Why do we feel the urge to post a picture with a celebrity?

I recently bumped into Ayushmann Khurrana. We spoke briefly and he was kind enough to pose for a picture with me. I told him I loved his work. He said thank you. It was, by any objective measure, the least interesting conversation of both our lives. Yet in the picture, both of us are beaming, which may lead people to believe that we shared a great rapport. My first instinct was to post it on social media. Then I stopped.

Why did I want to post it? Was I simply excited and wanted to share the moment with others? Or was I, consciously or subconsciously, looking for validation?

I suspect it was both.

There is a strange psychological pull in standing next to someone famous. For a brief moment, some of their importance seems to rub off on us. It feels as though proximity itself becomes a form of social currency. And who does not enjoy feeling important? Or at least being seen as important?

That probably explains why people queue up at airports, weddings and public events just to get a photograph with a celebrity. We all know that one person who keeps posting pictures with celebrities, even when the celebrity looks completely uninterested or is not even looking at the camera. We also have at least one friend whose social media display picture is always with a celebrity.

Sometimes it looks harmless. Sometimes it looks desperate.

What fascinates me more is what this says about social media itself.

Almost every post today has become a performance. A gym personal record. A Strava screenshot. A vacation. A Whoop score. A conference. A concert. Even the most personal milestones of our lives are presented before an audience as some kind of achievement. I say this as a man who has himself posted videos of himself performing deadlifts several times.

The problem is that our social media feeds are no longer limited to our friends and acquaintances.

We are subconsciously comparing ourselves with millions of people who have better cameras, better editing, better lighting, better storytelling and often far more extraordinary lives to display. Most of the time, they are presenting only one slice of their lives disguised as a substantial part of their actual lifestyle. In comparison, our own posts can easily look ordinary, shabby or underwhelming. At least my posts look like that despite my best efforts.

In such a world, a photograph with a celebrity is almost effortless content. The picture does not have to be particularly good. You do not even have to look your best. The celebrity becomes the content.

People instinctively assume that you must be well connected or somehow important because you are standing next to someone important. Since they themselves are also trapped in the social media validation game, their own complexes fill in whatever is missing from the post. The picture does not need high production quality, a clever one-liner or even a popular background song. The celebrity’s presence is enough.

A part of me finds that a little cheap.

Yet another part of me genuinely wants to share the excitement of an unexpected encounter with someone I admire.

So sometimes I post the picture.

Sometimes I do not.

But I did feel like posting this piece. Was it because I wanted to share an interesting line of thought with everyone? Or was it because I wanted people to recognise how thoughtful and intelligent I am?

I do not know. I will let you decide what that says about me.

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