For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction—and whatever their advantages, the rich and famous are just as subject to the laws of physics as the rest of us. On the spectrum of strangely celebrity-specific forms of self-expression that have proliferated in the mid-to-late 2010s, the Notes app apology occupies one end of the spectrum: a public performance of contrition, dramatically self-flagellating before an audience of millions. This week, we’ve seen an unusually dense concentration of the social media apology’s perfect inverse: the defiant act of self-defense, used to rally the force of public opinion against a perceived attack.
On Wednesday evening, the actress Olivia Munn posted, to multiple social media platforms, a statement she titled “a short essay on the ugly behaviors of the @fuggirls.” Munn is referring to the popular celebrity fashion site Go Fug Yourself, and includes for reference screenshots of a week-old post headlined “If Only I Had a Dollar for Every Time I’ve Said, ‘Oh My God Olivia Munn,’” as well as a biography containing full names and photographs of Go Fug Yourself cofounders Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. Munn accuses Cocks and Morgan, in their coverage of both her own fashion choices and those of other female celebrities, of “propagat[ing] the idea that our worth is predominantly (or singularly) tied to our looks.” As a successful actress, Munn acknowledges, “there are some things you sign up for,” but she argues Cocks and Morgan’s commentary isn’t included in that bargain, citing a Maryland high school’s recent instance of sexual harassment within its senior class as inspiration for speaking out.
Munn’s statement is unusual in its length and specificity, but her qualms with media coverage appear to be shared by other public figures. On Sunday, the pop musician Lizzo subtweeted an ambivalent Pitchfork review of her major-label debut album, writing with signature brio: “PEOPLE WHO ‘REVIEW’ ALBUMS AND DON’T MAKE MUSIC THEMSELVES SHOULD BE UNEMPLOYED.” The remark earned some measured backlash, though it also read like an understandable response to an unprecedented level of exposure for a previously lesser-known artist not accustomed to such scrutiny. That’s not quite as true for a superstar like Ariana Grande, who responded on Wednesday to an E! News segment criticizing Justin Bieber’s cameo at her Coachella set with a since-deleted tweet reading, in part: “one day everybody that works at all them blogs will realize how unfulfilled they are and purposeless what they’re doing is … i can’t wait for them to feel lit inside.”
Remarkable as it may be for so many instances of celebrity retaliation to flare up in a single week, the idea that critics are fair game for rebuke by those they cover is not a new one. The stand-up comedian Michael Che, who serves as co-head writer for Saturday Night Live and coanchors the show’s famous Weekend Update segment with Colin Jost, frequently takes to his Instagram Stories to express what, per his handle, @chethinks. Often, that means airing his grievances against journalists who cover the show, including Daily Beast columnist Samantha Allen and freelance writer Seth Simons. One of Che’s latest targets was Uproxx writer Steven Hyden, who published a piece last Friday titled “Why Does Everyone (Still) Hate SNL’s Colin Jost?” Che responded with a hyperbolic, transparently false accusation that Hyden performs fellatio on stray dogs. Hyden, for his part, responded with relative equanimity, and the resulting furor died down after a few days. The incident mostly serves as an unusually outlandish example of a recurring pattern, both for Che himself and other performers with considerable platforms they can wield to their own advantage.
Such lashings out come from an understandable place. As public figures, pop stars and comedians alike are subject to an overwhelming amount of vitriol, misunderstanding, and bad-faith critique. Thanks to social media, it’s both harder than ever for stars to shield themselves from the noise and easier than ever for them to respond directly to what surely feels like an all-out assault on their character. Sometimes, these responses crash down upon private citizens who find themselves transformed into unwitting scapegoats, as when Brie Larson and Netflix’s typically cheery corporate account joined forces to “NETFLEX” upon an obscure, if casually misogynist, Twitter user. These cases are clear-cut instances of individuals wielding their massive followings against others who have none, relatable but nonetheless obvious exercises of skewed power.
The ethics of responding to professional critics and bloggers, on the other hand, are murkier. The logic on celebrities’ part, which Munn makes explicit, is debatable yet traceable. “Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan probably won’t like this, but they’ll just have to learn that when you come for anyone publicly, you’ve now entered the public domain and you’ve chosen your opponent,” she wrote. “So I’ll give you the same advice we get: When you’re in the public eye, it comes with the territory.” Or, in blunter terms: If you can dish it, why can’t you take it? After all, critics, too, are professionals who conduct their work in full view, with all the culpability and openness to feedback that implies. With a likely not-so-great paycheck comes great responsibility.
