What are Chloe Bailey, Lizzo, Megan Thee Stallion, Dua Lipa, country and pop singer Jessie James Decker, Dale Moss from “The Bachelorette”, TikTok star Charli D’Amelio, “Euphorias” Sydney Sweeney, countless influencers and maybe a few doing Do your mutuals have something in common?
They all shed tears during an Instagram Live – aka “cried live on IG”.
Ever since Instagram introduced ephemeral live broadcasts on the platform (they can be saved but are more often recorded on screen and posted on other social media platforms), celebrities, influencers, and ordinary people have one more way to see every facet of their day to share. life today in a way that seems even more real and relatable. But in a world where everything feels curated on social media, spontaneous emotions – efforts to vent, raise awareness, and connect with followers – are viewed by some as artificial, embarrassing, or both.
That made you cry live. As in “Imagine Crying Live,” said people who predict they would never be in that situation. It’s the exact opposite of normalizing-your-feelings-talking-and-declining-toxic-energy-therapy – basically living your truth, but sign out first.
It inspired skits on TikTok, specifically to poke fun at influencers crying during livestreams while apologizing or expressing that it’s actually okay to be vulnerable on the internet. In a TikTok, the user @acrello, who has 6.4 million followers, posted examples of comments people make about people crying live – “imagine you’re crying live” and “you’re soft because you’re live crying “- before lip-synching” we don’t care. “In a comment, he added,” If I’m soft to show basic human emotions, then I suppose I am soft. “
Why do people feel so uncomfortable when people bawl on Instagram Live? To some, it seems like an unhealthy substitute for talking to loved ones. In certain cases – especially apologies – it has a manipulative effect. Sometimes it feels like people are using our urge to connect with others against us.
Crying live could be viewed as another form of vulnerability porn, or “sadfishing,” a term used to describe the process of posting sad content on the Internet to gain sympathy, seek support, or encourage engagement. The term “sadfishing,” which peaked in 2019, was inspired by Kendall Jenner after her mother hyped Kris Kendall’s plans to be “vulnerable” and share her “raw story” only to publicize her partnership with Proactiv give.
While an apology for a video or note-taking app feels like a script, tears on a live stream are meant to feel spontaneous and raw. Part of the appeal of an Instagram live for a celebrity is that they can address (or at least feel) fans directly, intimately and without a script, while still controlling the narrative. But the more famous someone is, the less likely they are to doubt that their emotions are real.
“The celebrities we’ve seen in mainstream media in the past have been very carefully curated by other people in order to reach a fan base,” said Jenna Drenten, associate professor of marketing at Loyola University Chicago. “Today we have things like Instagram Live, Cameo, TikTok, these very up-to-date, always-available platform functions that celebrities can use to convey this real-time perspective behind the scenes of their lived experiences.”
The upside is that these tools “give them a chance to be more human,” she said. The downside is that fans, and often the media, view everything a celebrity does as content.
“There’s a perspective that all tears are just for entertainment because celebrities are always for our own entertainment, for the entertainment of the fans,” she said.
On August 15, two days after the music video for her new single “Rumors” starring Cardi B was released, Lizzo hopped on Instagram Live. The song, full of her usual self-confidence and boasting, is about wiping off haters on the internet (“Sick of rumors / But hasser do what they do”). But instead of celebrating the success of the song, she admitted that she sometimes bothers nasty comments on the Internet. Sitting in a toilet with a full face of makeup, a wig cap, and a gray zip-up sweater, tears welled up Lizzo’s eyes as she opened up to thousands of followers – who in return sent supportive comments and heart emojis – about how to deal with cyberbullying.
“The days when I should feel happiest I just feel so down,” she said.
The Live isn’t available on Lizzo’s Instagram account, but it’s easy to find. Fans soon posted screenshots of the clip on YouTube and Twitter. Blogs and news outlets wrote about it; her haters made fun of her for crying alive; and their followers and supporters – including Cardi B – criticized the internet trolls for pushing them to this point.
Lizzo reappeared live later that week. “Don’t worry about me … I have several forms of therapy, including a therapist,” she said in the video as she sat in front of a giant chocolate cake decorated like her hand from the music video “Rumors”. “I’m fine! But just know that I’m the type of artist who is completely transparent when it comes to starting a conversation in order to make progress.”
Her first video was part of a subgenre of live crying – women, especially black women, resetting (and dispelling rumors) the narratives circulating around them. That was the downside of it.
Crying leads to catharsis, and catharsis leads to peace of mind. Or as Lizzo put it: “Have my cake and eat it b—”.
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