When You Say Rude Sh*t About Celebrities, You Hurt Regular People

When you say rude shit about celebrities, you hurt regular people in your actual life.

“God-willing, COVID will kill them both. Chris Christie is a fat ass and the president is morbidly obese, too.”

“In last night’s debate, Sleepy Joe [Biden] proved once again that he’s losing his mind. Mush mouth.”

“I’m glad [Chrissy Teigen’s] baby died because she’s a pedophile who didn’t deserve him. I feel bad for the ones who lived.”

“Oh my god. So that’s why [Billie Eilish] always wears those baggy clothes! To cover her saggy tits!”

“[Chrissy Metz] has a new boyfriend? He’s either with her for the money or has a fat fetish. There is no way he actually loves her.”

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

What is wrong with some of you?

I took every single one of these comments from various social media posts from the last few weeks. (I didn’t screenshot to protect the not-so-innocent. You’re welcome, perpetrators.)

Whether we are discussing huge national news stories like Trump’s COVID diagnosis or small pop culture blurbs like Billie Eilish’s tank top, the internet has been ablaze with a billion opinions, as it always is.

Maybe 2020 has just depleted my patience for hateful, hideous bullshit. I am not sure why I can’t scroll by without getting all prickly and angry, but I can’t anymore. I have lost my ability to keep my mouth shut when I see people choosing to be the absolute worst.

Did none of you people attend an elementary school guidance class? Didn’t an earnest, soft-spoken woman in a sensible sweater ever sit in a chair while you sat on a carpet square on the floor and explain that when you have a disagreement you should “attack the problem, not the person?”

I understand that the internet feels like a safe place to be an asshole without actually directly insulting the public figure you’re choosing to denigrate that day, but it’s really, really not.

Because maybe you’re not going to hurt Chris Christie or Donald Trump when you rip them to shreds for being fat.

But you know who you might hurt?

Me. Or fat people like me.

I have no love for our President or his associates, but the size of their bodies is not what makes them despicable. There are plenty of legitimate things about Trump’s choices that make him a fair target for scrutiny and distaste. His weight isn’t one of them.

When you say cruel things about prominent fat people you don’t like and assert that they deserve to die, try to remember that the rest of us fat people can see you. God forbid the fat people you know get this virus — your words will be bouncing around in our brains, too, knowing that you won’t think it’s a tragedy if it kills us. That sucks.

I am also getting really mother effing tired of people talking about the way Joe Biden speaks. At this point, everyone knows that his manner of speaking is the result of overcoming a stutter. A speech fluency disorder. You’re literally choosing to degrade a person for overcoming.

You know who else speaks slowly because he’s working to overcome a speech disorder?

My son. He might always speak at a slow pace with an unusual tone. If he goes on to run for President, would you call him names and discredit him, ignoring the lifetime of hard work he has put in to make that possible?

Because moms like me see you making fun of Joe Biden when his words run together a bit, or when he pauses to choose a different word. We see you laughing, mocking him, calling his mind into question simply on the basis of his manner of speaking.

Then we look at our hard-working babies who speak a little differently than most people, and we know that you’d think and say the exact same things about them. And it hurts real people.

The older adults in your life see you, too — and in case you were wondering, ageism isn’t a good look.

It’s not just politicians.

When you say Chrissy Teigen and John Legend deserved to lose their baby because you’ve bought into some kind of coo-coo bananas conspiracy theory, other parents of lost children can see you reveling in their deepest pain.

When you say rude things about Billie Eilish’s body…well, first of all, you look like a damn creep. She’s been 18 for like 15 minutes. Can you let her walk through the door of adulthood before you start deciding that her body isn’t good enough? But secondly, all you are really doing is making a young woman in your life look at her totally acceptable, typical, beautiful body and wonder if you’re judging her, too.

When you call Chrissy Metz’s relationship into question because of her dress size, you hurt fat people like me whose spouses are thin.

I could go on all day. All fucking day. People do this constantly. There is an unending supply of nasty comments online, and nobody is safe.

When you say rude, ugly shit about celebrities, you almost certainly won’t hurt the celebrity.

(Although, it should be noted that celebrites are REAL PEOPLE, so your desire to be unrelentingly cruel to them is bizarre and says a shit-ton about your character or lack thereof…)

I highly doubt Donald Trump or Chrissy Teigen or Billie Eilish or anyone else of note is checking Facebook to see what Jenn from Cincinnati or Josh from Kansas City thinks about their bodies or their lives.

But all the regular people you know are looking. Your words matter, and when you choose to be the literal worst, you hurt people. That’s a fact. There’s no reason to argue about it or defend your “right” to be gross.

Sure, you CAN do it, but why the fuck would you want to? That’s the free speech wagon you want to hitch your horse to? Don’t you want to be better and hurt fewer people?

Saying less rude, obnoxious shit out loud or online is one really simple place to start.