Caroline Calloway anti-fans and why some people love to hate HEAD TOPICS

Caroline Calloway anti-fans and why some people love to hate

10/21/2022 6:49:00 PM

It' s true We talk about the psychology of why mutual dislike brings people together this week on @endless_thread

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It's true. We talk about the psychology of why mutual dislike brings people together this week on endless_thread: This week, we investigate the rise and fall of online influencer Caroline Calloway and the bigger question: Why do some people love to hate? Caroline: But I, but I've ordered the other five from Black bookshops. So I would like my ally cookie now.Ben: Caroline and Jaws have some things in common. They’re around the same age. They’re both white women. But Caroline grew up in an affluent suburb, and went to prep school. Jaws says that’s a background she can’t relate to. Amory: So it sounds kind of like Jaws is saying that...this isn't really about hating Caroline Calloway, but hating all the ways that society is unfair, and gives certain people — who are white, who look a certain way, or went to certain fancy schools — more chances than other people. Read more:
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Caroline: Austin Channing, let's f****** go., an essay in The Post’s (late, lamented) Outlook section about how my 18-month-old daughter, Gwyn , was smitten by the saccharine, twinkle-toed, aubergine dinosaur and how left out I felt.However, there will be new guidelines.Article Share As we hurtle into the final stretch of the midterm elections, many of the Democrats who were elected in 2018 are now staring into the abyss of defeat. Ziwe: Now, you're a vociferous reader. How many of these books have you read? Caroline: Honestly, of the nine books that I recommended on my Instagram, I've read four.” The essay went as viral as things could in those barely digital days. Ziwe: Wow. Then the city will choose three businesses that can each put out 500 rental bikes or e-scooters for the 2022-2023 season. Caroline: But I, but I've ordered the other five from Black bookshops. I was interviewed by the BBC. So I would like my ally cookie now. Yet that coalition is not mobilizing against it — allowing Trumpism to remain as a durable force in our politics. Ziwe: There are no cookies in this game. Advertisement It was kind of fun being briefly famous.  "Well it's already enough traffic.] Amory: By this time, Caroline was getting into sex work. Selling water color paintings of her boobs for about $100 a pop. This documentary — “I Love You, You Hate Me” — brought it all back. She had joined OnlyFans and had promised to make “cerebral softcore porn."They don't stop for people.” She’d claimed that Playboy was doing a spread with her, which Playboy then denied through a spokesperson. Somehow I’d missed how curdled and violent the Barney backlash became in the years that followed.) had national security and military careers. Ben: Caroline had also come out to say that she was addicted to Adderall in college. And the same year that her workshop tour fell apart, detailed by her hate-follower Kayleigh Donaldson, the same year a close friend wrote a tell all for New York Magazine, Caroline’s father had died by suicide. (Well, stupid college gatherings.  "They really don't bother me but I hope that people take more care of them, put them back where they're supposed to go," Roxie Montalvan said. This was catnip for Smol Bean Snark and the thousands of commenters there. Ben: Caroline and Jaws have some things in common. There is no Barney-on-Barney violence, but there is San Diego Chicken-on-Barney violence. They’re around the same age.) had been an MMA fighter. They’re both white women.) I won’t spoil the documentary’s various VH1 “Behind the Music”-style revelations, but suffice it to say that a lot of sadness seemed to cling to a show that was meant to make kids happy. But Caroline grew up in an affluent suburb, and went to prep school. Jaws says that’s a background she can’t relate to. The documentary posits a unified field theory of fin de siècle snark, where the nascent internet and the cynical sarcasm of David Letterman combined to form a bitter brew. Jaws: I grew up like super, super poor, um, food bank, not-knowing-where-I'm-living-next poor. Um, I think that's, it's, I guess I would consider myself middle class now, but like very newly middle class. What the filmmakers don’t do is examine whether “Barney & Friends” was any good to begin with. Ben: For Jaws, Caroline’s privilege is part of what makes her so compelling. Jaws: I think that she is a classic American story of failing upward. Rogers, Big Bird and Kermit, without trying to understand why those characters didn’t receive the same level of abuse. Looking at the things that she's done and looking at the chances that she has gotten over and over and over again, would not be afforded to literally anyone else, but a privileged white woman. Amory: So it sounds kind of like Jaws is saying that. In 1998, I reviewed “Barney’s Great Adventure,” His Purpleness’s leap to the big screen.. . Kids are capable of much more interesting flights of fancy than those illustrated on the morning TV program.this isn't really about hating Caroline