Note to celebrities: expensive artisan objects and unnecessarily complicated DIY-projects don’t make for a good lifestyle website.
by Ashley Canino
This column has previously touched on the closeness we feel with certain celebrity personas, the effect of seeing people portray roles we love, then finding their faces and interviews everywhere we turn. We develop parasocial relationships with the rich and famous and suddenly we care what they do and think. Advertisers leverage our strange affection to sell us goods. When Oprah likes a book, we read it. When Real Housewife Bethenny makes a cocktail, we drink it. It’s as if we’re taking the recommendation of a close friend. But it seems celebrities are done being paid pawns in their managers’ money grabs. Enter the lifestyle website: an all-encompassing portal for advice on food, fashion, and, of course, things to buy. These destinations (which take no expertise to own or operate) exist so that we, the fans, can grab up every bit of a star’s life, no matter how impractical.
The latest lifestyle website to launch, Blake Lively’s Preserve, is getting blasted in the media for being over-styled and less than relevant. So what is particular to this page that has critics clawing at it? Preserve consists of blog posts and a storefront that pushes pricey sepia-tone wares with outrageous product descriptions (a tea stand “towers over the table like a priceless palace” and a pair of jeans “speaks silently through the only language it knows.”) The site takes the self-aggrandizing sentiment at the core of every lifestyle page and magnifies it in its attempts to be humble. Lively writes, “I’m no editor, no artisan, no expert. And certainly no arbiter of what you should buy, wear, or eat.” Those are all great points. But then why is she penning an “editor’s letter,” and telling us what we should buy, wear, and eat? Because she is a celebrity and she can, while making a few bucks doing it.
We may not be able to fault Lively or other lifestyle website mavens for pursuing a business opportunity, but there are broader implications to these sites than simply pushing a skincare line. From Tori Spelling’s ediTORIal to Gwyneth Paltrow’s infamous GOOP. we are being encouraged to cultivate a luxurious lifestyle when few of us have the means. This is the new frontier of unhealthy idealization, joining body image as an area in which celebrities should take responsibility for the unrealistic standards they set. While the extremely wealthy may be able to equate the value of an experience to the money they spend on it, not many of us have that pleasure. We are too busy dealing with everything on our plates, with too few resources to have the time or the money left over to purchase an air about us. The ideal of artisanal mustard seems innocuous enough, but recall this millennium’s peak of do-it-yourself (DIY) and handicrafts, when Pinterest was an infant app and knitting was trending in real life. Doing it yourself was a form of relief from commodity and the grind of working in order to purchase goods. Somehow these sites manage to turn do-it-yourself projects and crafts into aspirational symbols of wealth and fans into people who should be living up to their idols’ standards.
Lauren Conrad, former star of questionably real MTV reality shows Laguna Beach and The Hills, has maintained her relevance via her eponymous lifestyle page. Hers is one I am able to enjoy. Whether skimming a photo set or recipes for cupcakes and facial scrubs, I find myself on Conrad’s site occasionally when I am procrastinating and momentarily fancying myself a DIY-er. There is a reason she remains a media darling while Paltrow is often ridiculed for her remarks on parenting and her product recommendations. On LaurenConrad.com, I am never made to feel that what I should really have is beyond my means or that doing the best I can with what I have is not good enough. This may be in part because Conrad is not the megastar that Paltrow or Lively can identify as. But more simply, Conrad knows her market. Her brand was built on being a high school student, then struggling at work and school amid torturous arguments with friends–not in glamorous campaigns and award-winning performances. At the center of Conrad’s empire is her Kohl’s line, LC Lauren Conrad, aimed at thrifty patrons and often featured on her site in style watch pieces. To mirror the tone and content of GOOP would be to alienate shoppers and the people, like myself, who have grown up with her. In a world where we must have celebrities doling out advice from on high, at least the site content aims for what is attainable, practical and does not push a monetary value on readers’ experiences.
Money is presumably no object to Preserve‘s readers and customers. The site’s editors had enough foresight to attempt to deflect criticism regarding its extravagant and gratuitous nature, but not the acuity to do it well. “We are aware that a lot of what we are selling is outlandish in a world where people are starving and have nowhere to sleep,” reads the “Greater Good” tab. “We acknowledge that we are human and are flawed. But please accept, our intention is to do something pure.” Preserve could make the point that if someone has $150 to spend on an apron, and if a company has the gall to sell one, they likely have the ability to make a donation that could benefit those less fortunate. Instead, it positions charity as penance. Do not fear for your soul should you shell out for the black truffle salt, for part of the money you spent will go towards providing a meal to a child. Because, you know, kids are starving, and Preserve acknowledges that.
Whether influencing someone’s waist size or wallet, with great fame comes great responsibility. I am hoping that with Preserve, the celebrity lifestyle website bubble has finally burst, and that those wanting to enter that arena in the future will think twice, or, at least, be conscientious about it. There is plenty of value in life for those of us whose jeans don’t have thoughts and who put our teacakes out on regular old plates, if at all.
Ashley Canino writes the Pop Rivets column for The Riveter. You can follow her @AshleyCanino.
