A Phil Hall Op-Ed: The other day, I saw a headline from a Connecticut newspaper that declared: “TikTok star Nara Smith, model Lucky Blue Smith go house hunting in CT.” And my reaction to the headline was: “Who and who?”
We don’t do a great deal of celebrity-related stories here on Weekly Real Estate News, and when we do it either involves an iconic star whose fame spans generations – Cher, Dolly Parton, even the late Marilyn Monroe – or it is because the story is so unusual that it deserves attention – most recently in May when Tom Selleck said in an interview that he was concerned over whether he can afford to keep his California ranch after his CBS series “Blue Bloods” went off the air.
Is Nara Smith a celebrity? Well, she’s new to me, but she also has 9.4 million followers on TikTok and Rolling Stone named Smith the fourth most influential social media influencer and creator of the year – and it may not be flippant to believe some people reading this will be saying to themselves, “Rolling Stone is still around?”
Smith has been documenting her house hunting pursuit on TikTok…well, sort of. This video has the online star and her equally photogenic husband wandering about properties as if they were starring in a commercial for an expensive perfume brand – they seem more interested in getting their best side to the camera than asking their realtor about property taxes and homeowners’ insurance. To my tired eyes, their video seems like a parody of celebrity rather than the real thing.
The public has been fascinated with celebrities for too many years, and this fixation has become more obsessive in the digital age. I have to admit that I am not immune to this situation. As a consumer of news, my curiosity gets piqued if one of my favorite actors, singers or athletes has a story regarding the purchase or sale of a property. And as a journalist, I recognize the news value in having a prominent figure with household name status in a headline.
However, not every celebrity is a household name. I was working at a news organization where I ran a story about the YouTube cut-up MrBeast and a colleague in his sixties asked, “Who’s he?” I fear I might be an out-of-touch old-timer – a few years ago, I wrote a news piece involving the singer Dua Lipa, and I had no clue about her prior to the assignment.
But, on the other hand, many younger people have no name recognition for stars of previous generations. I was at another company where I wanted to share a story with two twentysomething co-workers about a friend’s encounter with Robert Mitchum – they had no idea who Robert Mitchum was. On YouTube, there is a series of videos with people in their teens and early twenties who never heard the Beatles’ music and are seen reacting to the landmark music for the first time.
And if Nara Smith and Lucky Blue Smith should find the home of their dreams, I’m sure we’ll cover it – and we’ll give star treatment to the agent who closed the deal, as that person can deserve to be known as a realtor to the stars. Or, at least, the stars that some of us have heard about.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo of Nara Smith and Lucky Blue Smith courtesy of Nara Smith’s Instagram page
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