Can we all stop acting like Mariah Carey had a meltdown?
I can show you a meltdown
On Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest, Mariah Carey was scheduled to perform before the ball drop. And despite claims she’d ditched her rehearsal, Carey arrived to the stage at 2:30 pm and was given thirty minutes to rehearse and sound check.
According to her manager, there were issues with the sound during check, but they were told all technical issues would be sorted before that evening.
At 10:35 pm she did an interview with Seacrest where her sound was still choppy, but she was told it would be ready for her performance. It wasn’t, and four minutes to show time, she still couldn’t hear a thing.
As anyone who has ever been on stage knows, without monitors you literally cannot hear a thing. Imagine standing in a room speaking and not hearing your voice until a few seconds later. There was no way for her to amend the situation.
But that’s not the real issue here. The real issue is that Carey’s reaction to the situation is being labeled an ‘epic meltdown,’ by media and Twitter trolls alike.
What I would’ve done is walk off the stage, throw the mic at someone’s head and then get about 15 people fired. That (maybe) would have been more akin to a so-called ‘epic meltdown.’
Carey, however, did not even walk off the stage. By the third track, still unable to hear a thing, she said “Fuck it, I’ve had enough,” and decided to go along with it.
Can you imagine being on a stage — millions of eyes watching you — unable to do your performance, and keeping your cool enough to slide it off with a “Fuck it, I’ve had enough?”
That’s the kind of line I pull when I’m three servings deep in Thanksgiving dinner.
At the end of the performance, she motioned for her dancers to join her for their big feather finally, jokingly remarked “It just don’t get any better,” walked off stage, and then tweeted this:
Find me a person with more chill, I dare you.
Carey’s behavior wasn’t labeled a meltdown because she had a meltdown, it was labeled a meltdown because she’s a woman, and not only are we attacked for everything we do, but in this case, the faults of other people as well. Do you want to know what a meltdown actually is?
Justin Bieber spitting on his neighbor was a meltdown.
Chris Brown ripping his shirt off and throwing a chair at a studio window after being asked about the 2009 assault of his ex-girlfriend, Rihanna, was a meltdown.
Alec Baldwin getting kicked off an American Airline’s flight for refusing to turn his phone off because he wanted to play words with friends was a meltdown.
Nicholas Cage getting arrested for domestic abuse, and public drunkenness was a meltdown.
Mariah saying “Fuck it,” probably not so much.