontaneous comments, the more controversial ones usually disappear. In classic Chris Brown form, here is his response to the uproar over the No Homo comment.
…so I continue to point the ‘wrong fingers’. “readabookbitch” …his maturity has clearly maintained the status quo, but here is where it matters.
♦◊♦
As of July 30th, Brown has close to 11 million followers on Twitter. I’d assume many are female fans, with male fans following him as well. Brown’s fans are affectionately called ‘Team Breezy’ and defend their fav singer with a feverish passion. They also clearly have learned well from him and follow along with Brown’s mature example of handling situations . During the 2012 Billboard Awards in May, model Chrissy Teigen took to her Twitter account (as did others) to critique a seemingly bad lip-synced Chris Brown’s performance.
- “So excited to see Chris Brown! I love loud and surprising background fits of rage I can hear from the audience”
- “Why sing when you can dance?”
The following is a small sample of the hundreds of replies, comments and death threats toward Teigen as a result of her observations:
- “b**** who the f*** are you hoe? you unknown b****. you need some D*** in yo life? u mod? cause he winning.. b**** get a life”
- “All you do is talk s**t, you need to be raped and murdered.”
- “I don’t beat women, but you are one b**** I will make an exception for.”
- “you’re a f****** hoe and I hope someone kicks her f****** a**!!!!!”
- “Why you yelling, young thing? RT @mrsdorsey4life ONE MORE THING DON’T BE HATIN ON BREEZY CAUSE HES OUR F***** KING WE OBEY HIM”
- “i hope someone tortures you alive so you can feel the pain & i can hear your amusing screams for help
These hundreds of tweets from Team Breezy calling for Chrissy Teigen to be killed or raped led to her boyfriend, another Grammy award-winning singer John Legend, defending her on Twitter.
Chris Brown finally responded to his fans rabid attack, to get them to stop the violent behaviour, he sent out the following:
“Team Breezy! Lets stop sending death threats!…I know y’all bout that life but it’s the wrong message! Ur turning haters into victims!”
Again, the message to his fans publicly wishing rape and death on a woman was “I know y’all about that life…but it’s the wrong message…you are turning haters into victims.” What does he mean by ‘that life’? Brown constantly messages and talks to his millions and millions of young fans via social media, and the example he sets for them is there for the world to see in his tweets, his lyrics. his actions…and lack of action. That life, indeed.
Our young men and boys need to see stronger role models and examples of being a man, and our young women and girls need to see these examples as well. These cycles of violence and destructive behaviour and attitudes need to be broken, urgently.
Until we see some accountability from someone claiming to be a role model and ignoring the impact they are having on millions of young devote followers, we have to continue pointing the ‘wrong fingers’.
p.s. Here is a great review of his last record:
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I definitely get the point of this article, to show how Chris Brown is a (bad) role model. And I completely understand why–he’s immature, ignorant, and unapologetic. Nonetheless, he makes good music, and people like that.
What I don’t understand is why so many people expect celebrities to acknowledge their “role model” title and act accordingly. To be honest, Chris Brown is just famous–and he has a lot of fans who support him despite how terrible of a person he is. It would be nice if Chris Brown actually took his own advice and read a book every now and then, but he’s too busy making money that the rest of us wish we could–and that’s his perogative.
“Until we see some accountability from someone claiming to be a role model”–when did Chris Brown claim to be a role model? We need to stop pointing the fingers at celebrities. Yeah they often times hold biggoted ideologies, just like so many other people, but are we to point fingers at them because they have more fame.
Let’s be honest with ourselves here, the fans quoted (the ones sending death threats and rape reccomendations) were probably stupid before following Chris Brown and would probably be the same without him–they’d just look up to someone else. If we really are to point fingers it ought to be parents.
