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Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/em><\/p>\n Julia Parker and Katherine Christen were walking across the Williamsburg Bridge in New York the other weekend, jamming to Harry Styles\u2019 new album<\/a>, when an oncoming runner, recognizing some essential quality, gave them the heads-up: Just ahead on the bridge, walking in their direction, was none other than Harry Styles himself.<\/p>\n Christen immediately started filming on her phone, and thus we can see what happens next: Styles and gal-pal Zo\u00eb Kravitz approach.\u00a0As they walk past, Styles smiles, then leans in for a fist bump and raises his arm for a half hug. (Off-screen, Parker was holding up her phone, showing that she was streaming his brand-new album, and pointing to her earphones, and smiling.)Then the video goes all wonky. Parker told People that Styles asked for her name and which song she was listening to<\/a> (\u201cDance No More\u201d), thanked her for listening, and shook their hands before he and Kravitz carried on.<\/p>\n As a devoted fan and scholar of fan encounters<\/a>\u2014that is, a person who loves some celebrities enough that many an algorithm has learned to serve me every scrap of content about them\u2014I rate this one as Nearly<\/em> perfect<\/em>. Parker\u2019s attempt at contact is subtle, and ignorable\u2014Styles could have very easily smiled and kept walking. Instead, he <\/em>chose to engage. There was a genuine coincidence at play here, too, one that would plausibly interest Styles himself. The result is a genuine moment of connection, thrilling for all involved.<\/p>\n What keeps this encounter from being perfect? Unfortunately, the video evidence is a big red FAILURE of human connection. It takes that genuine moment and sullies it for social currency. Cool: a 10-second interaction with your fav during album release week that doesn\u2019t ask for his time and remains a nice moment between two people. Deeply uncool: secretly videoing that interaction. That video shouldn\u2019t exist, and that it does, and that I\u2019ve seen it, takes this interaction into the category that basically every celebrity encounter you hear about belongs in: loser territory.<\/p>\n The video, charming as it may be in some respects, is one of approximately 1 billion pieces of fan-generated visual evidence of Styles existing out in the world. In many of them, he\u2019s mugging with random people on the streets. (These<\/a> are<\/a> all<\/a> from a singular outing last week in Midtown Manhattan.) Others are candids: blurry pictures of Harry walking<\/a>, cycling<\/a>, riding the train<\/a>, chilling on a bench<\/a>, getting coffee<\/a>, picking up a pizza<\/a>, queueing up at a bookstore<\/a>, and waiting for the new pope to be announced<\/a>. Rumor has it that he commuted to SNL<\/em> rehearsals last week on foot<\/a>; fans certainly have had plenty of opportunities to snap photos of him recently.<\/p>\n Seeing those photos can be thrilling: Stars, they\u2019re just like us. But they\u2019re also embarrassing. I shouldn\u2019t be seeing Styles trying to run an errand or smiling into yet another front-facing camera next to yet another person he does not know<\/em>. Those photos shouldn\u2019t exist. Can\u2019t we just let this man live?<\/p>\n Many people see this fan service\u2014selfies, shaking hands, the exchange of a few words\u2014as part of the job of a public figure, a reasonable cost for the bounties of fame, even a service already bought and paid for with movie tickets and album copies. Some fans will say that if he\u2019s in public, he\u2019s there because he wants to be seen.\u00a0(Look, he\u2019s wearing new shorts from his clothing brand, this is literally a pap run!<\/em>) And yes, a star like Styles knows it\u2019s a de facto part of his job when he leaves the house to be \u201con\u201d and to be gracious to fans\u2014he can and certainly does pay someone, or many someones, to bring coffee, pizza, and news about the pope to him while he sits in his home in London, his home in Tribeca, or his home in Beverly Hills<\/a>.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t feel one, tiny, polite photo is \u201charassment,\u201d consider the fact that it is at least part <\/em>of a harassment campaign. A famous person is bombarded with these requests constantly. Consider what happens in a short film that follows Ed Sheeran around New York: \u201cEverywhere Sheeran goes over the 58 minutes of this film, people are whipping out their phones, gawping at him from behind their screens,\u201d Imogen West-Knights wrote in Slate last year<\/a>. \u201cThere are multiple interruptions while people ask for selfies (I use the term \u2018ask\u2019 loosely; by and large they start taking the picture before they make the request), and Sheeran submits to each one.\u201d Terrifying!<\/p>\n