Culture: Social Media Hate Trains Are Not A Bandwagon to Jump On

Not because celebrities are to be put on a pedestal, but because it does not improve your situation- it worsens it.

It is a universally recognised indication of an economic recession, when the flaunting of wealth and prosperity is no longer met with aspiration but reproach. The public mood has shifted, and celebrities' celebrity is no longer celebrated. Once upon a time, JLo's stardom sparked Google Image's invention, and now it feels redundant and self-indulgent. Katy Perry had the most certified singles by a female artist ever (yes, I thought that was Taylor, too), and her recent album barely made its mark on the charts. At the same time, her space trip sparked widespread controversy for wasting resources and for virtue-signalling fake feminism.

To my surprise, this fall from heaven happens even to the most beloved figures. After the biggest tour in history, Taylor is getting booed at the exact stadium she sold out for multiple nights. When Beyoncé won her first Album of the Year Grammy for Cowboy Carter, after an industry-defining career spanning decades of reinvention and cultural impact, people thought her unworthy, and surely Jay Z must have paid for it. And the most vicious vitriol I have ever witnessed on social media is the witch burning of Blake Lively, once beloved and adored for her style and character, which ironically, are now also the root of her downfall.

These are just a few examples of how social media hate has hyper-focused on female celebrities. In the current media landscape, one that reports on the Diddy trial, the Epstein files, whatever is going on with Trump and Elon (Alexa, play Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Getting Back Together"), and the incarceration of Chris Brown, why is it that social media hate disproportianetly propagates the downfall of female celebrities, specifically? Is it truly because their "crimes" warrant this level of scrutiny?

I am not trying to argue that the celebrity's actions should be exempt from criticism just because other people have committed worse, but rather that the level of attention and hate targeted towards them is disproportionate to the supposed crime. Especially when we live in a time where many of their famous male counterparts are fighting sexual misconduct allegations or cooperating with a corrupt government. Additionally, the exponential increase of online hate trains begs the question of why people jump on that bandwagon, how it affects society at large, and whether this form of digital vigilantism has any positive effects at all.

Firstly, it is important to note how the public mood has shifted so drastically. It would be tone-deaf not to mention the underlying motive of people badgering pop culture – we are in an age of crises. People are fed up with celebrities, their money, their unending admiration, and their level of attention in the face of a cost-of-living crisis, inflation, economic recession, and the erupting housing market. Some people struggle to make ends meet, while we all remember a time pre-pandemic, when heating and food shops were not a luxury. In this climate, politics skew right, as we have seen happening in presidential elections all over the globe recently. All of this has a profound effect on culture, too.

People cannot stand to hear the complaints of the privileged anymore, there is no societal tolerance for it. That, in itself, is not hateful nor reprehensible. However, social media hate is no longer about our growing intolerance to the "plights" of the privileged, but about becoming someone with an opinion others validate. The nature of social media works through views, likes, comments, and followers. To any person posting, influencer or not, this is the digital currency we aim for. The algorithms prefer content that is highly engaging because it triggers emotional reactions, whether of accord or disaccord is irrelevant. For content creators, this means the more sensationalised, insidious, or provocative their claims are, the more digital currency they possess.

Some creators want to gain followers by riding on someone else's coattails, especially by dragging them into the mud. Unfortunately, the more outrageous the claims, the more they are rewarded on social media with likes and views, effectively changing our cultural value system.

In other words, the current cultural climate lays the ground for any person with any opinion against a celebrity to drive their clout. Megyn Kelly was cancelled multiple times as a TV host before going independent and blowing up on YouTube for her "cultural commentary" videos. Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro used to exclusively focus on conservative political commentary, but now their channels have amassed millions of views on their celebrity bashing. Owens, specifically, has managed to attract viewers on the left through in-depth analysis of the Baldoni-Lively lawsuit. In a world increasingly divided by polarising politics, the one thing that seems to unite people across the political spectrum is their hatred for the rich and famous.

It very clearly states that when we endure precarious chaos, which unsettles the comforts we have gotten used to in our daily lives, we tend to respond with distracting incoherence. There is not nearly enough content about detrimental policies, but there is an oversaturated discourse on why Hailey Bieber, as a nepo baby, does not deserve the life she leads and surely stole it from Selena Gomez. We worry about Gaza, but the content is much more concerned with the idea of Meghan Markle preparing her sold-out jam in a luxe Montecito rental home for her Netflix show. Just to repeat what people find infuriating nowadays: Meghan Markle cooking in a nice house and making money off it. Meanwhile, Selena Gomez, also a non-professional chef and apprentice homemaker, has not faced any backlash for her cooking show.

