Have you personally ever felt over invested in a celebrity’s image to the point of feeling hurt? I know a lot of people are being bullies but there’s also a lot of pain there (not making any excuses for their behavior)
Yes. Not over Chris or JDM, but over another person I was a fan of during the interim years. Unlike Chris, it came out that he'd done a few things that were truly heinous. Not just "your fave is problematic" stan controversy, but "articles in multiple newspapers" controversy. Honestly, my hurt came less from losing something I'd used as a form of escapism, but more from shame in myself. I worried that I must not be a good judge of character, and that this poor judgement would leak into my real-life relationships. Even more, I felt ashamed I'd invested so much time in someone, only to get left with nothing but a negative ending.
It's why I feel some level of compassion for stans wrestling with strong emotions, and why I make a point to log off Tumblr and fill my time with other things. I think much of what we're seeing now is driven by people who invested a lot of time in Chris and who now feel majorly embarrassed and disappointed. Whereas they once over-glorified him, many are now overly critical (IMO) to compensate.
It's also why you see a lot of the most vocally disappointed fans declaring "they're done" with him over and over, only to continue their obsession. The sunk cost fallacy prevents them from letting go of something that no longer brings them joy, so now they're stuck. They either try to "ride out the storm" by hoping he'll dump Alba and become their fantasy man so that their time investment isn't ruined, or they repeatedly drag him to atone for their embarrassment at being blindsided. Either way, Alba gets dumped on from all sides.
