What Celebrities Don’t Understand About Their Protests
Not being a celebrity (either in sports, entertainment, or social circles), my views on celebrity protests are filtered through our business principles and care for our customers as small business owners. Sports and entertainment industries are built on business enterprises catering to the wants of customers. Marketing is designed to attract as many as possible for profit and growth in their respective fields. They’re selling entertainment and we buy a lot of it.
Celebrities see people as fans where we see our fans as customers we’re lucky to have shopping with us. Celebrities fail to see themselves, generally, as employees of the businesses, reliant on pleasing the customer base they attract or risk losing them to other options. Even the owners of sports, entertainment, and social businesses see themselves as somehow superior to their consumers, forgetting why people are paying their money to visit their teams or movies or other offerings.
Although we respect the rights of our employees to participate politically in ways they choose, during our open hours when customers shop with us we don’t allow for political protests or statements such as kneeling when customers first walk in one of our stores. Our customers are not paying us so they can hear our views or witness our frustration in government through simple protests, even if only briefly at the beginning of their visit. When on the clock, we pay our employees to provide the best customer care, product knowledge, and passion for service possible for each person we’re lucky enough to have shop with us.
Attendance and viewership is down for many celebrity enterprises simply due to their customers not enjoying the experience as much as they once did. If every time a celebrity went out to eat the staff first gave a political protest statement (whether in favor or opposed to the personal view of the celebrity) it would get old. Today every award show is an excuse to rant or protest, every opening ceremony a stage for some star to stand (or kneel) upon, every late night show and TV news hour has devolved to being less than what the customer wants to pay for to be entertained.
We would not allow our employees to deliver this type of service to our customers yet many celebrities are insisting their customers get used to it until the government changes to their way of thinking. Entertaining? We’ll see where the customers continue to shop. In my view many celebrities are helping prepare for a massive, going out of business sale…to be held at empty coliseums around the country. What celebrities don’t understand about their protests is fans are consumers who still do have options for spending their limited entertainment dollars to be entertained in exchange.