One significant portion of a celebrities’ life is how they can experience things that “normal” working class people cannot achieve. Some of these include extensive travel and vacationing, large public events, and intimate luxury gatherings—but all these luxurious habits came to a halt with the coronavirus and its restrictions. Well, they should have.

Many influencers have the power, and money, to not care about COVID-19. Despite having large homes that they could comfortably social distance in, many celebrities simply don’t care enough to change their routine. In the past, people have looked up towards the Kardashians specifically for experiencing things that the general working class cannot even dream of, but when it comes to COVID, people wish that they wouldn’t document their privilege. Kim posted a series of tweets regarding the celebration of her 40th birthday: Kim hosted her famous friends and family members on a private tropical island vacation. People responding to her tweets overwhelmingly said her messages and photos were horrifically tone-deaf and insensitive to the day-to-day realities of Americans, who have lost jobs, can’t go to school and have missed out on celebrating important rites of passage and spending time with family and friends. She said: “After 2 weeks of multiple health screens and asking everyone to quarantine, I surprised my closest inner circle with a trip to a private island where we could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time.”
“We danced, rode bikes, swam near whales, kayaked, watched a movie on the beach and so much more,” she concluded. “I realize that for most people, this is something that is so far out of reach right now, so in moments like these, I am humbly reminded of how privileged my life is. #thisis40.”

It was incredibly tone deaf to flex her “simple luxury” of comfortably traveling with family and friends to a mystical private island and pretend like COVID doesn’t exist, where many people have had family members die and cannot afford that same luxury.
While the Kardashians have acted tone deaf, there are many celebrities who simply don’t care about the restrictions and their impacts on the average person. LA influencers in particular, who primarily wouldn’t be considered mainstream celebrities, have not stopped partying. California COVID-19 cases continue to spike and these people are ignoring guidelines and attending massive social gatherings.
These actions show that these influencers truly don’t care about the “average person,” and are not willing to slow down their glamorous lifestyle and the production of their content. People are increasingly becoming impatient with them, and many influencers are losing their respect. The most fascinating part of all of this is that these celebs continue to make the same mistakes their peers are making, despite seeing the prior backlash. On July 25, Mongeau attended an indoor party with influencer Erika Costell and recorded a video of the two maskless, in close proximity, for her Instagram story.

One of the most heartbreaking things about these actions is how these celebrities are broadcasting their actions—not caring about restriction guidelines—to their young naive audience. They could be using their immense influence to make others stay home, but instead they’re being immensely selfish. Older creators like Tyler Oakley, Philip DeFranco, and Ethan Klein have cautioned influencers against spreading the virus and modeling bad behavior for their young fans. The main way that the average person could impact their actions is to support influencers that support COVID restrictions, and also continue to belittle and put down influencers that don’t. There is a power in numbers, so continuing to hold them accountable would be a significant way to create change.