The old adage is true: don’t meet your heroes. In this day and age, it appears to have altered slightly. You may never meet your heroes, but you’ll probably follow them on twitter, on instagram, or on facebook. If you’re lucky, and your hero (celebrity or otherwise) is true to themselves on social media, you’ll suffer no disappointment. Their life is inspiration to you still, even though the high amount of editing and cultivating makes it nearly unobtainable.

If, as is so often true, your idol is not who they say they are, the downfall is immediate, digitized, and brutal. Piece by piece, the media in all its forms (including this one!) takes evidence and creates a narrative that best befits them. Certainly, we can see this in OK! Magazine covers, where Jennifer Aniston has miraculously been pregnant, what, twenty times? But beyond our tabloids and our salacious appetite for details, we see this folly occurring in our elections as well. From state to federal, the leaked or stated words of candidates once thought to be trusted become a national fixation. We play them constantly on our news agencies, we pick them apart in our editorials. Of course, national dialogue is beneficial- it can help start conversations that our country needs. But when Hillary Clinton’s bathroom break runs as a news story, somehow meant to cause her supporters to bow out and her haters to cheer loud, we’ve lost sight of what it means to discuss a public figure.

We are reluctant to recognize how complicit we are in this process. Investing in a persona is as risky as investing in a Silicon Valley start up. The person could rise to unlikely fame and use said fame for good. They could rise and use the fame for nothing but money and adoration. Or, they could rise and fall and rise and fall in a cycle we see on our screens and on our radios, a constant loop of their trials and tribulations. This is where the waters become murky and pernicious. By adding to the commentary, be it a soundbite of opinion or an instagram emoji, we attempt to take back the narrative. This can mean relentless defense of the celebrity or public figure, clinging to the idea that this was a red line on an otherwise spotless resume. This can be a refutation of what they’ve done and who they’ve become. “If only they stayed like they were in 2010!” we bemoan.

So don’t meet your heroes. Or at least, shield yourself from the backlash when they make an inevitable mistake. Recognize that those you follow on social media, political or celebrity, male or female, are people, too. They are people who use filters and FaceTune. They carefully chose their words so as to fit the persona we create for them. If they step out of line with our fantasy in a slight way (think, Miley Cyrus as Hannah Montana vs Miley Cyrus now) re-evaluate why you loved them so deeply in the first place. If the change you see, or the words leaked, lead to a conclusion that deviates from your values (they’re racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, ableist, transphobic, etc), take them off of your newsfeed. And remember, most of all, that your real heroes need to be real people. Make your hero your teacher, a

family member, a mentor- imperfect but real people who will impact your life directly and help make you into the person you needed to be.