I think we’re all pretty familiar with the name Gypsy Rose Blanchard by now. If you’re not, Gypsy Rose is a woman who grew up under the control of her mother and effects of Munchausen by proxy. This basically means that while Gypsy was a healthy person, her mother led her and all of her doctors to believe that she was very sick. She fabricated her illnesses and even had Gypsy get around in a wheelchair, though she had the full capability to walk.
Gypsy naturally experienced a lot of trauma because of this, and eventually figured out that her mother was lying to her. This brought her a lot of rage which led to her orchestrating the killing of her mother and getting convicted of second-degree murder. That is where this story begins.
Gypsy and her mother were fairly well-known in their community, but they were not famous until after the murder. In March 2019, Hulu released a crime drama about their lives called “The Act”, which is where the popularity of Gypsy started to skyrocket. The internet was obsessed with the show and the story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard.
Eight years after her arrest, Gypsy was released from jail on December 28, 2023. Days leading up to her release, social media raved about her and how excited they were for her to get out of prison. Basically from the second she was free, Gypsy was very active on social media. She quickly made an Instagram where she posted about her and her husband. She also agreed to tons of interviews where she spoke about her life.
Gypsy’s social media presence only pushed the internet to become more and more infatuated with her. But with everything regarding social media, with a quick rise there is an even quicker fall.
At first, everyone liked her so much because she was very outspoken, charismatic, and just very much herself. She adamantly defended her husband against the public and even spoke about their sex life. And while the internet initially loved this about her, it did not take long for them to start overanalyzing all of her interviews.
Those who became critical the fastest said that she was a born manipulator and that was all she had ever known, so we could never trust her. And while the entire internet has not seemed to turn on her yet, I think that is coming fast.
Social media will find a new person to obsess over, fill their comments with love and support, but the second they step out of line, suddenly no one understood the hype anyway. Especially with people like Gypsy, who isn’t an influencer, people just want her to perform. They want her to dance the way they want her to and if she shows even an ounce of personality that doesn’t satisfy them, she’ll be receiving death threats within the day.
I say all this to say that the internet is an extremely weird and difficult place. The crashing and burning of our new favorite person of the month is very strange and unfair. These people we focus on are still actual, real people, and you can never expect them to just be full-time performers.
I also think targeting Gypsy specifically is gross. I obviously think murder is wrong, but I also think the justice system did not do right by her. She should have received psychiatric help to assist her in working through the chaos she had been in living for so long. Overanalyzing her behavior just over a month after her release date is not fair, especially for a platform that claims to care about mental health so much.
Essentially what I want everyone to take from this is to stop overly fantasizing about people on the internet and cut those who have all eyes on them all the time a little more slack.