While we’re flagging inappropriate questions, maybe it’s time to start talking about who’s asking them

When comedian Hannah Berner hosted the Vanity Fair Oscars after-party red carpet with her Giggly Squad podcast co-host Paige DeSorbo, the two women welcomed three-time Grammy winning artist Megan Thee Stallion to join them for a quick interview. After telling Megan she was inspired by her documentary and complimenting her outfit, Berner — who was jumping up and down in excitement — said, “When I listen to your music it makes me want to fight someone.” 

The Houston native responded quickly with a quintessentially Stallion-esque adage, emphasizing her message of being a Hot Girl and returning the conversation to her after-party gown. (“You wanna throw that fighting shit out the window. You want to get cute and be a bad bitch.”) But in the past four days, social media has been awash with comments and videos from people who thought the interview had racial undertones — more specifically, that Berner’s comments were a microaggression (an offhand comment that seems innocuous but has thinly veiled and often derogatory insinuations). Megan and Berner fans alike have called Berner’s statements insensitive and racist, pointing out the overwhelming themes of empowerment and self actualization in Megan’s discography. 

https://www.tiktok.com/@vanityfair/video/7477476988035304750?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7138125452832949806

Representatives for Megan did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment, but Berner released an apology Thursday afternoon on her Instagram Story, saying the statement was thoughtless. “Looking back at the interview, I wish I used any other word except ‘fight’ to describe how her songs impact me,” Berner said. “It was a careless choice of words and though there was no ill intent, I recognize and acknowledge that what I said has a deeper meaning and I am so sorry to Megan.” 

Berner’s comments, and the connotations behind them, don’t exist in a vacuum. Hip Hop artists have been prolific about having to fight racial stereotypes about the genre since its emergence in the early 1970s. Early artists used the form to reconceive what activism, dance, and art in communities of color could look like, but hip hop’s connection and support in urban spaces meant that people tacked on every assumption about Black people onto the genre. The past 20 years, and pushes towards racial equity, have made these assumptions easier to call out in real time — it’s hard to imagine Berner’s quip landing the same way in 2006. But while Berner’s comments have sparked larger conversations online about race and how Black women are so often stereotyped as angry, aggressive, or violent, there’s another cultural problem that’s become apparent: Pushing untrained creators out onto the red carpet in the hopes of virality is making a bleak media landscape even worse. Just because you give someone a microphone, it doesn’t make them a journalist — and it most certainly doesn’t guarantee a good interview.

If it feels like there’s a constant flow of information surrounding influencers and red carpet interviews, it’s probably because influencers have steadily become the go-to voices people see and hear at entertainment events. In the past three decades, the creator economy has stretched and transformed into a staggering $250 billion industry, one that’s predicted to grow even more in the next 10 years. It’s birthed a new era of internet celebrities, talk-show hosts, and comedians who have turned attentive followers into active fanbases across platforms and genres. And award shows want a chunk of that attention. YouTubers, like Liza Koshy and Emma Chamberlain, now attend the Met Gala as special correspondents for Vogue. Both studios and award bodies have spent millions courting influencers — and by extension their followers — with access to junkets, red carpet interviews, and collaborations. 

While follower counts grow, the way people consume news and information has changed — and it’s come at the expense of newsrooms across the country. Journalists go through years of training in undergraduate and postgraduate programs, as well as fellowships, and early-career positions. It’s where they learn how to interview people in all kinds of environments and gain the experience necessary to ask questions on the fly that are both engaging and relevant. 

But according to the Pew Research Center, a “growing share” of adults in the U.S. get their news directly from TikTok, rather than national media organizations. Aggregation accounts on X (formerly Twitter) like Pop Crave and PopBase have become popular for condensing journalists’ work into viral posts or headlines — often obscuring or completely changing the context of the articles in the process. Jobs in the journalism industry have steadily disappeared, with outlets like Buzzfeed News, Vice, and Pitchfork being downsized or shuttered altogether. According to Politico, journalism layoffs in 2024 reached the highest they had been since the 2020 pandemic. Giving a couple of influencers microphones at the next Emmys isn’t causing the entire journalism industry to grind to a halt. But a time when the U.S. is facing existential threats to democracy, reproductive rights, health care, and immigration, replacing the people who can connect these things to the art we consume is incredibly ill-advised. 

If you look at some of the biggest red-carpet mishaps in the last few years, what will emerge is a pattern of attempted virality ending in drama. Movie lovers and social media users called TikToker Harry Daniels disrespectful for asking celebs if they’d rather have a “gay son or thot daughter” at the 2024 People’s Choice Awards. Followers criticized TikToker Easton Simpson for using his spot at the Kingdom of the Planet of The Apes premiere to prank the film’s actors by asking unintelligible questions. The equation seems simple for studios and outlets: Influencers talk for a living, and handing them a microphone can heighten your likelihood of getting the most viral video or news from the event. But in the pursuit of virality, we’re ditching the people who can ask real and important questions. Journalists dedicate whole careers to navigating carpets and interviews. Asking untrained influencers and creators to do that same work without any training or guidance is setting them up for failure — or awkward apologies like Berner’s. As the attention economy becomes more about virality than real information, it’s vital that we take a look at what institutions we’re sacrificing in exchange for a 30-second clip. Berner’s mishap with Megan was a mistake, but at this rate, it surely won’t be the last.