By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | June 13, 2018 |
By Kayleigh Donaldson | Celebrity | June 13, 2018 |
You know what, fuck the internet.
Remember when memes were fun little things like Keyboard Cat or that penguin slapping another penguin? Well now, apparently, the cool thing with the kids is an organized campaign of hate and smearing aimed at painting a teenage girl as a violent homophobe. Such larks!
— ð‘ð‘Žð‘Ÿð‘™ð‘¦ (@guccimasks) June 13, 2018
— ð“œð“˜ð“’ð“ð“—📉 (@vxrce) June 13, 2018
We won! pic.twitter.com/lO2cAXAbyX
— jelena karleuÅ¡a stan (@tamacoochie) June 13, 2018
— Fubuki (@_Fubuki12) June 13, 2018
Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown appears to have left Twitter following the birth of a frankly unforgivable ‘meme’ that falsely attributes homophobic quotes and violent rhetoric to her. Such ‘jokes’ include claiming she runs over LGBTQ+ people with her car and stabs them. You know, it’s only a joke! Brown, who, need I remind you, is 14 years old, attended the MTV Movie and TV Awards with two political pins on her dress: One for the ACLU and the other for GLAAD. But hey, for the lulz, amirite?! My favourite part of this hilarity (read: the part that makes me want to commit arson) is the Twitter users claiming this meme is just for the gays, because you know how the LGBRQ+ community loves to rally around acts of slander against a teenage girl. It’s right up there with Stonewall for us.
why are the straights joining in on the homophobic millie bobby brown meme this is a gays only event go home pic.twitter.com/jMOBbGXzLb
— silas (@SlLASLAND) June 11, 2018
The media and general public have already repeatedly demonstrated that they have zero boundaries when it comes to the literal children in the cast of Stranger Things. We’ve already seen those actors be hectored by grown fucking men for not giving autographs. We’ve seen how some people just couldn’t wait to sexualize Brown at red carpet events or call the boys like Finn Wolfhard ‘daddy’. We’ve seen how these kids, especially Brown, are trotted out at convention after convention to sign autographs, take photos and chat with fans, some of whom are old enough to be their parents, for hours on end, in-between filming and promotional duties. We are in serious danger of screwing these kids up for life, but hey, we can all laugh about calling A 14-YEAR-OLD GIRL A MURDERING HOMOPHOBE, RIGHT?!
These kids already have to put up with so much being in the limelight before they’re old enough to vote. Hollywood has already started ticking the clock on their shelf lives as ‘cute kids’, and seeing how Brown is being ‘prepared’ by her team for more adult fare is unsettling (not to mention the issue of her stage dad and his money demands because a 14-year-old girl is paying her family bills). Brown, an anti-bullying advocate who has publicly aligned herself with LBTQ+ rights and civil liberties, should not have to worry about her own damn fandom turning her into a figure of dangerous ridicule. We have seen how the internet works. You may think it’s a joke to attribute the F word to a teenage girl because hey, you know it’s a joke, right, but not everyone will and that shit will spread.
Fandom doesn’t need a worse reputation than it already has. Cut this shit out, you creeps.
(Header photograph courtesy of Getty Images)