It’s a PARENT’S job to teach acceptance, humility, and tolerance. It’s a PARENT’S job to equip their children with tools and intellectual curiousity that will cause them to lead as better examples. I see nothing wrong with listening or loving Chris Brown’s music–he stands against so much of what I believe is just but he makes really good music. And that’s all. PARENTs need to teach children to tell the distinction between a musician and a role model. If we leave the parenting up to celebrities, well…you see what happens.
Hi Kaleb,
Thank you for your comments! Just a few points in response:
A/ I think the word ‘role model’ can be very misleading. Wiktionary gives us this definition: “Role model generally means any “person who serves as an example, whose behavior is emulated by others”
Perhaps the term ‘influencing factor’ is a better term?
B/ Chris Brown in his interview with Larry King on CNN (which can be found in my original article re: Chris Brown http://higherunlearning.com/2012/02/26/chrisbrownandthesoundsofyoungmeninfreefall/) talked about embracing his role as a role model to youth and his young fans. He said he would deliver on this, as part of his work to atone for his public violence towards Rihanna.
No one should ever leave parenting to anyone other than themselves, but role models or influencing factors can make a tremendous impactful (or more so) on a young person. Chris Brown or any celebrity does not need to live a squeaky-clean life, as we can learn as much from a person’s mistakes and flaws as we can from positive actions. Chris publicly discussed acknowledging his status and influence as a musician targeting specifically towards young people aged 13-24.
He has a twitter account of 11 MILLION fans. guaranteed most followers are under 24 yrs old. His Twitter account serves a function different than the average person, who uses it to reflect, react, comment and share opinion , views and links. Twitter is his marketing space….his Twitter handle is part of his persona and marketing outreach as he spends as much time promoting his music and connecting with his fan base to drive up record sales.
A simple Google search of Brown’s Tweets (including those deleted) will show they way he interacts with his young fans. Someone like Lady Gaga or Katy Perry have similar aged fans, but use the medium to intimately connect with fans, but not cross the lines Chris crosses regularly (homophobia, sexism, bullying, calling out others into battle, fights with rappers/other artists etc).
When Beiber fans attack a person on Twitter, I don’t think it is the same as this example of Team Breezy’s vicious tweet-assault. Chris speaks and acts like this constantly (again peep my article or research his numerous incidents of verbal violence) and it reflects in his audience.
He doesn’t owe us anything, but he owes his young fans. I am first to acknowledge, if we knew what famous singers or actors did in their real life, we’d stop buying their records and watching their films…
Chris initially said he’d atone and embrace the role he has in the lives of young ppl who still look up to him…that’s different than with other celebs who reject being a role model from day one (even though they are also influencing factors whether they like it or not).
Thanks for clerifying that for me, I was looking through this article asking myself “Where is this ‘role model’ bit coming from?” I think “influencing factor” or something along those lines would definitely be better.
I definitely understand where you’re coming from in this, and I’ve written on Chris Brown tweets myself, and just read some last night from last year re Frank Ocean and Odd Future. I’m just going to have to disagree with you on the “he owes his young fans”. What exactly does he owe his young fans, or anyone else for that matter, other than good music and performances–that’s what fans sign up for.
If young fans of Chris Brown are looking for a role model, they certainly should look elsewhere. Additionally, I think there is a clear distinction between a role model and an entertainer with a fanbase, this should be emphasized. And while I appreciate the Larry King interview site (I really do appreaciate the fact check), we have to understand that this was three years ago and Chris Brown would have said anything to appear softer and remoreseful–that game is up.
I hear you KB. I think the whole celebrity persona/actual person duality piece is ridiculous as well. I mean, celebs have always presented a public figure to compliment and ensure the product (music, film etc) isn’t impacted by the real person. There are some (i.e Sean Connery, Charlie Sheen) who’s public displays of violence against women who get the pass and don’t receive anywhere near the criticism that Chris Brown gets.