Calloway, but hating all the ways that society is unfair, and gives certain people — who are white, who look a certain way, or went to certain fancy schools — more chances than other people. Ben: Well, Jaws doesn't want to idealize what's going on here.” Advertisement But maybe that’s elitist. Jaws: I … (Sigh.) Kind of go back and forth on this, because I do think that ultimately at its heart, snark is just like, it’s a hobby, like any other random weird hobby, like following celebrity gossip. rex. Like, I think that if you wanna do something that's like bettering society then like do something that's actually bettering society. Don't pretend that like, talking about like a privileged white girl is doing that, but at the same time, The conversations that I've seen and like the writing that I've seen, um, on the subreddit, has been really interesting and I think does lead to a lot of really good, interesting, important conversations about class and education and like sex work and like feminism. Barney was barely capable of half an entendre. Ben: I mean, on the one hand, I get it.. The documentary did make me question my knee-jerk reaction to the show and to things like it.. sex work, class, race. I don’t think me watching Barney with my daughter was ever going to make me a better person... See you soon.these are a lot of themes that are interesting to talk about — to dig into, and dissect on Reddit. Amory: Plus, Caroline isn't always easy to sympathize with. That interview with Ziwe is rough to listen to. Ben: Not great. Not great. I definitely get why a lot of Redditors wouldn't want to be friends with Caroline Calloway. Or rent her an apartment. But where's the impulse to spend so much time and energy talking about her coming from? Amory: Sure, if you don't like someone just don't engage. Ben: Mute 'em. Amory: Unfollow 'em. Ben: Don't spend hours dissecting their every move on a forum with thousands of other people on the internet. Amory: Yes! And yet. ..people just can't help themselves. Ben: It’s like that popcorn thing. Michael Jackson eating popcorn. Amory: Yes! They love to snark and to bond with other people through snarking. Ben: This desire to bond and form community with people over a shared dislike of another person? That's just human. Jennifer Bosson is a psychology professor at the University of South Florida. She's studied how disliking the same person brings people together — more than liking the same person does. Amory: I have so many questions. Like, why does it have to be people. Can’t it be the same cheese or something? I don’t know. Anyway. The idea for this research came about in grad school. Jennifer and one of her fellow grad students shared a common enemy. Jennifer Bosson: Each week there would be multiple times when we would kind of, she would come out of her office at one end of the hall and I would come out of my office at one end of the hall and we would just kind of walk toward each other and we would be like (growls), we would just like knew with our facial expressions that we were like, we needed to talk about this person. Amory: Their need to vent about this third person was a big feature of their friendship. And it gave Jennifer her research question: is mutual dislike more powerful at bringing people together than mutual admiration? Ben: The answer: yes. Jennifer has a theory about why. Jennifer: It's more appropriate, socially appropriate to share, to express favorable than unfavorable views of other people. By confessing a dislike, you're kind of violating norms, and that makes you a little bit more trustworthy, because you're clearly not a person who's merely, um, saying falsely positive things to make a good impression. Amory: But while we all know the thrill that can come from venting to your friend for five minutes…it’s still a little hard to wrap my mind around snark as a hobby that people spend hours and hours on. Ben: Brooke Erin Duffy is a professor of communications and Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Cornell who has actually studied this. Brooke Erin Duffy: When I tell people that I study influencers, there's this sense that, oh, it's, frivolous. There are people just, you know, selfies and, and posting them. They're narcissistic. um, this is work. This is a form of labor. Amory: Labor because, Brooke says, there’s more to this influencer game than meets the eye — photo-editing and logistics, managing brand deals, engaging with fans. Ben: As part of her research on influencers, Brooke studied a gossip site that was a precursor to a lot of the snark subreddits: a forum called Get Off My Internets . Amory: Get Off My Internets is devoted to bloggers and influencers. It offers perfect examples of anti-fan communities — which, Brooke says, consist of more than just your average haters. Brooke: This essentially is when people are united in their hate or dislike for a person or personality. And the reason I said that these are not just haters is, the anti-fan is characterized by a strong investment and does a lot of work to pay attention to the person. Amory: Like digging up lawsuits against the person. Snooping in publisher's records to find the person's contracts. Looking up a person's parents' property records to assess their family's wealth. All