Don't expect entertainers to be great activists
I don’t know if entertainers should be expected to be role models or held to a particularly high ethical standard, and I don’t think that the general public should be looking towards entertainers for hope of social change.
I think that art and entertainment can serve many purposes and/but that where social media posts are used outside of providing updates on an artist’s work, the messages being communicated matter. At the very least those messages build your brand and/or public persona and therefore impact the public perception of you as an artist and/or a person.
If an artists communicates through their social media posts and through their music that they care about social justice, this contributes to a public perception that the artist cares about social justice.
When an artist who has previously and repeatedly communicated through their art and social media that they care about social justice, but frequently betrays a superficial understanding of the topics they choose to address, it is frustrating for audience never who care about those same issues to see the artist continually use their larger platform to spread naive, ignorant takes that lack nuance.
When an artist posts in this way, if they read their comments, they might find a deeper perspective on the topic at hand. Is great if they can take that on board and learn from it and promote that new understanding, but it can be disappointing when the artist instead chooses to double down on their initial stance or otherwise does not publicly correct their initial statements.
A consistent pattern of not looking at topics deeply before commenting on them reflects the character of the artist, and the audience can choose to accept that this is who they are and continue to follow them and listen to their art, or unfollow and spend their attention elsewhere.
People follow other people because they are gaining some benefit out of the interaction, perhaps validation, inspiration, education, entertainment, distraction, healing, emotional investment or other reasons. You are not under any obligation to continue following an artist or celebrity who is pissing you off behaving the same way they’ve always behaved, even if it never bothered you that much before.
As individuals grow, the benefit they once gained from an artist’s output might decrease or remain level while the cost of continuing to follow them might increase.
Frustration with artists lack of ability or willingness to communicate about important topics can be channeled into becoming a communicator and promoter of those ideas in one’s own right.
In decades past, it was much more difficult to get a message out in front of other people without having money and connections in traditional media, but now with Internet access, you can post to social media and spread your message relatively quickly and easily, if you know how to make your point.