Celebrity culture is weird. The relationship that the internet has developed with celebrity culture is weirder. These days, the second a celebrity moves, breathes, posts, speaks—does anything—on social media, the entire internet jumps to make a judgment. Immediately, comment sections and online platforms get swarmed with questions. Word of “Why did she say that?” or “Why would he do that?” or, “I think this is what happened” or “No, this is what really happened” spreads like wildfire. Take a recent example: Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni. 

The controversy between the It Ends With Us co-stars first emerged in August 2024 when promotion for the movie began. Lively wanted the film to seem like a fun, girls-night watch, while Baldoni adamantly drew attention to the film’s message about domestic abuse. To add fuel to the fire, the two were never seen together in press releases and barely interacted at events. The internet immediately assumed they were feuding. By Dec. 20, 2024, tensions had apparently boiled over, with Lively alleging that Baldoni had sexually harassed her on set. Following the initial complaint, Lively filed a lawsuit against him for sexual harassment, breach of contract and retaliation.

Again, the internet jumped behind a new opinion immediately. Those who had criticized Lively’s initial behavior surrounding the film were quick to shake their heads at Baldoni and throw support behind Lively. Naturally, upon hearing such claims, it makes sense that people would want to support Lively. But just a few days after Lively’s lawsuit, Baldoni launched a countersuit against her on claims of civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy. 

Once again, public opinion quickly changed. Many, without even reading into any of the information presented about either side of the suits, decided Baldoni was in fact innocent. Very few people stopped to actually consider the facts that had been presented over the past few weeks. To the online community, there was more merit in making false narratives and quick judgments than there was in actually trying to understand and unpack the situation. 

It’s easy for us to say our opinions are harmless, that it doesn’t matter if we say something about a celebrity because they’ll never hear it anyway. But that’s not always true. Each time a person contributes to online discourse about a celebrity, that person is contributing to a celebrity’s life being opened and dissected on the world’s largest, most permanent platform. We talk about celebrities like we know what’s happening in their lives, but we don’t. Our judgments are completely extrapolated. Any one thing you say about a celebrity is based on second-hand information. 

At the end of the day, celebrities are human too. When we jump in to make a comment or a post about some random drama that has nothing to do with us, we are making comments about real people. Their lives are not ours to dissect. 

That being said, it is impossible to stop the entire internet from talking about celebrities’ lives because they are public figures with public lives. They will always be talked about in some capacity that is larger than what they can handle, and that’s out of our control. What is within our control, however, is what we say and when we say it. 

You have complete liberty to say what you want about a celebrity, but it should stay as close to the facts as possible. It should hold as much truth as possible. It should be researched and properly understood first. Without the proper background knowledge, all you are doing is adding to a conversation that is designed to ruin somebody’s life.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Emma Hu at ehu@hilite.org.