Kelly Clarkson and the court of public opinion

When a bad experience becomes everybody’s business

I’m sure you’ve heard about Kelly Clarkson’s recent feud with Art of Play, a small Brooklyn shop selling puzzles, games, toys, and books.

Clarkson felt she was treated poorly, likening it to Julia Roberts’ character in Pretty Woman. (See her original post on X.) And as the kids used to say, well that escalated quickly.

The shop responded with a post of their own. Clarkson clapped back, calling them “rude” and “a liar.” It just got worse from here. Media outlets presented in-depth analyses of the shop’s security footage during her visit. Public relations experts broke down what went wrong and where. People who have met Clarkson in other environments have come forward to reassure us how wonderful she is—or how entitled she is. And the Art of Play has been on a virtual press tour, sharing how Clarkson’s post has “put us in danger,” as the shop and workers face threats from her fans.

Ev-er-y-one is talking about it, and none of it is good. For anyone. Not Clarkson, not the store, and not us, swimming in videos, articles, posts, and tweets about the situation. Everyone wants to weigh in from every perspective imaginable, and it’s become a swirling tornado of accusations, armchair experts, and negativity about something most of us would consider quite petty—a privileged white woman being kinda snubbed (maybe) by high-end shop employees.

This is why I don’t publicly share negative book reviews. Or complaints about specific brands. Or anything even approaching, “I had a bad experience and I want to call them out to my big audience.”

To be clear, I’m talking about ordinary grievances here. I’m not talking about matters of public interest, or exposing discrimination, abuse, fraud, or dangerous practices. In those cases, speaking publicly might protect others, or hold someone accountable for actual harm. If a huge brand stole your Etsy illustration, a business sent a racist email, or a store employee made homophobic comments to you, that’s an entirely different conversation.

I ask myself two questions here. The first is, “Am I justified in being pissed?” I might be! (I still sit with that for a while before moving on.) The more important question is, “Is taking this to Instagram a proportionate response to what happened?”

I get the appeal. After a company has ignored your emails or someone has treated you like shit, there’s something incredibly satisfying about having a button in your pocket that can make them pay attention. I’ve felt that pull plenty of times. A few years ago, a small brand in the wellness space asked if they could send me their product, “no strings.” I liked the product, but the post-COVID economy wasn’t great, and it didn’t feel right to share something so costly. Still, they continued to spam me with increasingly aggressive emails: “This was expensive for us. We don’t have a lot of these to give away. We need to get something out of it.”

I was pissed, and I still think rightfully so. They’d explicitly told me there were no strings attached, then tried to guilt and harass me into promoting them anyway. I wanted to screenshot the emails, name the brand, and warn consumers and influencers alike to steer clear. After all, I had receipts!

But I didn’t. Because Kelly Clarkson.

Now I’m not Kelly Clarkson. I don’t have millions of followers or a national television show. But my voice still carries a significant amount of weight. I’m not just telling a friend, “I didn’t like this book” or “the clerk there was really rude,” I’m broadcasting to thousands of people. Likely more, in fact, because the algorithm loves a good flaming, and will push my content out to people who don’t know me and definitely won’t agree with me, no matter my position.

Once I hit “post,” it’s out of my hands. I can’t control the narrative or the outcome. I can’t predict how people will respond. I can’t even reliably assume I’ll get the results you wanted. I’ve handed the situation to the internet, and the internet gets a vote in what happens next.

And the power imbalance here really matters. Kelly Clarkson has a huge global platform. Comparatively, The Art of Play has a tiny, mostly local platform. Maybe Clarkson was treated terribly. Maybe the shop clerk really was rude. But being right about what happened doesn’t automatically make what Clarkson did a proportionate response. When you have a huge platform, broadcasting a grievance isn’t just telling your side of the story, it’s deploying power.

And you don’t have to say “go tell them what you think” for that power to have consequences. You don’t even have to want consequences. When thousands (or millions) of people hear your version of an ordinary dispute, fans are bound to leap into action, leaving negative reviews, flooding the comments, or behaving in ways you never would have wanted them to. You may not have intended any of that. But the impact of deploying your platform can still be hugely, disproportionately harmful.

I love Kelly Clarkson. This doesn’t fundamentally change my opinion of her. It does serve as a prominent illustration of how reach and power should—and should not—be deployed. Some things deserve exposure. Some deserve accountability. And some deserve an eye roll, a complaint to the manager, a “you won’t believe this shit” text to your friends—and moving on with your life. Thanks to social media, it seems like we’ve become real bad at distinguishing between these cases.

XO, MU