We distract ourselves from our struggles that we sometimes have no control over and fall victim to, by following the rise and fall of those we thought had it all. The worst part is that it feels like justice has been served.

Is this justice, though? Is the online vitriol truly a form of vigilantism, the same way cancel culture hoped to rid society of evil? Let's take Blake Lively as an example. There is no arguing that the promo for "IT ENDS WITH US" was tone-deaf, especially in combination with her haircare brand launch. People were upset about that, and they had every right. Once the lawsuit hit newsstands, the criticism Blake Lively faced was no longer based on things she actually said in an interview, but it was all about speculation, and therefore, her evil knew no bounds.

Does she just play the victim to accuse Baldoni of sexual misconduct because she did not like his vision for the film? Is Ryan Reynolds an allmighty Hollywood mafioso who strips the underdog of authorship to promote his wife? Surely, Blake Lively only posted her condolences regarding her Gossip Girl co-star's death, Michelle Trachtenberg, as a selfish excuse to shift the limelight onto her as a good, grieving person.

Hopefully, this all starts to sound a bit too ridiculous to be true when you read it here, even when a TikTok you saw made the theories sound credible. This case demonstrates how one identifiable mistake, the tone-deaf mis-promotion of a film themed around domestic abuse, quickly escalated to a boundless speculation factory, stretching theories of utmost malignancy.

Another example is the consistent and overwhelming hate directed at Meghan Markle. Rich, aristocratic, and famous people are not allowed to complain; it makes them seem out of touch and ignorant. Suck up the racism, misunderstanding, and outsider victimhood, Meghan, you live in a palace. That is what her haters continue to tell her, and it makes me wonder.

On the one hand, we want celebrities to be relatable, just like us, going through the motions. If their life is too perfect, their image too polished, and their success a constant zenith, people don't respond well to that. Beyoncé has not given an interview in over ten years, she continues to be relevant after a 30-year career, and she has a happy family with a billion in the bank. It comes as no surprise that the hate train started when she stepped out of her lane and dared to succeed. She does not seem human anymore; she breaks records she previously held, and in her own words, she feels more like an alien superstar than a terrestrial commoner we can identify ourselves with.

On the other hand, we hold celebrities to a higher standard because their fame and influence are also a responsibility they need to bear. They need to be smarter and more thoughtful about every public step than the rest of us. They cannot make mistakes, that little shred of humanity we do not grant them. When former employees of Matilda Djerf's brand "Djerf Avenue" came out speaking badly about her, the internet was very quick to cancel her long reign of the Scandi-aesthetic. It does not matter that this is her first job or her first time leading a company in her mid-20s. She is pretty, rich, and famous, and she should know better.

The problem with this thinking is that "knowing better" is always easier to say in hindsight and from an outsider's perspective. People might not be ready to have this conversation, but I postulate that none of the people I know to be kind and smart would have acted differently. If they had been in Matilda's situation, or if I had been, I cannot say with 100% certainty that I would have known better. And who is to say that what her former employees are saying is even true, or just a Machiavellian endeavour to take someone down whom they are envious of?

Unfortunately, we no longer give celebrities the benefit of the doubt or wait for a court of law to decide the gravity of the crime. In a time of frustrating precarity over the quality of our livelihoods, we take to the digital stands to pass judgment, in an attempt to regain a sense of control or justice. Even more infuriating, the energy to change society is misdirected when we target celebrities. Not because they need to be put on a pedestal, but because their quality of life does not decrease nearly as much as ours.

Hailey will go home to Justin and the baby. She is now a billionaire after selling her company, RHODE, to ELF Cosmetics, and her parents still are, much to the public's chagrin, famous. Taylor has used her billionaire status to finally buy back her masters, affecting the way artists' contracts will be signed in the future, and making her old discography chart higher without releasing any new music. And her new boyfriend is tall. And hot. Beyoncé is on a record-breaking tour, sold-out or not, and Blue Ivy proved once and for all that she is her mother's daughter. And Meghan got a second season from all the hate watching, so that really backfired for those who do not like her.

What happens to us when we jump on the social media hate bandwagon? We waste our energies that could otherwise be directed at policy-makers who actually affect our daily lives, all the while we attach our face and government name to a comment that reads "people die when they don't thank Beyoncé". Well done, Sherlock. See how that helps.