It is an interesting era we are entering, with social media (FaceTwitterBook etc) where we all are starting to exist as real people and our ‘public persona’. We post comments and images of ourselves that are controlled and tailored vs what we actually look like/candid comments in conversation…
As Brown seems to struggle with hiding who he is while presenting a consumer-ready version of himself through social media, are his fans also struggling with behaviour online and in the real world?
I’m gonna go on a tangent here re: our real self & virtual self…actually I’ll just share a quote! This is quoted from a great interview w/ Toronto-based artist Nina Arsenault, who unknowingly about a decade ago dated Luka Magnotta (The Canadian serial killer).
Q : – “Magnotta constructed multiple identities on Facebook, and he had a variety of aliases and personae that he developed, almost like fictional characters that he inhabited. Is this a new psychopathology that everyone now has to deal with, but which in his case turned horrific and lethal?
Nina – “I was talking [last week] about the narcissistic tendency to understand oneself and others as images. Obviously thousands of years ago human beings couldn’t conceptualize themselves as moving images, as brands, or as commodities. They didn’t have TVs or movies. Representations were rare and sacred. The only way even to see a moving image would have been to take a hallucinatory substance in a temple or a cave with carvings or drawings on the walls. It would have been known as magic.
Back in the 80s it was difficult for people to understand the concept of virtual reality. The term was considered an oxymoron. Now, the minds of an entire generation are developing with virtual selves–representations of themselves which can have exaggerated, false, or accurate relationships to their lived existences. What my generation calls narcissism–understanding oneself and others as a series of images–is being bred into human beings globally. Post-millennial children do not really know what life is like without a virtual self. I don’t think we can anticipate where this evolution/mutation will take us as a world culture. What new technologies will emerge to fuse with this mentality? How will it further commoditize us as human beings? How will it continue to construct our understanding of reality as a series of images we are buying, selling, vivifying, living up to or not living up to?…Narcissistic Personality Disorder is actually being removed from the 2013 version of the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders, the guide used by psychologists and psychiatrists to treat patients. It’s the nature of mental illness that when these personality traits become more and more like everyone’s behavior, we can no longer call it pathology. It becomes the new normal.
I totally hear you (see: Cyborg Theory).
It’s hard in our era because celebrities are trading in the former mystery that they had–we new them by what they put out, not necessarily how the conducted themselves on a daily basis or what was going on in their heads per 140 characteres). I also pay attention to this and have noted two polar examples:
1. Beyonce – She’s had a twitter for years and only this year released her first (and only, as of a couple weeks ago) tweet. She’s managed to hold her grace in an era where you can fall, like Chris Brown, so easily at the mercy of a not-so-well thought out tweet.
2. Rihanna (and Chris Brown) – Their tweets will most definitely be the death of them. They say what’s on their mind–great!–but does that necessarily coincide with their celeb persona? If not, I think people start to notice and in turn question a celebritity’s authenticity. On the other hand, it makes the celebrity an open book, which can be good for a celebrity-fan relationship (like Lady Gaga)
On some level I think we–all of us on twitter “branding” ourselves–struggle with this. Do I tweet about what I’m doing so that I’m more relatable? Or do I tweet less about my personality and keep my image strictly business (even if that means maintaining an enigma). Who knows where we’re going? I often times struggle with “Ok, who’s the writer here: Kaleb B. Lawson or Kaleb Blake?” It’s all marketing, but the decisions feel so extremely personal.
Excerpt:
“Tell me how I need to forgive people’s mistakes and allow for folks to be human.”
This makes it impossible for CB to attain redemption.
To me this makes the argument about something else. If there is nothing he can do to attain redemption and he will always be public enemy #1 for some people based on high-stress bad decisions, then this narrative seems to be about something else.
It’s not about protecting the innocent or stopping violence but about vengeance. Some people just seem to be inconsolable in regards to CB. Sometimes, those who advocate looking inward are deflecting, but sometimes they are correct too.
My role models are all dead. That way they can’t embarrass me with any future screw-ups.
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