Celebs Who Think They're More Popular Than They Really Are
When you're stuck inside the gears of the Hollywood fame machine, it's easy to lose sight of reality. Surrounded by a wall of hype, you have a small army of peons to manage your everyday stuff and keep you well-oiled and running smoothly. But when you live in a mansion perched atop the Hollywood Hills, it's hard to see what's really going on among the commoners. You're told that you're awesome, and your sycophants seem to agree, but what's the real buzz? Here are some celebrities who aren't as popular as they seem to think they are.
Shia LaBeouf
Shia LaBeouf is like an ouroboros, except instead of a serpent eating his own tail, he's a guy with his head lodged deep up his rear, in an infinite loop of unrelenting narcissism. Between stealing the work of Daniel Clowes and conveniently forgetting to credit him, multiple performance art pieces that involve little more than an audience staring at LaBeouf, and generally leading a one-man fanclub for himself, Shia seems to have a skewed vision of what his role is in the grand scheme of things. Once you're in the Transformers franchise, you're marked for life. No matter who you think you are now, you'll never be able to truly transform and roll out, Sam Witwicky.
Kanye West
When a celebrity with gold toilets announces that they're going to run for president, you know it's bad news. Yes, West is a household name, but not because of his natural musical or creative talents. Instead, Kanye is known because of his relationship with another pointless celebrity, repeated run-ins with the law, and inability to keep his mouth clamped down over his stupid opinions. West has called himself "the biggest rock star on the planet," because he's apparently unaware of what rock music actually is, has never heard of Jimmy Page, or simply doesn't know what "planet" means. Hint, Kanye: it doesn't mean "gold toilet."
Miles Teller
Interviews with Miles Teller read like someone's talking with a disrespectful frat boy who flunked out of his English requirement, but will totally go work at his uncle's dealership anyway. Not only was 2015's Fantastic Four unrelentingly terrible, but 95 percent of Teller's films haven't broken a 50% rating on Metacritic. That's just math. That's a real equation that will let you know whether or not you should start comparing yourself to Vince Vaughn and telling waitresses the exact shape of your intimate body parts. Teller has a lot of maturing to do, both as a human and an actor, before he's earned the right to act way he acts now.
James Franco
Fans of James Franco, who have somehow seen through the actor's permanent squint and inability to grow big boy facial hair at the tender age of almost-40, are vocal advocates of just how great Franco is. Franco confessed that he often asks himself, "What would James Franco do?", and has said, "I am Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando and Jimmy Stewart and Jean-Paul Belmondo and Steve McQueen." Franco even taught a college-level class about his own career, because a real education about meaningful subjects doesn't matter anymore. There's only one kind of person who does this stuff, and there's no possible way that anyone is that popular.
Charlie Sheen
Sheen's issues are legion, and his delusions so great that he actually believed that rambling about his tiger-blood fueled immortality and debaucherous exploits would earn him more fans than he'd already found with Two and a Half Men. But the kind of fans you win with lowbrow comedy and stories about paying for sex are a very specific and small subset of undesirable people. Sheen's slow, sad realization that he might not be the demigod he sees himself as is ongoing, and eventually he'll see the same thing we all already see: a fading celebrity with dwindling fame and opportunities.
Will Smith
It seems like magazines and websites only call Will Smith "the biggest star in the world" because they're all feeding out of the same sloppy news trough and drinking the same Kool-Aid. Smith's main goal in life was to become "the biggest star," and he's even remarked that he feels bad that Jaden, his Twitter-loving son who can't seem to assemble sentences, has to grow up in the shadow of "the biggest star," but the assertion that there's no one more talented or worthwhile than Smith is completely absurd. He might fall into a top 25 list somewhere, but nowhere near the top. That's Tom Hanks territory.
Donald Trump
Politics aside, Donald Trump has a level of love for himself that no human could possibly match, branding his name on everything within his reach like a dog. It doesn't matter if that thing is a thriving casino or an abandoned hotel, because if it's within Trump's purview, it will bear his name in five-foot tall letters. Trump's fans have always been supportive of him speaking his mind on shows like The Apprentice, but the same can be said for sociopaths and Tourette syndrome sufferers. You'll find more Trump bumper stickers than any other celebrity, but they'll generally be accompanied by truck nuts. And when that's your demographic, you've made a really terrible mistake with your life.