Celebrities. They’re just like us. They reach for the top shelf! They fill their hands! They are in trouble for using too much water!
OK, maybe that last one isn’t terribly relatable, but it’s the state of things for stars like Kim Kardashian, Kevin Hart and Sylvester Stallone. Southern California continues to get punished by brutal drought conditions that have authorities putting tight restrictions on water waste. But restrictions are for lesser people, and these celebs cannot be bothered to abide by the rules — according to the Los Angeles Times.
Kardashian, Hart, Stallone and other stars like Dwayne Wade and Kim’s sister Kourtney were among the two thousand Californians to get slapped with a “notice of exceedance” by the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District. That means that their homes can now graced by the presence of a “flow restrictor device,” which does exactly what it says on the tin when it senses you’re going over your water budget.
Sound a little invasive? Well, desperate times call for desperate measures, and California is in desperate times here. The unprecedented water shortage emergency has all Californians being far more mindful of showers, lawns and other water-heavy activities. Well, almost all Californians.
One of the difficult things to get through us Americans’ heads at a time like this is the idea of communal effort. We’re a highly individualized people, and it is not in our societal wiring to think about the ways our actions impact the community we live in. So when, say, Wade and his wife Gabrielle Union overshoot their allotted May water budget by 489,000 gallons, that has an impact on how much water other people have. And not just people either, but fish, birds, forests and farms. When it comes to a massive effort like this — and it is massive, California is trying to reduce its water usage by 50 percent — everyone needs to do their part.
So, in that sense, stars are not just like us. But they do live in the same world we do, and that means they have a responsibility to keep it livable.