Ambiguity & Delusion

Lessons Learned From Pop Culture Worship

An Instagram story from Barry Keoghan of an espresso shot with the blonde princess emoji in the middle (“That’s that me espresso,” etc, etc.)

Obsessions begin in the manner that TS Eliot foresaw the world ending: “not with a bang but with a whimper.” A blurred photo, an Instagram story. A laugh, a glance, a conversation. Obsessions aren’t born out of chemical combustions. They’re born out of scattered clues and uncertainty - out of whispers and bloodshot stares at ceilings, speculation over dregs of evidence. Obsessions are conceived when we have the bare bones of information, enough to be intrigued but not so much that our questions are fully answered. Bread crumbs to sort and nibble. Obsessions - both frivolous and serious - are born when we unknowingly know too little.

In “The Rules of the Game,” Anne Helen Petersen writes about the necessity of ambiguity in the textbook case of celebrity obsession. She writes that since the dawn of “Hollywood” as we know it (roughly 1910), movie stars were “the cumulative result of a gradual yet steady release of information concerning those who appeared on the screen.” The advent of popular “fan magazines” - like Motion Picture Story and Photoplay in 1911 - allowed for the mass dissemination of an actor’s name, followed by information about their life - “extra-textual” information as Petersen calls it. These facts were strategically released to the press, beginning with rudimentary details that built to a larger arc, conveniently confirming that loveable stars are exactly how they appear to be on screen: dashing, endearing, and swoon-worthy.

As Petersen writes, the artist persona that is ultimately revealed to the public is the result of the collective efforts of various studio and publicity personnel. Particularly as the industry ascended into the “Golden Age” of Hollywood mid-century, names, wardrobes, backgrounds, and personalities were designed with the idea that congruency between onscreen and offscreen realities was most pleasing. We’re gratified by the coalescence of “real” and “fake” - Petersen says the coherency is “pleasurable and reassuring.” It also gives us a satisfying sense of control. However, what’s most interesting isn’t necessarily the identity that’s revealed after the slow trickle of personal information reaches the public, delivering us a fully formed character to observe. What’s more fascinating is the fleeting moments before that - when we’re still missing crucial puzzle pieces and a rising star is naked with vagueness. It’s within that ambiguity that we can place our imagination - plant our fables. It’s within that ambiguity that obsession begins.

September 2012 issue of US Weekly

Celebrity relationships are a prime example of how ambiguity makes a star - or more aptly put, a story - blossom. Petersen illustrates the example of Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s “secret” 2012 marriage. Before their matrimony, Petersen claims that the two actors were riding a B-list wave and allowing the public a quick glimpse into their semi-private nuptials drew people in. If they had done a Teen Vogue, Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey-esque spread, it would have seemed orchestrated. The obscurity allows for speculation and implies greater authenticity and a sense that people are in on a secret. How long had the two been together? What did the dress look like? Who was invited? Interest builds in the blank spaces.

Today, the public bears witness to all kinds of similar ambiguity in pop culture. The whereabouts and well-being of Kate Middleton. The sexuality of numerous popular singers, like Harry Styles and Billie Eilish. The vague-seeming and likely semi-fabricated courtship of hot young couples like Sabrina Carpenter and Barry Keoghan, Olivia Rodrigo and Louis Partridge, and Dua Lipa and Callum Turner. When Sabrina cheekily waves to Barry from her Coachella set and he snaps an IG story of an espresso shot with the blonde princess emoji in the middle, it’s quite clear that the two are involved - but the extent of their affair remains subject to speculation. Within this hazy picture of a relationship, we’re permitted the ability to create our own stories on social media, further circulating and coloring the matter with our interests, illusions, and webs of theories.

Planned ambiguity has also been the specialty of one Taylor Swift, and arguably the source of her spice as an artist. Particularly on Taylor’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, the artist goes one step past a wink and a nod when relaying the loose details of what appears to be a long-running on-and-off-again with The 1975’s Matty Healy. She name-drops mutual friends of the two artists and includes appearance details that are unmistakenly descriptors of Matty (e.g. the infamous “tattooed golden retriever” line). Since the two were never committed in a long-term capacity, fans are left filling in the cracks of the fractured mosaic Swift so baldly exposes - like a paint-by-numbers.

