“We think we know our favorite ministry heads, worship leaders, authors, activists, and evangelists, because we follow them on social media or hear them preach from a stage or read their words on a page,” Ms. In her recent book Celebrities for Jesus, which delves into the perils of fame for faith leaders, Katelyn Beaty defines celebrity as “social power without proximity.” Here was proof that it is possible for a person to truly love and respect his audience, even without personally knowing the individual members of it, and to deliver that love and respect in such a way that I-years later-felt it. For me, Fred-at this point I was calling him Fred-had grown to represent not only someone able to reach that vulnerable child still living within me, but a hope for authentic connection in the digital age. I watched the 2018 documentary, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” and the Tom Hanks film, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” I read a biography. I began to study his “Neighborhood” as my boys watched it, tuning into his tone of voice, the deliberate pace of his speech and movements, the way he answered the door or the telephone. So Mister Rogers, slight in form, meek in manner, became an enigma to me. Isn’t there something inherently disingenuous, even self-serving, about saying that you care about your audience when in most significant ways you cannot? At least the pre-social media model of celebrity-that red carpet inaccessibility-offered fewer opportunities for such pretenses. And it is the latter that I find the most galling. Within the Catholic sphere, for example, one might follow well-known writers or priests or homeschooling moms ostensibly for whatever content they share, but also because their mere presence can feel like kinship in a turbulent world.Īt some point, however, our natural desire for connection is frustrated by the size of their audiences, no matter how much they might profess to care for their followers. I am talking especially about those celebrities of sorts, who share our core values and with whom real friendship seem possible if they were our neighbor rather than someone in our Instagram feed. Yet sometimes investing in this type of pseudo-relationship can be deeply unsatisfying. Plenty of it is benign (at least from the follower’s perspective), perhaps more like passive entertainment than an active relationship. Today many of us follow a host of internet-famous individuals on social media, from creatives to lifestyle gurus to political pundits. In the last few years I have become even more sensitive to the hazards of one-sided relationships wherein we-the audience-feel emotionally attached to someone who cannot know us. Mister Rogers was a worthy steward of the early childhood years, perhaps, but it is easy to feel that he had little to offer us mere mortals who deal in reality. You know how: by just your being you.” Often I’d end up with tears in my eyes, wondering how he could transmit love over television. There was something arresting in his gaze, something that told me that he meant it when he said: “You make each day a special day. Yet even though I’d put on the show to buy a little time for work or cleaning or relative quiet, I found myself hovering behind my son whenever Mr. This was 2020, and he was desperately missing his grandparents. My firstborn, 2 at the time, took to him quickly. Or so I still believed when, in a fit of nostalgia, I first streamed some old episodes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” for my own children a few years ago. He was a worthy steward of the early childhood years, perhaps, but it is easy to feel that he had little to offer us mere mortals who deal in reality-and especially the complexities of today’s technology-driven world. Either way, we are inclined to put distance between our own lives and his, wary of the example that he set and what it might mean for our own call to virtue. The devotee puts him on a pedestal of untouchable greatness. The cynic regards his goodness as a bit saccharine, a childish dream ill-suited to the ugliness of life. It is hard to talk about Mister Rogers without creating a caricature.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |