The coronavirus pandemic has produced many unexpected outcomes, but one of the more interesting ones is how it has given us a look inside the lives of celebrities. Some of the world's most famous people have spent lots of time on Instagram Live and Zoom showing glimpses of their home lives and opening up to fans.
Often times, celebrities attain fame from some form of public performance. We grow to like athletes from watching them play. We get introduced to actors by their work in movies and TV shows. With those kinds of productions on hiatus due to social distancing and COVID-19 fears, we rarely see these people who were previously an indirect part of our daily lives.
That's where platforms like Instagram and Zoom are really valuable right now. Entertainment is a big part of how people cope with daily stresses and it's great to be able to connect with those entertainers through live video from their homes. It's an interesting reminder that we truly are all in this together as most people are currently at home, depending on essential workers, waiting to hear better news about the pandemic, and wondering how life will regain some normalcy after all of this. It's certainly helpful for them to keep fanbases happy, but it's great for our morale, too. Two specific celebrities come to mind as people who have been especially open about their quarantine lives lately.
The Rock's Weekly Chats Are Inspirational
The world's biggest movie star is always active on Instagram, but Dwayne Johnson's weekly live stream from his home gym is the definition of "Quarantine Goals". He invites followers to send him questions and then answers them live, usually after finishing up one of his legendary workouts. Since the start of social distancing, he's gone on for minutes about topics like what it was like to main event Wrestlemania with Stone Cold Steve Austin, how he handles being away from his acting career, and what becoming a father did for his motivation to succeed.
The Rock has always been a charismatic guy but the timing of these Q&A live chats has been especially helpful during the pandemic. It's not as much a look into his home life (although he has a plethora of videos about his daughter's obsession with Moana's "You're Welcome" song, which she doesn't yet realize he sings) as it is a great way to connect with another human in a way that feels personal despite the millions of other viewers. Tomorrow's stream should be a great example, as it'll be Johnson's birthday. He's already committed to birthday shoutouts for fans missing celebrations due to quarantine.
Celebrity Zoom Challenges Escalate
One of the best things to come out of Zoom's immense popularity was a game put together by ESPN's Katie Nolan a few weeks ago. After setting up a Zoom chat with a few other people in sports media, the challenge was issued: each person would send the exact same text message to someone outside of the chat in an attempt to see who could rope in the most famous guest. It started with appearances from other sports analysts, then grew with stops from big names involved with actual sports teams.
Eventually, it erupted into the A-tier of Hollywood stars, to the surprise of Katie and just about everyone else in the call. Some guests were so unexpected that mentioning them borders on spoiler territory. The challenge offered a neat look into a snippet of each celebrity's life and helped illustrate that rich people are indeed also missing their friends. It was probably a huge bit of unintended marketing for Zoom, too.
Source: Katie Nolan / Twitter, The Rock / Instagram