Science Leadership Academy

Lenea Harris
September 14, 2008
Copper Stream
    One can never stress the fact too much that celebrities are still human. They make mistakes, they have bad days, and some have nappy hair. But still, in the eyes of a fan an artist is seen as so much more. They have looks, they have talent, and they have millions of people that want to be like them.  Typical concert: a person on the stage yelling and screaming words to a song that we heard enough of already while screaming wild crazy fans try to push past security guards they have no chance of getting past just to get a quick touch. Now don’t get me wrong, I love concerts and have been to many of them. But, of course a concert is very different than an actual meet and greet with the artist. I realized that when I went to meet R&B singer Ray J.  My sisters and I spent half the day in a sneaker store waiting for the singer to appear, and when he walked into the door it was way better than I could imagine. He was cuter in person than he ever looked in a magazine, video, or television show.    He was shorter, too. He had on a bright yellow shirt, denim jeans and some very memorable sneakers (even though I forget what they look like).  I walked up to him and accepted his hug with a smile. He smelled so good.  
“What’s your name?”
“Lenea.”
“Spell it please?”
“L- e- n- e- a.”
He wrote it out as I spelled it, added a little KO (for his label Knock Out) and signed his signature.  
“Oh, can you sign my shirt, too?”
“Sure.”
I held up the shirt I brought along and he signed it on the pocket. When I stepped to the side, the manager of the store handed me a poster of Ray J. It was a close up of the picture he had signed, only with a black background.  He had on a most likely to be new black leather jacket and you could only see a little past his shoulders.  His hair was freshly cut, and his face freshly shaven. His big brown eyes stared straight into the camera with an attempting to be sexy kind of look. Comparing the poster to Ray J in real life seemed irrelative. Staring at the picture on my wall, I may let out a scream or something because I loved him and his music. But when I was face to face with him calm seemed easier to be then hyper.  
    After my sisters, my younger brother, and I got our autographs, we left the store and drove home.  It seemed appropriate to scream the second we closed the car doors, but instead we talked about how we all noticed that he seemed shorter, cuter and somehow like a normal person. We talked about how when we were talking to him, he didn’t really seem like Ray J at the time it seemed like somebody we were just having a quick conversation with. And not only that, but while we were inside the store we noticed the reaction of fans then compared to the reaction of fans at concerts. The way the store was set up, anybody could just run or walk up to Ray J. The second he walked into the door, we had the ability to run over and jump on him. But we didn’t. Surprisingly, nobody else did, either. While we were inside the store we were discussing how the set up was different compared to a T.I “Behind The Beats” my sisters had been to a few days before.  Although in definition the event wasn’t the same exact thing as a concert, but the bodyguards, and the restricted areas made it seem like one. The fact that they are marking off a certain part of the room, or surrounding him by body guards gives the fans reason to scream, and jump in order to get the attention of the celebrity or to see him for themselves.              
    I had another experience where something similar had happened. Last year for Christmas break, my sister and I went to a basketball game to see the half time act, B5. When their performance came up, maybe 20 bodyguards stood up and blocked the fans way of entering the court.  The event was in the gym of a high school, so the area was big, but small.  When other- not so popular- people were performing, no bodyguards stood and everybody on the bleachers stayed in their seats. Of course that is a little different because the acts weren’t as known, but even after the concert when fans were chosen to go back stage and meet B5 (and my sister was one of them), the videos that I’ve seen on you tube of that night show calm fans.   My sister even told me that she thought she would scream when she met them but she just walked into the room, hugged them and started talking.
    Truthfully, I’m not positively sure why it is that fans feel the need to scream or jump at a concert. Maybe it’s an adrenaline build up that’s suddenly releasing.  But it seems most likely that the set up has a lot to do with it. I mean, except for those few crazy fans, if a celebrity came and sat in front of a crowd with no bodyguards blocking the view, and no boundaries that restrict them from closeness, would you expect someone to be overly hyper about seeing someone they can already see?