Take Us Out of The Group Chat

The toxic love stories of entertainment icons amplified in the mainstream media is nothing new.

I grew up in the '80s and '90s, and at that time, media attention was focused on Rock n Roll queen Tina Turner's tumultuous marriage to Ike Turner, before Tina gained the strength to walk away and reinvent herself once again as a musical powerhouse.

Later, attention shifted, and we were once again transfixed as media darling and the queen of pop, Whitney Houston tied the knot with bad boy of the era, singer Bobby Brown. Their relationship was deemed toxic long before the ink dried on the wedding vows. No one expected that it would have lasted as long as it did, and most people anticipated the drama in the years that followed.

Sadly, though Whitney eventually walked away from the tumultuous union, she would continue to be haunted by demons and eventually died from a drug overdose in 2012.

The media then moved on, of course, scouting for other salacious stories of one partner violently beating on another and feeding it to a public hungry for the gory details of cheating, drugs, and abuse; stories which we latch on to greedily as proof that while our media darlings may have money and influence, they didn't have everything. The list, therefore, is long.

Most recently, it's been reality TV star, Chrisean Rock, and her boyfriend, rapper of "bust down Thotiana" fame, BlueFace ( born Johnathan Porter) as their story is cast as the epitome of toxic love. Which brings me to the present day.

This morning, social media was abuzz with the story of Chrisean and BlueFace's most recent escapade, a bar room brawl between the two in Arizona, which saw BlueFace tugging at Chrisean's braids and then the reality star retaliating with swinging cuffs worthy of an MMA title. Chrisean, we learn, has since been arrested.

Now, speaking from the perspective of the female, and not proposing to absolve her of her own responsibility in this or any situation, I'll say this: Having lived through an extremely toxic situation that defied all logic myself, I cannot and will not, with the benefit of hindsight, now propose to sit on a throne today and condemn her.

There are many reasons why men and women gravitate to situations that are unhealthy, and relationships that, I guess, even a disinterested blind person would deem to be destructive. For one thing, there's the issue of self esteem. For another, toxic relationships can be like a drug, a situation where you really feel emotionally bound to the other person, and when you think you are in love or delude yourself into thinking that you are in a fixable situation and that tomorrow will be better, or that you can see the good in your partner that no one else sees, you can risk your reputation, your future, your life and sometimes do or allow really crazy things to happen.

I'd say mental health is a real concern and a lot of it is compulsive behavior, but what do I know? I'm no therapist. And rather than appearing to throw out theories that may, to the critical eye, appear to be an attempt to turn wilful participants in these situations into victims, thus absolving individuals of responsibility, I'll choose to sit it out. Simply put: I was there in my youth. I wore those shoes. I am not disinterested. I recuse.

Having said that though, what I can say is that we, the public, play a role in helping stories like these to gain traction.

To the media houses and blogs, etc., who feed us these stories, it's a matter of business. They feed us the news that entertains us. Nonetheless, I'd genuinely like to know, when stories like these make headlines or continue to make headlines, in fact, for more than 50 years, spanning at least three generations by the tales I've recounted- what does it say about us as a public pretending to be horrified, yet gobbling up every salacious tidbit before feigning fake outrage and casting the media as vultures when in reality, they are simply chefs providing meals on demand? I'll let that sink in.

I think it's time that we, as a public, step back and take responsibility for our part in these narratives. We are a willing and compliant audience. We're there, like the Michael Jackson GIF...

... taking in these stories, popcorn in hand, not taking into account that these are real lives, these are real mental health implosions, and that there is the risk of influence on younger, more impressionable minds who will be raised on these stories thinking that this level of toxicity is what defines love.

Maybe it's time we own up to our diet and make a conscious effort, for our health and the health of our loved ones, to change the things we consume.

On Instagram, under a post displaying Chrisean Rock and BlueFace's most recent public fight, someone commented: "Take us out of the group chat". I agree. Or, even better, maybe it's time we take the conscious decision to leave the group.