Ghanaian songstress Amaarae has stated that social media has immensely impacted the way artistes express themselves, in a bad way.
In an interview with British lifestyle magazine, “Dazed”, the Girlie Pop singer shared views about the pressure musicians and public figures face daily in the currently online-driven world.
According to her, artistes should either stay off social media or allow their teams to manage their social media pages.
She believes being too visible online is making it harder for musicians to be bold, creative, and true to themselves without facing harsh judgment.
She explained that in the past, artistes could take creative risks and build unique personas, but now the attention from fans and critics, especially with everyone having a phone, makes that extremely difficult.
Amaarae used the backlash against Sabrina Carpenter’s original Man’s Best Friend album cover as an example of how artistes today are judged too quickly.
While netizens called the image misogynistic, Amaarae disagreed, saying, “I thought it was fire,” and argued that this kind of criticism is killing creative expression.
She also pointed out how too many opinions on social media are drowning out the voices of real creatives and experts who used to shape the music and entertainment space.
According to her, because everyone now has a platform, true curators, those who used to help guide and shape public taste, have been pushed to the background.
“I think that artists and celebrities shouldn’t be on social media. Alternatively, she suggested that they should have their social media managed by their teams. Anything and everything an artist does can and will be held against them. Like when Sabrina Carpenter dropped her album cover, everyone said it was misogynist – but I thought it was fire. I feel like we’re losing artists being able to be daring and forward-thinking because we’re so under the microscope with phones.
“The other day Gaga fell at her concert and somebody got that on camera – if this was 2009 she would’ve just fell and we wouldn’t have known. But people having phones and having so much access is taking away from the characters that artists create. We’re losing a lot of magic.
“There needs to be better etiquette with cameras and how we use them out and about in society. Right now, too many people have opinions and platforms. So, there isn’t really an opportunity for true curators to come to front and curate media. So, we’ve also lost the art of curation,” Amaarae stated.
Meanwhile, you can watch GhanaWeb TV’s exclusive interview with Arathejay below:
AK/VPO
