Back in middle school, I was an insanely huge Stranger Things fan. I was so deeply embedded into the fandom, and like a lot of girls my age, I was obsessed with Millie Bobby Brown. As a 12 year old girl, I remember looking at Millie and thinking she was this effortlessly cool, older teenage celebrity— insanely talented, funny, sharp, and already dominating Hollywood at such a young age. But as I got older, my obsession with celebrity culture had naturally died down and looking back at Millie at that age was insanely eye-opening. At 12 years old, I thought that 16 was so grown. I look back now and think: she was still very much a child.
The same people and media outlets that had once cheered her on as a child in the spotlight, now criticize her appearance, her adulthood, and overall her life choices. It’s not anything new that society has an obsession with policing women’s bodies, appearances, and decisions and Millie seems to be a harsh target. I think that in her case personally, many are uncomfortable with the fact that she’s no longer the young child they first saw on Stranger Things. They’re unsure of how to handle the fact that she’s a grown adult now, and so instead of letting her exist peacefully as a young woman, they resort to attacking her for not looking and acting like a child anymore.
Even when I was deep into the Stranger Things fan culture, I remember seeing videos bashing Millie from the way she acted in interviews— whether it be her bubbly personality or that she ‘talked too much’. Considering she was around 12-14 in most of these clips, it’s strange how people seemed to forget what it was like to be a kid and doing awkward or corny things while growing up.
After recently co-hosting with Jimmy Fallon, she joked about this, saying, “People can be really cruel, they used to say I had this annoying habit in interviews where I’d interrupt my co-stars… They said I talked too much, and I was like, ‘I’m just excited!’”. The moment is briefly humorous, but it highlights the fact that the internet wasn’t reacting to an adult with polished social skills, but a literal child learning how to be a person in the spotlight. What would’ve been a normal ‘cringe phase’ for any other kid, was treated like a character flaw for her.
What’s ironic with how people expected her to just have the social skills of a grown adult from the age of 12, is how many now bash her appearance. The moment she began to look less like a child and more like a teenage girl transitioning into adulthood, the criticism suddenly shifted from how she acted to how she looked. Suddenly, she was “aging too fast.” In an Instagram post, Millie calls out articles such as Daily Mail’s, “Why are Gen Zers like Millie Bobby Brown ageing so badly?”
She states, “I refuse to apologize for growing up. I refuse to make myself smaller to fit the unrealistic expectations of people who can’t handle seeing a girl become a woman.”
What Millie describes is a pattern that so many young women face, especially those growing up in the public eye. There’s a cultural obsession with keeping women innocent and young, and when they inevitably grow up, people react with discomfort or downright hostility. The same public that once adored Millie as a child are now unsettled by her adulthood, turning every normal part of her growing up into something to criticize.
In May 2024, Millie married Jake Bon Jovi, and the internet, of course, had plenty of opinions on it. While many were happy for her, others insisted she was “too young” or “moving too fast.” The irony is almost laughable: For years, people expected her to behave like an adult before she was one, yet once she makes adult decisions on her own terms, she’s a naive child who doesn’t know what she wants. Yes, 20 is a young age to get married, but it’s still her life, her timeline, and none of it requires public approval.
The hypocrisy became even clear when Millie and Jake announced earlier this year they had just welcomed a baby through adoption. The internet turned cruel— disgusting jabs at her fertility had been made, her readiness was questioned, and she was once again accused of “moving too fast.” What’s especially frustrating is that many of these critics preach pro-adoption rhetoric in advocacy of their pro-life movement, but when a young couple, especially a young woman, chooses to adopt, her fertility and capability is immediately questioned and attacked.
At the end of the day, none of Millie’s choices are extreme or harmful, or even remotely deserving of the backlash she’s received. She’s simply growing up and making decisions that feel right for her.
The outrage surrounding Millie says a lot more about the internet than it does about her. There is a deeply ingrained cultural impulse to control and critique women at every stage of their lives. As young girls, it’s expected for us to be polite and precociously mature, but not “annoying.” As teenagers and young adults, there’s scrutiny for every physical change and being labeled as “grown” the moment we’re no longer children. And when young women finally begin to make their own decisions, we’re suddenly “too young” to have any real agency over our own lives.
Millie is an example of just how unrealistic these expectations are. For some, she will always exist as Eleven, expecting her to stay a child frozen in time. Instead of allowing her to grow and change, the internet clings to a version of her that no longer exists, and punishes her for growing beyond it. Just like anyone else, Millie Bobby Brown doesn’t owe anyone an eternal girlhood of bending to everyone’s will.