When the first pictures of Harry Styles and Emily Ratajkowski getting close and kissing in Tokyo circulated last weekend, a large group of his fans were outraged. "I would turn off your comments coming Harrys," one user wrote early on under Ratajkowski's recent Instagram post. What did she mean by that?
Any woman the former One Direction singer is associated with will be the victim of insane fan reactions in no time. "Leave him alone", "Find a job and stay away from him", "The worst kiss I've seen in my life" – just three of the countless comments that can now be found under the model's picture.
Actress and director Olivia Wilde had to experience first-hand that Styles' (young) fans in particular react extremely to women in his life. She received so much hate at the beginning of their now-failed relationship that even Styles himself began to question his fans. "It's obviously difficult when you feel like being close to me means you're at the mercy of a corner of Twitter or something," he said in an interview with Rolling Stone.
But Styles is not alone in this. The latest case of toxic fan culture has spawned the alleged spat between Kylie Jenner, Hailey Bieber, and Selena Gomez. Fans accused the former of bullying Selena Gomez on social media. Bieber and Gomez have reportedly disliked each other for many years. The reason is Justin Bieber, who was in a relationship with Gomez for years until he married Hailey Baldwin (now Bieber). The alleged argument led to Gomez's most passionate fans hijacking social media for weeks.
The fan anger took on such insane proportions that Hailey Bieber sought help from her alleged nemesis. "Hailey Bieber reached out to me and let me know that she has received death threats and hateful negativity," Gomez wrote on her Instagram story. "That's not what I stand for. Hate or bullying shouldn't be experienced by anyone," she continued. Bieber then thanked Gomez himself. The two women ended up following each other on Instagram — a symbolic peace pipe in the 21st century.
Another fan group that has overshot the mark in the past is that of singer Beyoncé Knowles. When the musician released her successful album "Lemonade" in 2016, one line in particular caused a sensation. "He only want me when I'm not there / He better call Becky with the good hair," Beyoncé sings at the end of the song "Sorry." It didn't take a PhD to understand that the song is about her husband Jay Z's fling. But who did "Queen B" mean by "Becky with the good hair"? Fans quickly identified fashion designer Rachel Roy as the culprit and bombarded her Instagram profile with hateful comments and lemon emojis (based on the album title).
Once you know what dimensions fan love (and thus fan hate) can take on online, a user's advice to Emily Ratajkowski is not entirely unfounded: it's better to quickly deactivate the comment function. That's how you nip hate in the bud.
Those: Instagram / "Rolling Stone"
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