Screenshot of a 116-slide deck detailing the timeline of Matty Healy and Taylor Swift’s relationship (I found it on Twitter).

But our interest in the ambiguous hits closer to home than celebrity gossip. The greatest example of our propensity to speculate and fantasize in daily life is something we’re introduced to quite early: crushes. Like celebrity obsessions, personal crushes too are based on mere speculation. They begin with surface-level encounters - seeing someone from across the room, sharing a brief interaction - and from then on, our mind handles the rest. Like a Mad Libs, we’re given the skeleton, and embellish the rest according to our preferences. Even as we grow old and become more aware of our tendency to adorn, we almost can’t help but do so - sketching out what we want to see. The “ick” that so many young women deliberate on social media comes when reality contradicts our fantasy - when an unflattering semblance of the crush’s humanity comes to light and our imagination is punctured. As Hollywood fanatics felt in the early twentieth century and now, we experience greater gratification from the coalescence of fiction and reality than from reality alone.  

Still, the implications of this are further-reaching than pop culture and even crushes - though they act as good illustrations of the matter. The heroes we grew up admiring fall short of what we imagined. The careers and cities we dreamed of as children have bleaker and spookier attributes than what’s shown on TV. We stifle problems in our relationships, quiet callings to greater life purposes - all because of how comfortable ambiguity is. It’s so much easier to dream and wonder. To live with the “potential” for more - for greatness - than to go through the pains of rising to it. People have long claimed to revere what’s “real” over what’s phony. But in the face of many reality checks, we shrivel.

On one hand, coming face-to-face with the stone-cold aspects of reality is simply a result of growing up and acquiring more information about how the world functions. And on the other, it’s the outcome of our tendency to beautify, to romanticize, and to yearn. What we truly admire - over “realness” - is delusion. Not an entirely science-fiction fantasy, but one that has enough grounding in reality to make it feel real. Or at least like it could be, if not in this life, then in the next. We crave blurriness. All we seem to want to do, at times, is to want.

When I first began working and writing in New York City, almost two years ago, I had this unparalleled feeling of accomplishment. My life, so it seemed, had finally taken a turn for the romantic - it seemed as though my fantasy and my reality were beginning to converge. I naively assumed this is what happened to everyone after college - that after years of hard work, a more permanent feeling of pay-off emerges. However, as I settled at my desk, I was met with a dumb suspicion that this feeling would perhaps be fleeting. My job, the city, who I was in this new place - all felt so unknown to me in the moment. Like all things that become so familiar after repeated exposure, I considered the idea that these shiny new parts of my life would soon also become routine. The feeling crept over me like a black fog. I was living in moments of ambiguity - of possibility - and after a while, what’s unknown inevitably became known. I learned. I now know things - about the city, my job, the media industry, and myself - that weren’t as clear to me two years ago. My sunny outlook was - for a while - squashed.

I can understand the urge to turn to brutal realism in the face of disappointment. But I don’t think we should squander our imagination so readily. Seeking our version of a beautiful truth - a romantic, patterned version of reality - may at times lead to letdown, but so does seeing matters purely “as they are,” if that’s even possible. Some things are near impossible to make meaning out of. Issues are subject to interpretation. Misfortune is random and unfair. We would do good to ground ourselves in these realities to an extent, but not lose a healthy dose of hope - of delusion. When parts of our dreams become parts of our realities, we can’t help but find ourselves looking for the next thing to long for - an essence of childlike innocence preserved. Even if we never get what we want out of life - there is pleasure in the daydream, in the wanting. In envisioning and working towards something better.

Perhaps we should deposit some of the rosiness we place in our fantasies of other people into our own lives. If we can make the ambiguity of others - celebrities, crushes, friends, foes - into a more beautiful, well-crafted object, why, in theory, would we not be able to do the same for ourselves? We, unfortunately, come to know our present selves too well to render ourselves as glorified as a person we admire a great deal. But what we will do and who we will become in the future is wonderfully ambiguous, offering us room for imagination, longing, speculation, and delicious delusion. We should tread carefully with our curiosity of others, and perhaps learn to wonder - and maybe even obsess a little - over our own ambiguity as well.

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