Why Does Media/Government PR Machine Think All Celebs Belong To Them?

The casual observer could be forgiven for assuming that, even as ten thousand illegal immigrants amassed under a Texas bridge and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs stood credibly accused of treason, one of the most significant news stories last month concerned something Nicki Minaj said on Twitter.

For revealing that she declined to attend the Met Gala because organizers had implemented a Covid vaccine mandate, the rapper and social media raconteur was the subject of late-night roasts, internet memes, and tabloid puns. And that was all to be expected — a professional hazard of being an internationally famous pop star. Less axiomatic was the focus ostensibly serious journalists and government officials turned her way.

Suddenly, the most august publications in the U.S. were talking about Nicki. Pundit panels on cable news shows were talking about Nicki. Heads of state across the Western world were talking about Nicki.

It was an awful lot of high-minded chatter for a woman whose red-carpet accessories have included a fried-chicken necklace and a pope impersonator.

The Media Vs. Minaj

Looking at their reactions in detail, it’s hard to reconcile the alarmist tone with what Minaj actually said — both the silly (that after getting the vax, her cousin’s friend experienced “cantaloupe cajones,” to quote the New York Post’s Kyle Smith) and the sage (that she would never inject a pharmaceutical just to gain access to a fancy party.)

For this, Vox devoted more than 1600 words to dissecting three of her tweets.

“[Minaj’s response] reflects a strain of distrust in public policy, health, and science experts because it presents a cautionary mindset regarding vaccines as a sort of reasonable ‘middle ground’ in the fight between science and anti-vax ideology,” the outlet fretted. A few paragraphs down, it added, “The subtext [of Minaj’s tweets] seems to be a reluctant acceptance that workers can’t always [choose] to go unvaccinated, rather than Minaj enthusiastically supporting vaccination itself.”

So, while admitting Minaj’s comments were mostly reasonable and couldn’t credibly be characterized as anti-vax, Vox still dinged her for failing to show enough enthusiasm over the vaccine. Huh.

And it was hardly the only outlet hand-wringing over the supposed irresponsibility of a singer who once got in a shoe-throwing brawl at New York Fashion Week.

The evening after Minaj’s posts, MSNBC host Joy Reid devoted a sizeable portion of her show to expressing disappointment that Minaj used her “platform” to “encourage our community to not protect themselves and save

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