We need to stop romanticizing the life of a pop star. After a decade of seeing these icons through a lens, it’s clear that the industry thrives on a specific brand of manufactured decay. We’ve traded genuine talent for a 'young and disheveled' aesthetic that masks actual suffering. There is a genuine horror in seeing someone’s most vulnerable, broken moments turned into a glossy editorial or a high-fashion spread. We consume their exhaustion as if it’s art, ignoring the fact that these stars are often just kids being hollowed out for the sake of a viral image. If this is what stardom looks like now, a cycle of performative trauma and meticulously curated messiness, then maybe the whole system deserves to collapse under its own weight and greed. #culture #photography #sociology