When purchasing a ticket to a performance, you are entitled to only this: viewing a performance. Perhaps it’s time for a reminder.

This seems to be getting lost in the ether of the internet and fan culture. As the distance between fan and artist appears to decrease (social media, right?), the benefits of paid admission appear to increase. Audiences claim previously inaccessible rights to the the artists we love. In addition to purchasing tickets and recordings and all manner of occasional products for sale, we can now follow their daily status updates, blog posts, photo-sharing, etc. Tweet at them and threaten our pets if they do not respond.

Our investments in celebrities now appear to purchase admission into the personal lives of strangers.

Take last night’s Fiona Apple concert in Portland, Oregon. According to Stereogum, the show-Fiona Apple and Blake Mills-was going quite beautifully, until a member of the audience decided she had access to the personal life of Fiona Apple. As you would expect, this right had not been granted.

After close to 90 minutes of Apple and Mills trading off songs and, as they put it, “working shit out,” someone in the first balcony yelled out, “Fiona! Get healthy! We want to see you in 10 years!”

Apple, understandably, looked aghast, then hurt, then furious. She unleashed a torrent of vitriol at the unseen member of the peanut gallery. “I am healthy! Who the fuck do you think you are? I want you to get the fuck out of here. I want the house lights on so I watch you leave!”

That might have been the end of it — the house lights did come on, and the shouter did eventually depart — but the anonymous commenter decided to get one last shot in: “I saw you 20 years ago and you were beautiful!”

There was no coming back from that. Apple insisted she was done, spat her frustration into the microphone, and fought back tears. She pulled it together enough to perform an understandably intense version of “Waltz (Better Than Fine)” that she sang through sobs. But the wellspring of feelings burst forth again. She raged, empathized, apologized, and departed. Show over.

Photo from Flickr user: Studio Haven

Setting aside the terrible nature of these comments, fans of Fiona Apple know the singer is a sensitive performer. Her many personal struggles are publicly known, and those struggles have made their way on stage in her performances for years. Her live show walks a delicate balance, not to be decided by the whim of a fan. Only the most entitled ticket-holder would think that he or she, among all those who’ve paid to see her sing, has access to these parts of Fiona Apple.

These kinds of stories are too common in these times. Fans have access to ever more of their idols. And not only online. Actors, singers, celebrities of all kinds are turning out for ever more public events, conventions after convention if you work in almost any genre of film or television, signings, public appearances, concerts, etc.

As long as performers bring paying audiences, we will have to constantly remind fans: your admission buys you a performance, an autograph, a memory of your own. It does not entitle access to the personal life of a stranger. You’re a fan. Not a friend. Seems like that should be obvious.

The Fiona Apple story reminds me of another less recent story. From Wil Wheaton.

Wil Wheaton engages his admirers. It’s one of the great things about Wil Wheaton. He’s highly active on the internets (to say the least), and attends all number of conventions (I mean, he’s a Star Trek alum…), not to mention the always expanding convention cycle, personal appearances, concerts, signings for his writing. He’s the kind of man whose fans feel they know personally. This trait so defines Mr. Wheaton that it even informs “Wil Wheaton”, the character he plays on The Big Bang Theory. And I get it; I’m a fan. He’s very funny and engaging and he makes the effort to be present for his fans.

But really. I don’t know Wil Wheaton. I’m just a fan of his. I’ve no right to his personal life. Unfortunately, that’s not how everyone sees it.

A few years ago Wheaton blogged about the less savory interactions that come with being a convention celebrity.

When we walked out of the SyFy party on Saturday night, a pack of people — probably 12 or 15, I’d guess — appeared out of nowhere, and surrounded me. They shoved pictures into my face, thrust pens at me, and made it so that I couldn’t even move. They separated me from my friends and my son, and, quite frankly, terrified me.

Let’s stop for a second and think about this: in what kind of world is it acceptable to surround a person you do not know, separate them from the people they are with, and essentially trap them?Maybe in crazy entitled psycho world, but not the world I live in.

The story has a happy ending (Felicia Day to the rescue). But it’s a seriously messed up story.

The gap between the autograph hounds and the Fiona Apple heckler is not that great. These are stories of individuals, fans, who have paid their dollars (for tickets or books or collectibles) and as a result believe they are entitled to the person, not just the performance, or the performer.

Whether this impulse for personal access results from the internet and social media, or has always been an unfortunate element of celebrity, it’s a dehumanizing impulse. Built around the idea that fame means public, and public means public ownership, the entitled ticket-holder risks a great deal more than embarrassment or rebuke.

They risk taking from the rest of us the touching encounters and personal experiences that celebrities like Fiona Apple and Wil Wheaton do share with their fans, and which create in popular culture a salve that many seek in stories and music and fandom. They risk forcing our artists away from us, removing what makes those we chose to admire special to each of us: a chance to look through a window uniquely distinct from our own.

Just remember: you can look, but you cannot climb in through the window. You have no right do so.