Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande's "Non-Demi-Curious Semi-Binary Relationship": When Celebrity Attention-Seeking Meets Identity Politics.
How progressive language became celebrity PR gold and why we should all be deeply cynical about it.
Here’s something so fantastically ridiculous I just have to write about it! I even opened another pack of cigarettes in disbelief.
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have stunned the world - STUNNED, I tell you - by revealing they’re in a “non-demi-curious semi-binary relationship.”
I mean, seriously. You couldn’t make this up if you tried.
Let me translate that for those of us still operating in the realm where words mean things: “We might fancy each other but haven’t quite decided yet, so we’re going to talk about it publicly using enough identity terminology to generate maximum engagement across multiple news cycles.”
Welcome to the Linguistic Inflation Game.
We’ve reached the point where celebrity culture has discovered that relationship ambiguity generates more column inches than clarity. Why settle for one announcement when you can create an entire taxonomical system that requires a decoder ring and a postgraduate seminar to parse?
Cynthia explained: “It means we are not actually a couple, but we are curious about what that could mean and everything.”
Right. So... dating. Figuring things out. Seeing where it goes. You know, what humans have been doing since we climbed down from the trees and discovered we quite fancied each other, but weren’t sure if it was serious yet.
But here’s the thing: “we’re dating” doesn’t generate think-pieces. “We’re seeing where things go” doesn’t trend on Twitter. “We fancy each other but haven’t defined it yet” doesn’t get you on the front page of the entertainment section.
No, you need the full baroque terminology package. You need to run straightforward human experience through the academic Tumblr processor until it comes out sounding like a postgraduate thesis on queer theory.
Identity Politics as Marketing Tool.
Let’s be absolutely clear about what’s happening here: progressive identity discourse - language that marginalised communities developed to describe genuine experiences of marginalisation - has been thoroughly commodified and repurposed as celebrity branding.
This is identity politics as product differentiation. In a saturated celebrity market where everyone’s fighting for attention, identity labels become the unique selling proposition. The more complex and novel the terminology, the more coverage it generates. It’s brand extension wrapped in a rainbow flag.
And it’s cynical as hell.
The Therapeutic Overshare as Public Performance.
This is what happens when therapy-speak escapes containment and becomes public performance art. What previous generations might have navigated privately - the delicate dance of figuring out if mutual attraction means something more - now requires a press release, professional photography, and a position paper on relationship taxonomy.
The private has become public. The ambiguous has become branded. The exploratory has become content.
The Three-Question Test.
Let’s run this through my usual filters:
Is it practical? No. It’s needlessly complex terminology for a simple situation that doesn’t require a public announcement.
Is it logical? Only if your primary goal is attention rather than communication. Only if you’re operating in an economy where engagement metrics matter more than clarity.
What’s the likely outcome? A few months of think-pieces from outlets desperate for content. Social media arguments between people who think this is groundbreaking and people who think it’s ridiculous. Then everyone moves on to the next identity innovation because the attention economy demands constant novelty.
The Real Tell.
Here’s how you know this is purely transactional: if this were genuinely about two people privately exploring what they mean to each other, we wouldn’t be reading about it on social media with professional photography and carefully crafted statements.
The announcement is the product. The elaborate terminology creates mystique. The ambiguity generates questions. The questions keep people talking. The talking keeps names circulating in the attention economy.
It’s nakedly transactional. The identity label is packaging, not substance. The relationship status is content to monetise.
The Collision of Cultural Trends.
What we’re witnessing is the collision of several cultural pathologies:
Identity politics’ linguistic proliferation: The endless subdivision of identity categories until language obscures rather than illuminates
Celebrity culture’s hunger for novelty: The constant need for new angles, new stories, new ways to generate coverage
Social media’s reward structure: Where complexity gets more engagement than clarity, where ambiguity generates more discussion than straightforward communication
The therapeutic culture’s public performance: Where private emotional exploration becomes public spectacle
The result is language that serves publicity rather than understanding. Terminology that generates engagement rather than clarity. Identity labels as attention-seeking devices.
The Broader Pattern.
This isn’t an isolated incident. It’s part of a larger pattern where progressive language gets strip-mined for its branding potential. Where the discourse of marginalised communities becomes raw material for celebrity PR campaigns. Where identity itself becomes a product to market and monetise.
It’s the attention economy doing what it does best: taking human experience, wrapping it in the most elaborate packaging available, and flogging it for clicks and engagement.
The Cynic’s Conclusion.
So what do we make of Cynthia and Ariana’s “non-demi-curious semi-binary relationship”?
We make of it exactly what it is: attention-seeking behaviour dressed up in progressive terminology. Celebrity PR wrapped in identity politics. The monetisation of ambiguity. The branding of exploration.
It’s classic attention economy mechanics with a rainbow flag stapled to it and a dictionary attached for good measure.
And the really depressing part? It works. Here I am, writing about it. Here you are, reading about it. The engagement has been generated. The attention has been secured. The names are circulating.
Mission accomplished.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go figure out my own relationship status. I believe I’m currently in a “non-committal semi-detached ironically-engaged partnership with observable reality.”
Or as we used to call it: single and cynical.
The Almighty Gob observes the attention economy from Bristol, where at least the political theatre is local.
If you enjoyed this dose of cynicism, please share it with someone who needs reminding that words used to mean things.