But these valid points get mixed up in some basic, even harmful, misconceptions about the work journalists and critics do. In their tweets, both Lizzo and Grande propagate the notions that criticism is diluted art rather than a separate form of it, and that criticism is about tearing down the hard work of others where “real” art contributes something positive to the world. (“Create something instead. lift people up instead,” Grande wrote in an earlier, also deleted post.) This is not, to put it mildly, how many critics would characterize their work, which includes advocacy and the provision of context in addition to straightforward pans.
There’s also the question of what criticism even is. “I’ll never understand why when they shit on people its criticism. But when i shit on them its harassment,” Che vented. Hyden’s original article is largely a summary of others’ opinions about Jost’s comedy and public persona, with his own thoughts a fairly measured assessment of Jost’s appeal, or lack thereof. “I think the qualities that make him appealing for his SNL coworkers—that homegrown, aggressively norm-core sturdiness—also undermine him with the general public. I’d like to see him embrace being the heel,” Hyden concludes. Che lumps such reasonable, professional commentary together with over-the-top, personal slander under the rather broad umbrella of “shitting on,” eliding crucial differences between the two.
Munn offers a more palatable, though equally disputable, version of the same fallacy. Her objections to “being publicly chastised for our weight, our looks, or our choice in clothing” are reasonable—at least, the first two are. But Cocks and Morgan didn’t zero in on Munn’s features or physicality in their original writing. “This is just kinda like she got roped into making a sequel to American Hustle that ended up going straight to on-demand” is certainly snarky, but it’s also directed at a choice Munn and her team made in their capacity as image-makers. Munn wore the tasseled suit in question to a red carpet event, specifically one benefiting the charity Apex for Youth. The decision to don the garment was neither neutral nor casual; it was an extension of the persona Munn exchanges for money and renown, likely made in conjunction with a stylist and of material importance to both Munn herself and the designer she gave free publicity. Cocks and Morgan weren’t analyzing paparazzi photos of Munn conducting her everyday business in casual streetwear, nor would they have grounds to. The kind of sexism Munn objects to certainly exists; Go Fug Yourself first thrived in the same mid-aughts era as more mean-spirited sites like Perez Hilton, and it’s easy to conflate the two. Still, Cocks and Morgan’s publication belongs, along with peers like Lainey Gossip or Tom + Lorenzo, to a more responsible class of commentariat, and it’s frustrating for fans and colleagues to see them accused of pitfalls they scrupulously avoid.
Even Munn’s original point about tit-for-tat judgment has its own nuances. Members of the media have their own captive audiences, but they’re often dwarfed by the fervent fan bases of their subjects and occasional adversaries. Munn has 827,000 followers on Twitter, Go Fug Yourself just into the six figures; Michael Che has more than 400,000 Instagram followers and a weekly audience of millions, while Hyden has a Twitter tally of slightly less than 30,000. These are imperfect measures, but they do reveal a basic asymmetry. Having a bully pulpit matters, but so does its size and scale.
There are also reasons for members of the media to be especially sensitive to these broadsides beyond their individual content. It’s doubtful, for instance, that Lizzo or Grande would have received such blowback if they hadn’t invoked the specter of joblessness in a rapidly deteriorating industry or suggested that workers simply move on from their livelihoods like a casual change of outfits, respectively. (Some may also have been insulted by Grande lumping television punditry in with the written word.) We’re also living in a time when the public is disconcertingly unaware of the function of a vital civic institution like a free press, a misunderstanding that’s frequently exploited for political gain. Fashion bloggers and music critics are not investigative journalists, nor are pop stars and comedians fear-mongering leaders. But they’re channeling a deeply troubling trend in how the public exaggerates media members’ power, just as that power—such as it is—has never been less secure. It’s a tempest in a Twitter timeline.
As a critic myself, I’m naturally inclined to empathize with other critics. But I’m also more sympathetic to celebrities’ plight than they might realize, as most with public profiles would be. I don’t envy Cocks and Morgan for the deluge that they are about to face, and that Munn seems to be deliberately inciting. Nor do I want to diminish what Munn endures as a matter of course. I’ve had my intelligence dismissed, speaking voice nitpicked, and appearance criticized by total strangers, all at a fraction of the volume actresses experience as a matter of course. I just wish celebrities more fully understood the powers they wield, up to and including the one to log off.
An earlier version of this piece incorrectly referred to Morgan as Marks.