Alyssa Milano

I think the final straw was seeing her hop on the COVID train.

If you believe Alyssa Milano (and just the word "believe" in this context could be troublesome), she is now the Forrest Gump of modern American history.

Since being an inciting force behind #MeToo, Milano--an actress I actually really love who has a decent, if not exactly noteworthy, career--did one of the most severe pivots from acting to activism that any of us have ever seen.

In the process, she's become a juggernaut on Twitter, a place where you're allowed to brazenly chase whatever personal narrative will get you the most attention.  Attention on the Twitter-scape is like food in The Hunger Games.  Do whatever you have to do, gain as many followers as possible, and one day you'll have a Hulu deal after lip-syncing to Tucker Carlson while dressed like Cardi B. It's the Wild, Wild West. It's the Facebook we all think Facebook is--but this isn't about Twitter.

It's about Alyssa.

Part of me has a hard time writing something critical of her, because I also will shamelessly pursue attention at all costs. We're all given incentives to hop on social bandwagons and curate social media identities based on what the robots on the Internet would most like to see.  There are days when I feel like that dog in the circus with a silly hat and a ball on its nose hoping I get a treat if I post a cute photo of myself.

But something about Alyssa Milano just seems to be getting...grosser?

I never judged her motives when she was championing causes like #MeToo and #TimesUp, but as those issues have started to take a backseat (sadly, not right, also gross), anyone attached to that issue who may have suddenly found themselves getting high-profile interviews and coverage that perhaps they haven't gotten in years--those people had a choice to make.

Either settle into that cause and continue fighting to keep it on the front burner, knowing full well that a battle like that would be all uphill and not nearly as fruitful in terms of personal gain, or they could jump onto another cause.

Now, I'm not arguing that Milano abandoned #MeToo. She still posts regularly online about all kinds of things, buuuuuuut if you're a publicity addict like I am, you can see the subtle shifts in how much she posts and when and about what at which times.

This is all to say--Alyssa Milano is a very smart woman and she's particularly smart about keeping herself in the public eye despite having a career that currently doesn't include being involved with any high-profile projects, or really, any projects at all.

Before you say it, let me get ahead of you--I think artists should speak on politics and social issues as much as possible. I'm not criticizing an actress for speaking outside her field. I guess I might be criticizing her for trying to become famous as an actress but not for acting?

I always err on the side of "I don't care about your motives" when it comes to conversations about activism and purity. As long as you're doing the work, I don't care why you're doing it.

I also understand that if a person becomes closely associated with one or more causes and they seem to have self-advancement as their motivation, it can turn off people who might be interested in fight alongside them.

All that being said, I think we're all self-motivated. I can't say I've ever really witnessed altruism that couldn't be dissected and found to be somewhat lacking, but I think we all--if only as a societal dance--need to do our best to mask our self-motivation as much as possible. The causes we support should, in theory, be at least a mile out in front of our own personalities.

When Milano started gaining traction by speaking out, I think she was doing it the right way, but now she seems to have fallen victim to the addiction that is heavy social media usage, and honestly, girl, you can sit next to me at the support group.

So why am I writing this?

Because I think we're seeing more and more cases like this.

Pseudo-celebrities, even albeit likable ones, who are continuing to gain fame for...not really doing anything?

If you noticed a dig earlier at a recent Twitter star, you weren't mistaken. I made it very clear that I would find anybody who tried to become famous during a pandemic utterly abhorrent, and I stand by that. The advent of Tik Tok means we now have another platform from which we can cherry pick people who make content and not art and then give them bigger platforms to make that not-art, and honestly, did we need any more of all that?

I'm very worried about how little we've come to expect authenticity from the people we pay attention to. I don't care if celebrities are saints, but I worry when they try to hide their intentions rather than just lean into them. Joan Rivers was one of my heroes, and never for a minute did she try to hide who she was or what she wanted (fame and money), and so, I trusted her. I believed her. She was someone I would laugh at, but also, listen to.

The idea of people as brands, an idea social media cultivates and encourages, is also a breakdown of authenticity, and it's traveling far and wide. I'm now seeing my students have a hard time writing from the heart or believably portraying emotion onstage, because they just aren't seeing that many examples of it, especially now when the majority of what they watch and listen to is on their phone, and on platforms where authenticity just seems out of place. The goal instead is carefully constructed "truthful" moments that are in no way true. It's the logical ending to a collective journey that began with selfies of people with their hair and make-up done claiming "I woke up like this."  It shows that people understand that honestly putting yourself out there has value, but nobody knows how the hell to do it, so better to just create a facsimile thereof.

Who can tell the difference right?

Except I think we're all starting to be able to tell the difference while not sure what we're supposed to do about the fact that everybody we're interacting with online seems fake as #$%@.

Is it any wonder we're all biting each other's heads off?  Do you remember what it used to be like in everyday life years ago when you, every so often, figured out that someone you knew was a total fraud?  Remember how irritable you'd be around that person and how much you'd avoid them at all costs?

Well...that's...all of us now.

It's a trippy space to try living in, and I'm not sure what to do about it.

About a week ago, Milano, who I still follow on Twitter, because as you can probably tell, I'm oddly fascinated by her, retweeted a criticism of her from some online troll, who accused her of using activism to revive a failed acting career.

I find it interesting when people retweet their own trolls. It seems like exactly what the trolls want you to do, and it also comes across as them addressing their own projection. It puts what you know people are thinking about you out in front of you so you can address it and act as though you don't care when clearly you do regardless of how many laugh emojis you put in front of it.

It's one big dance without any music.

And I just wonder when we're all going to get tired of doing the dance.