There was a time when the tabloids were the villains of the music industry’s moral theatre. Red-top journalists camped outside flats, shouted questions through car windows, and plastered front pages with photographs of musicians at their lowest ebb. Back then, the cruelty felt industrial, a machinery of humiliation powered by circulation numbers. Yet scroll through the comment sections of any recent story about an artist’s vulnerability, and the landscape feels darker still.
In 2026, British singer Lola Young revealed that she checked herself into treatment after collapsing on stage and confronting her struggles with addiction. What followed was not a reflection of a culture that had supposedly learned from past mistakes. Instead, the internet erupted into mockery. Comments joked about being addicted to eating crayons or cheeseburgers, while others sneered that young artists simply “cannot handle a line”. The mob laughed, especially at the body-shaming comments.
The tabloids once thrived on scandal, but today the cruelty has been democratised. Everyone with a smartphone can take a swing. Looking at the online response to Young’s honesty, early 2000s journalism suddenly reads with the pastoral innocence of a Beatrix Potter tale.
When Amy Winehouse Became Public Property
If any artist symbolises the brutality of the old tabloid machine, it was Amy Winehouse. Catapulted into global fame in her early twenties, Winehouse possessed one of the most devastating voices of her generation. Yet the British press rarely treated her artistry as the story; they chased the spectacle of her unravelling.
Winehouse was photographed stumbling down Camden streets, crying outside pubs, clutching herself in distress during her final performance. The tabloids splashed those images (which probably resulted in a hefty payout for someone) across front pages with headlines that bordered on gleeful cruelty. “Amy Winehouse on crack”, they shouted. Each headline sharpened the caricature.
What made the coverage so grotesque was the obviousness of her pain. Even the most casual observer could see she was drowning. Addiction had hollowed her out in full view of cameras. Yet instead of compassion, the press discovered a profitable soap opera. Her suffering became entertainment.
Winehouse even sought legal protection from the relentless photographers who camped outside her home in a desperate attempt to reclaim a shred of privacy. By then, though, the machine had already decided her role in the narrative. She was the punchline and their payday.
Then came the inevitable turn. When Winehouse died in 2011, the tone shifted overnight. Headlines mourned a “troubled star gone too soon”. Tributes poured in from the very outlets that had built careers documenting her collapse. The sinner was recast as a saint, and tabloids discovered their conscience a few thousand headlines too late.
From Fleet Street to Facebook: The Rise of the Digital Mob
For years, cultural critics comforted themselves with the idea that we had evolved beyond that era. The media had been forced into self-reflection after Winehouse’s death. Public discussions about mental health and addiction have become more open, and there was a sense that society might handle these situations with greater empathy next time.
That optimism now feels embarrassingly naïve.
Where once a handful of tabloids dominated the cruelty economy, the internet has expanded the arena. The mob now sits in comment sections, Reddit threads, and social media feeds, knowing that if they attract enough attention with their spewed hate, they can cash in on it. There is no editorial gatekeeper, no journalist weighing the implications of a headline. Instead, cruelty is crowdsourced.
The screenshots circulating beneath stories about Lola Young illustrate the shift perfectly. A musician speaks openly about addiction, relapse, and recovery, and the response is a cascade of cheap punchlines from poxy people who would do anything for the validation of a couple of laugh reacts. Strangers compete to land the harshest joke, all the while, empathy becomes a casualty of the algorithm.
Even more depressingly, there’s a casualness to the cruelty. Tabloid editors once made calculated decisions to print humiliating stories. Online commenters, meanwhile, treat it as sport. The humiliation of a public figure becomes a form of entertainment, a communal laugh track echoing through the digital void.
It reveals an uncomfortable truth about modern culture. The tabloids may have refined the art of public humiliation, but the appetite for it was always there. Social media merely handed the microphone to everyone.
The Perverse Pleasure of the Pedestal Collapse
Why do people revel so eagerly in the downfall of public figures? The answer lies somewhere within the uneasy architecture of capitalism and celebrity culture. Fame creates a hierarchy. Musicians, actors, and artists occupy visible positions above the crowd.
For some observers, seeing those figures stumble provides a strange sense of balance. If a celebrity collapses, the gap narrows. The pedestal cracks. The hierarchy feels less intimidating.
Addiction and vulnerability become convenient tools for that narrative. Rather than recognising them as human struggles, they are reframed as moral failures. The comment sections fill with smug observations about resilience, toughness, or “today’s youth”.
This attitude ignores the brutal realities of fame. Young artists often experience an overnight transformation from anonymity to global scrutiny. Their private lives become public property where every mistake is documented and every weakness is monetised.
Substances often appear in that environment not as reckless indulgence but as coping mechanisms. A way to numb the pressure, to escape the noise, or simply to feel something other than exhaustion. The tragedy is that the same culture which creates the pressure also punishes the coping.
It is a cycle that repeats with grim predictability. A rising star struggles. The media amplifies the spectacle. The public laughs. The artist spirals further. Then, if the worst happens, the same voices gather to mourn.
A Society That Confuses Exposure With Empathy
What makes the Lola Young episode particularly revealing is that she spoke openly about recovery. She checked herself into treatment. She attends meetings. She works with a sponsor. By any reasonable measure, this is a story about confronting addiction with honesty and seeking help.
Yet the response demonstrates how little cultural progress has actually been made. Public discussion about mental health may be more visible than ever, but visibility has not translated into compassion. Instead, confession becomes content.
There is something chilling about the speed with which empathy evaporates online. Society abandoned the literal gallows centuries ago, yet there remains a psychological thirst for public punishment. The stocks and pillories have simply been replaced by comment sections and quote tweets.
People gather around downfalls with warped enthusiasm; the digital crowd wants a villain. If none exists, it will manufacture one. The result is a cultural environment where artists who admit weakness are mocked while those who hide it are praised for their “strength”.
It is a perverse inversion of reality. Hopefully, AI does takeover, if it does, society will probably know far more empathy.
Article by Amelia Vandergast