Maybe We're Asking the Wrong Questions About Celebrity Activism

A few months ago, Bad Bunny announced a collaboration with Zara. I read the comments and had exactly the reaction you'd expect.

That feels... contradictory.

It wasn't a particularly original thought. Thousands of people had already pointed out the disconnect between his support for immigrant communities and a partnership with a fast-fashion giant that has spent years facing criticism over labour practices and environmental issues.

Then I caught myself.

Why was my instinct to evaluate one person's moral consistency before thinking about the system surrounding it?

Working in marketing probably has something to do with it.

I spend a good part of my week thinking about positioning. Companies spend years figuring out what they want to be known for. Every campaign, every collaboration and every product launch should reinforce the same story. Consistency creates recognition. Recognition builds trust. Trust eventually translates into business.

After enough time in marketing, you start noticing positioning everywhere. Occupational hazard, I guess.

Lately I've been wondering whether we've started applying the same logic to people.

Public figures have always had reputations. That part isn't new. What feels different is the expectation that every public action should fit into one perfectly coherent narrative. Every collaboration has to make sense. Every statement has to reinforce previous statements. Every silence gets interpreted. Every partnership becomes another opportunity to test whether someone's values are still "on brand."

People are beginning to look a lot like brand guidelines.

We expect people to behave like brands

Bad Bunny isn't the only example. Taylor Swift's private jet usage often overshadows conversations about the causes she's supported over the years. Chappell Roan has become one of the biggest voices for queer visibility in pop culture, yet every interview is followed by debates over the issues she did or didn't address. The bigger someone's platform becomes, the longer the invisible checklist seems to get.

At first glance, I understand the instinct. Influence comes with responsibility. Public figures should absolutely be criticized. Their choices matter. The brands they work with matter. The companies they financially support matter.

What I've been questioning is what happens after that. The conversation often ends the moment we find a contradiction. Almost as if inconsistency automatically cancels everything that came before it.

Maybe that's why celebrity activism feels so fascinating. We rarely judge someone based on years of advocacy. We judge them based on the moment that doesn't fit the story we've already built around them.

As marketers, we'd probably call that inconsistent positioning. As people, I'm not sure it's a fair expectation.

Living according to your values is messier than we admit

I've noticed myself doing exactly this.

Finding contradictions feels productive. It creates the feeling that I've understood something important. The story suddenly becomes simple. Someone failed their own values. Case closed.

Except real life almost never works that neatly.

I care about sustainability. I've also bought clothes from Zara (yet trying to avoid fast fashion now, so I am abusing Vinted).

I complain about surveillance capitalism. Then I instinctively open Instagram while waiting for my coffee.

I believe people deserve healthier work-life boundaries. I've answered emails late at night because it felt easier than dealing with them tomorrow.

I'm sure everyone reading this could make their own list.

None of those moments make me particularly proud. They also don't erase the values behind them.

They remind me that living inside a system and fully agreeing with it aren't necessarily the same thing. Modern life is full of compromises. Some are conscious. Others happen because something is cheaper, faster or simply more convenient.

That doesn't mean those compromises shouldn't be questioned. It does mean that reducing people to those moments feels incomplete.

I don't think that's what intersectionality was trying to teach us

The more I thought about this, the more I came back to intersectionality. It's one of those concepts that gets referenced a lot and unpacked very little.

Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced intersectionality to explain how different systems of inequality overlap. Race, gender, class, disability, immigration status and sexuality don't exist in separate boxes. They interact with one another, often creating experiences that can't be understood through a single lens.

Somewhere along the way, I think we've started interpreting that idea differently. Almost as though understanding interconnected systems also means every individual should become equally active, equally informed and equally vocal about every issue.

Most people don't become activists that way. They usually begin with whatever has touched their own lives. 

Someone whose parents migrated may naturally care about immigration. Someone who experienced homophobia may dedicate themselves to LGBTQ+ rights. Someone who has struggled with housing insecurity may spend years advocating for affordable housing.

That doesn't mean the other causes suddenly disappear. It simply reflects how empathy often develops.

Few people wake up one morning with an equally developed understanding of every social issue happening across the world.

The irony is that intersectionality has always been about connections between systems.

Online, it sometimes turns into a test of consistency between individuals.

Those are two very different things.

It's easier to audit a person than a system

Maybe that's also why these conversations tend to focus so heavily on celebrities.

Systems are difficult. Supply chains are complicated. Corporate governance is complicated. Labour legislation is complicated. Global capitalism is complicated.

One celebrity making a questionable partnership is much easier to understand. It gives us someone to point towards.

Algorithms seem to love that. Contradictions spread much faster than nuance ever will.

I don't think people engage in these conversations because they're looking for someone to hate. If anything, I think many of us are genuinely trying to build a more ethical world.

Myself included.

The problem is that our attention often gets pulled towards the easiest target rather than the biggest one. Bad Bunny collaborating with Zara becomes a much larger conversation than the conditions that made Zara one of the largest fashion retailers in the world to begin with.

One individual ends up carrying the weight of an entire economic system. That feels like an impossible standard for anyone.

Maybe I've started asking different questions

Looking back, I still don't know whether Bad Bunny should have worked with Zara.

Maybe there were better choices. Maybe there weren't. That part almost feels secondary now.

The bigger shift in my own thinking came from realizing how quickly I had started treating people like brands.

Looking for consistency. Looking for positioning. Looking for gaps in the narrative. Maybe that's what years in marketing does to your brain.

I'm trying to resist that instinct a little more these days. Accountability still matters. Criticism still matters. Public conversations around power and influence still matter.

I just don't think every contradiction deserves to become the whole story.

People have never been as consistent as brands. Maybe that's a good thing.

Brands spend millions trying to become predictable.

People are still allowed to be works in progress.