Post Malone is too cool
A woman approached Post Malone’s car…
Jennifer: What’s up Post?
Post: {lip singing} In the dark, in the dark, in the dark, in the dark, in the dark.
Jennifer: How are you?
Post: Good, how are you darling?
Jennifer: I’m Jennifer.
Post: Hi, Jennifer.
Jennifer: And I have three daughters: Courtney, Whitney, and Brittany. Can you just say, Hi?
Post: Hi, Courtney, Whitney, and Britany
Jennifer: Whitney wants to marry you!
Post: How old is she?
Jennifer: 23
Post: {makes intrigued face} Tell her I said hi.
Jennifer: Haha, can I put this in front just so you can hold it?
Post: {holds her self-promotional sign}
Jennifer: {takes photo} There is Post Malone. We love you!
Post: We love you too!
Jennifer: Let me get in the picture. {turns off her video camera to take photo}
At some point, I thought she’d ask him to scoot over, pass the blunt, and let her “take this bad boy out for a spin.”
When I perused the comments of the above video titled, “Post Malone is so cool” the common comment was about how nice he was…
Man no matter how much money and how high he was, he was still humble and cool and not disrespectful. [9.5K Likes] — jan3019
I’m not a big fan of his music, I just f*cking love the fact he's nice af like the fact he turned down the music just hear what she was saying is just crazy. [718 Likes] — Benjamin Ashor
You don't have to like his music, but this is just a good person. [312 Likes] — Birch
He is a badass guy doesn’t act like the other famous people. [112 Likes] — Joe Figueroa
I’d argue though that his behavior was actually mean, in particular to celebrities and influencers because clearly, she had crossed a line to clout chase.
And rather than set her straight, or at least ignore her, Post Malone rewarded her bad behavior with the attention she craved.
When someone is taking advantage of you the ETHICAL response isn’t to let it continue because you’re afraid of appearing mean or uncool, but in fact, it is to be “mean,” i.e. have standards, so that they or anyone watching learns that taking advantage of you or anyone else is NOT OKAY.
Post Malone is therefore inadvertently incentivizing a culture of disingenuous (“fans” saying “I LOVE YOU!” to guilt-trip you into acknowledging them whereby the celebrity has to act nice to avoid public reprisal) and a culture of harassment.
With that said, perhaps Kanye West in the above video took it a tad bit too far because by showing any strong emotion he gave the paparazzi exactly what they wanted.
If someone harasses you then…
#1 realize they aren’t entitled to your attention even if they’re a “fan.”
#2 ignore them or keep engagement to a minimum so as to not reward the behavior too much.
Of course, that’s easier said than done for celebrities so I can understand them occasionally conversing with or scolding aggressive photo-seekers. After all, they’re celebrities, and occasionally taking photos with fans who interrupt their dinner or yelling back at the paparazzi helps to further increase their celebrity.
In fact, maybe I should hire a bunch of “paparazzi” to take pictures of me through my window at 4am shouting, “We love you!” so I can come outside with an AK-47 to ask them to leave. This way people think I’m a celebrity. Hmmmmm.
Motive matters: if Post Malone engaged with the aggressive photo-seeker because he genuinely wanted to then that’s one thing (although I’d argue he doesn’t have enough control over his schedule/attention), but if he’s doing it out of fear of seeming “rude” then I’d argue it’s ruder to his fellow influencer/human to reward aggressive photo-seeking and it isn’t nice to himself because he may end up like another “nice” rockstar Elvis Presley who had to severely medicate himself just to get through all “the love.”
What I’ve written thus far here isn’t so much applicable to the average person so please let me highlight what I’m doing: I’m really just explaining the difference between first-order and third-order thinking.
I’m a political writer so let’s get more political…
In America, young low-information leftists tend to be first-order thinkers. They see Post Malone being “nice” or they hear AOC wants to give them “free” stuff and they think these things are inherently good without ever thinking through the long-term implications of such policies.
They don’t think further out because our education system hasn’t taught them to do so. We were taught that the right answer is right on the page to be memorized and regurgitated. No need to think too deeply about the space between the lines. And if you do start to venture out into the realm of genuine free thought then the education system provides a clear template for how to think about that space so as to prevent you from thinking too far outside of the box of acceptable opinion.
I, however, encourage you to think deeper. I genuinely believe there are no stupid questions so long as you don’t try to ask me while I’m rocking out with my friends.