An Open Letter To Britney SpearsDear Britney Jean Spears,It's me, Carolyn. May I call you, Britters? Cool. Look, I have to be honest, I know you're totally a superstar and that but it's honestly a wonder you have any fans left. In the universe.
It's safe to say I don't understand you... but that might equally be because of your absolutely appalling nails-down-a-chalkboard speaking voice. I fully admit you have fun songs when they don't suck and, pre-shaving-your-head, I'd rate you as unparalleled-awesome when it comes to dancing in your videos and such. However, this is not about me, it's about you and, believe it or not, back in the day when you dated
Justin Timberlake, I have to say that people in general used to really like you.
However, over the past few years, as you're no doubt well aware, you've given many of those people so very many reasons to not like you. At all. I imagine it was tough work being a Britney Spears fan throughout your lip-synching in "live" performances, the marriage to
K-Fed, your mental breakdown, that MTV performance and ensuing periodic abandonment of your children and dogs. However, while plenty of people ditched you and mocked you, your real fans stuck by you through the thick (remember your Dorritos-and-ice-blue-tracky-dacks phase?) and the very, very thin (two words:
Brandon. Davis. - and believe me, I am not implying for one moment that he is thin). And how do you - or Team Britney - repay them? You go to war with them.
The news this week that your dad
Jamie has demanded that
BreatheHeavy.com (
CLICK ON ME!), a fan site that has been critical of your conservatorship arrangement, close down and has hit them with charges for copyright violations based on reproducing your songs, videos, photos and such. Erm, it's a fan site! What freaking else would be on there? "The real issue, in my opinion, is hidden behind these Copyright Infringement claims, rather management, particularly her father/conservator, Jamie Spears, who makes $18,000 a month off his daughter, is desperately trying to hide the truth about Britney's imprisonment, and shut anyone up who disagrees," says site owner
Justin Miller.
Fair call. It's just an opinion. And if nobody (your father) had made such a big legal deal about it, the universe at large would never have known. Sure, Justin might be a bit crazy. Is he attacking anyone with an umbrella like you, his idol, did ever so recently? Who knows? He's a "fan", which comes from the word "fanatic". It's right there in how he describes himself. As long as he's not saying dangerous or hateful things, the thing you should be grateful for is that he's fanatical
about you... and now he's forced to use
pixelated photos of you and refer to you as "Brittany Speerz". Is
that what you really want?
With the amount of other fans that visit his site, until now Justin probably did more unpaid good for you than anyone you actually have day-to-day contact with. If this was a one-off incident, fine, I'd leave it be but it is disturbingly reminiscent of your 2006 attitude towards your then-biggest fan site, World of Britney (
CLICK ON ME!). The then-webmaster,
Ruben Garay, commented, after you refused to meet then-competition winners, that he had "exhausted his attempts" to make you "show appreciation for [your] millions of fans." Still, in the ensuing years, Ruben inexplicably remains a fan of yours. Cos that's what being a fan is. In it for the long haul.
The thing you don't seem to get, Britters, is that these are your real fans - the ones who are investing their lives into running websites that seemingly do nothing but promote you to other like-minded folk. As history has shown, they care about you more than you care about yourself. Even when you were so drugged out to even notice you left the house without wearing underwear, they were still listening to your music and hoping like hell you'd sort your life out. I have to say, if you expect people to buy your
Candie's shoes and hideous perfumes just because you are the person hocking them, then shouldn't it work both ways? You can't just whore yourself out because the timing suits you. On top of that, shouldn't fans want to - and, more importantly, shouldn't they be
able to - make comment on your life or career with complete freedom. You should know by now that some people will like some things you do and some people won't. It's the way the world works.
Britters, I know we haven't seen eye to eye, well, since the start of this letter... but my advice to you is to go after the people who sell fake merchandise on the sidewalk outside your concerts. Then, send your henchmen out after the scalpers making a mint off fans so desperate to see you in concert they'd hand over their weekly wage for the privilege. By all means, do everything you can to hunt down illegal downloads of your albums. You are right. These people ARE stealing directly from you. But your actual hardcore fans who care about everything you've ever done and ever will do in your career? These people are not the enemy. They're gems. They make you richer in so many ways and it's about time you started realising that.
Yours in Oops!...-YOU-Did-It-Again-ed-ness,Carolyn StewartPS:
Wade Robson is my favourite person on the planet and you really need him to be choreographing for you always. I don't know why you replaced him with others to choreograph your Circus tour. Dumb move. I'm just sayin'.
Carolyn StewartI had to work today and that sucks o'clock, March 30, 2008
Not happy with just acting and playing golf, Justin Timberlake has found yet another way to avoid recording a new album. He's followed the lead of greats such as, um, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears and released a scent called Play.
Posts
