By Rebecca Shan ‘23, Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer

Image courtesy of Architectural Digest

Dakota Johnson’s outdoor furniture is constructed from the wood of Winston Churchill’s yacht, her kitchen is painted a perfect green, and she loves limes. Released in March of 2020, a tour of Johnson’s house for Architectural Digest’s Open Door web series has garnered over 21 million views online. And it’s obvious why: It’s difficult to panic about a pandemic when someone is guiding you through their bookshelf and failed herb garden. Other videos in these celebrity house tour series are similarly popular, and throughout the pandemic, people seem to be consuming more and more of this form of entertainment. 

Celebrity home tours have always been popular in programs such as MTV Cribs and more recently Vogue 73 Questions and Open Door. MTV Cribs was the blueprint for the genre of celebrity house tour entertainment; the show became a defining aspect of 2000s popular culture. Most home tour videos follow the format of a celebrity introducing their home. They then describe their numerous art pieces and adventures of hobnobbing with other high profile people.

As Covid-19 has forced people to spend a significant time indoors, living spaces have become much more noticed and surveyed. People’s increased consciousness of their homes may have heightened their interest towards celebrity house tour entertainment. Such videos have become so popular during the pandemic that the comedy show Saturday Night Live created a sketch parodying a typical Architectural Digest house tour, with Beck Bennett showing the public around his ordinary house. In the comedy sketch, he showcases the mundane aspects of his home like cracks in the walls, sharply contrasting with the flashy homes in celebrity house tour videos. Even though we recognize that these houses are outlandish, watching Cara Delevingne try on hats in her Alice in Wonderland inspired house may just be the escapism we need.

While this content highlights the design and architecture of a house, the charisma of the celebrity and the environment they create is what’s most captivating. Celebrities showing the inside of their homes offer a sense of intimacy. Watching them do normal tasks like pouring water into a glass and watering plants grounds them into our reality. Largely due to our inability to be physically close with others during the pandemic, many people developed parasocial relationships with celebrities. Alex Kresovich, a PhD student in the U.N.C. Hussman School of Journalism and Media, says, “The feelings people have with these media persona are nearly indistinguishable from their friends in real life.” House tour content cultivates this intimate relationship between the subject and the viewer through the display of the most personal place, the home. Although, the experiences may not be truly raw and candid. Dakota Johnson later admitted in an interview that the limes were just placed in the kitchen by production managers, and that she’s actually allergic to them. Despite this information, celebrities describing intimate aspects of their lives plus the actual aesthetic house design brings calmness to the viewer. It’s about much more than the legitimacy of the limes!