Is anybody media trained anymore? Do a YouTube search for your favorite pop star of the decade, and there’s a decent chance you’ll get an exhaustive 30-minute video of every chaotic, unfiltered thing they’ve said or done on camera — at least, unfiltered in the eyes of the person painstakingly compiling the clips. The idea that an artist might engage in a little recreational reputation-torching and blurt out whatever shit at whatever time is becoming less of a professional liability than a status symbol, an aspirational messiness: As media trainer Bill McGowan told The New York Times, “unhinged has become the new authentic.” And just like “authenticity,” it’s a performance and a fantasy; one wonders how it is that, if so many artists are unafraid to ruin their reputations, so few of their reputations seem noticeably ruined.
