“I don’t know what it is; I just don’t like her.” “She isn’t even doing anything for the trans community.” “She is only popular cause she is pretty.”  

     All of these are things commonly commented under posts made by influencers/celebrities. Whether they are women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, or a person of color, any influencer who is not a straight white cis male receives an unnecessary amount of hate under their posts for doing seemingly nothing other than just existing.  

     An example of this is a popular TikToker named Dylan Mulvaney.  Mulvaney is a transgender influencer who was made most popular for her series “Day “X” of being a girl.” This series follows Mulvaney’s transition into becoming a female presenting woman and elaborates on all the experiences she is now getting to relive as who she truly feels she should be.  

     Due to her full transparency, Mulvaney gets her fair share of transphobic haters. However, the hate she receives reaches even beyond that. Lots of comments under her posts are other transgender, or LGBTQ+, people claiming that she should not have the platform that she does if she is not going to use it as a front for societal change, claiming that they do not like her because she does not necessarily do anything for the transgender community.  

     However, there is no reason that she should feel obligated to solely because she is a transgender influencer. Not every female influencer posts about feminism. Not every Christian influencer posts about religion. All Mulvaney is doing is sharing her experiences and her story with the world, but somehow people view that as not good enough. People believe that if a transgender person is going to be famous it must be for activism, it cannot just be because of themselves or their content.  

     Probably one of the most well-known celebrities is Taylor Swift. She is a singer, songwriter, actor, and director, and she has formed a massive fan base over the years of her career. However, that has not stopped her from bringing in a lot of hate.  

     When it comes to Swift, people seem to think you must either love her or hate her. People seem to think there is no in between. One of the most common reasons people claim to hate her is because a lot of her songs are about her previous relationships, claiming that she has no writing ability because of this. People claim she has had too many boyfriends and uses every song to victimize herself against whoever she dated.   

     However, this is a major double standard since most other artists do the same. Most male singers, country, rap, pop, or hip hop all write about their exes. Any popular song on the radio has a chance of being about the artist’s previous relationships.  

     People choose to hate Swift for this, ignoring every other artist doing it, because she is an incredibly popular artist in the music industry. She is one of the most well-known and she has the societal standing other artists can only dream of. People hate on Swift because they hate to see a woman dominate the music industry over all the male artists people think should do it instead. Thus, the hate Swift receives is primarily rooted in the internalized misogyny of the haters, male or female, because she seems to do things just as other artists do them, but she receives hate for them.  

     Although both celebrities receive serious hate for no reason, one of the worst is Lizzo. She is a plus sized black woman who has had major success in her career and the hate she receives depicts just that.  

     When it comes to plus sized influencers, everyone somehow believes that they have a place to judge and talk about their bodies for no reason. This shaming in itself is obviously incredibly wrong and harmful, likely rooted in the insecurity of the haters themselves. This could be through both oversexualizing different body types, reiterating the concept that women are nothing but their bodies and that somehow their bodies are something meant for all of society and not just themselves, or just blatant fat shaming.   

     Whether they are oversexualizing her or body shaming her directly, the media has treated Lizzo as no exception to this.  

     The reason Lizzo is a prime example of some of the worst hate celebrities can receive is because the fat shaming is not all she gets. She is also a black woman in an industry that claims to not be racist, though the industry’s actions tend to prove otherwise.  

     One of the most racist comments she popularly gets is when people call her “Mammy.”  If you do not know the word’s meaning, it may not seem that bad or like an insult. However, that word is an insult used against black people as a way of saying that they are chasing approval, and to make it worse, the insult is dated back to white people saying that black people wanted to be slaves because they wanted to please their white oppressors. Thus, making the entire claim not only an insult but blatantly racist and disrespectful towards her.  

     Lizzo has received this insult as somewhat of a dig to her for working and profiting off a seemingly racist industry who capitalizes on their faux inclusivity.  

     Most of the hate that influencers, and even celebrities, receive is rooted in the misogyny, racism, transphobia, and fatphobia that society has normalized and somehow deemed okay to say to others. Though some of the hate may not directly seem as hateful as it truly is, looking just a little deeper would reveal that the hate these people received is much worse than meets the eye.  

     Because that really is all they are—people with real emotions and real lives who deserve better than the hate they receive all because haters refuse to see them as real people, refuse to see their struggles as real struggles, and refuse to admit that the hate they are spreading throughout the world is rooted in something deeper than just their opinion.