The fan culture is a modern phenomenon that is making headway in the academic field. An important communication researcher, Henry Jenkins, links it to media culture and the cultural industry.
 All heavy users of social media have seen, at some point, a conflict between two different fandoms, and most of the time, the artists haven’t said a word about the situation, whatever it may be.
Here are two cases of fandoms being toxic to one another.
Selena Gomez x Hailey BieberÂ
So, you must know that Selena Gomez has a makeup and skincare brand called Rare Beauty. She created the company with the goal of promoting greater inclusion in the market. It’s known for its packaging, which is easy for people with disabilities to open. Selena has lupus and experiences muscle weakness.
If you were chronically online in the past decade, you know that Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber were one of the most beloved celebrity couples. They dated for a long time during their youth and a few months after the last time they got back together, Justin married Hailey Baldwin.Â
We know that female rivalry is the most common thing in this kind of situation, right? That’s exactly what happened. Hailey, now Bieber, also has a brand called Rhode Skin.Â
You can imagine where it leads us…
The fans have created a huge rivalry between the brands and no, Hailey and Selena didn’t say a word about each other’s brand or image.Â
Sabrina Carpenter x Olivia Rodrigo
What are the chances that the next situation also involves two girls who dated the same boy, with their music and image being attacked by each other’s fanbases?
Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter are two of the most iconic names in pop music right now. They represent the new generation of “Disney girls” who have grown their careers beyond their origins. This isn’t surprising, given that they are both incredibly talented and know how to give their audience what they want
Everything started in 2021 when Olivia released her debut album, Sour. Her single “Drivers License” went viral, and the line “And you’re probably with that blonde girl who always made me doubt, she’s so much older than me” led her fans to attack Sabrina Carpenter. The Short’n Sweet singer dated Joshua Bassett after Olivia, which led people to consider Carpenter and Bassett the “villains,” all because Sabrina fit the characteristics of the girl Rodrigo sang about.
By the end of that year, Joshua released the song “Set Me Free” , addressing the hate culture and how the situation impacted his mental health.Â
Sabrina also wrote a song about it called “Skin,” where she mentions that maybe they could have been friends in another life and that perhaps “blonde girl” was just a rhyme. In 2022, Sabrina released another album titled Emails I can’t send, and one of the songs, “Because I Liked a Boy”, talks about all the hate she received for falling for Joshua.
At the end of the day, it always comes back to “girls against girls” and this cycle needs to change
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The article above was edited by Fernanda Miki Tsukase.
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