things that have been done on the smolbeansnark sub. Ben: Smol beans, Amory. Amory: Smol. Excuse me. Ben: There are some recurring themes in the criticism of influencers like Caroline. That they're lazy and don't have"real jobs." Amory: And — a criticism that has been leveraged against women since time immemorial — that they're"fake." In Caroline’s case, that’s attention to filters on her pictures, questions about lip fillers, botox, and the way she frames her life story online. Brooke: Painted ladies was a euphemism for prostitutes in the Victorian era, um, cosmetics and makeup, which is an everyday part of life for a lot of people, these had this like very crass ntation that had to be overcome through marketing. And so all of this is to say that the politics of fakey have long been gendered. So I think that's part of what's going on in this site, but also. I don't know who is on this site because they're all behind pseudonyms, but much of the research I've come across says that it's mostly women. And so the site is really about, um, women critiquing other women in this public forum. Amory: That's right, the subjects of the snark on Get Off My Internets — the snarkees if you will — were almost all women, and so, it seemed, were the snarkers. Brooke: This really speaks to the larger ways, like the politics of beauty and the politics of childcare in our society. And so that for us, helped us to make sense of this kind of curious gender dynamics underpinning the site. Amory: Brooke and her fellow researchers have an academic term for all of this:"displaced feminist rage." Ben: Brooke and her colleagues theorize that, in hunting for evidence of fakery like Photoshop or lip fillers, the people in these online anti-fan communities are railing against regressive norms holding women back. The subjects, like Caroline, are just stand-ins for societal problems. Amory: But because these stand-ins are real people — Brooke says that the people on these forums are also engaging in a form of gender-based violence. The academic term: horizontal misogyny. Brooke: I think there's a tendency to say, oh, this is just cattiness. This doesn't really matter. And, you know, again, these are, these are rooted in larger concerns about how, how women should behave and, what are the boundaries around acceptable, feminine behavior in public space? Ben: Which kind of goes back to that term basic b****, right? Like that is a term that is way more common than something like basic bro, and it's effectively being used to police the behavior of women and maybe sometimes it's being used by women to police the behavior of other women. Amory: Since we’ve been talking about smolbeansnark — moderator Jaws does have some rules about what can be discussed there. No contacting Caroline. No wishing physical harm. And no “bodysnark” about things that aren’t Caroline’s choice. Ben: Still, to the people who are the subjects of these anti-fan communities, the commentary can definitely feel like more than “just cattiness.” Julia Allison: I believe snark is a cover for hatred. Amory: We’ll hear from the subject of an anti-fan community after the break. [SPONSOR BREAK] Ben: Ok. So we've been talking about why there's a subreddit with thousands of posts hating on this one woman, Caroline Calloway. And part of the reason is just because trash talking is fun! And it bonds people. That's human nature. Amory: But also when it comes to anti-fan communities about people online, people who are branded “cringe” or “fake” or “trying too hard.” Those people are often women. Ben: Now, they are women who are at least a little famous. Women who are putting content out into the universe. Jaws — the moderator of the Caroline Calloway subreddit — says that’s why Caroline feels like fair game. Jaws: I've been asked like, why do you like, pick on this one particular person? Well, she's put herself out there in a way that is very intentional. She has chosen to make this her livelihood. And honestly, it kind of comes with it. Like, if you want people to be talking about you, which I genuinely think she does — Like, I, I think that she really likes that — you don't have control over what they're going to say. Amory: But does any of that trash people talk on the internet seep into real life? How does it feel to have so many people actively rooting against you? Caroline declined our request for an interview, so we're not sure how she feels. But we talked to someone whose story has a lot of parallels. Julia: I'm Julia Allison. I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts and I run a conscious PR firm called Reimagined media and a brand new nonprofit called Solutionist. Ben: Solutionist aims to help social media creators share content that has a positive impact on causes that they care about. Ben: It's so interesting 'cause I, I assume it sort of connects to your own past as an influencer. Right? Julia: Oh, this was a direct karmic apology, yeah. It’s not random in any way, shape or form. Ben: Ok, so why does Julia feel like the universe needs an apology from her? Ben: By some measurements, Julia was the first Caroline. In the early aughts — Julia rose to some level of celebrity because of a blog where she posted links to the clothes she was wearing. The make-up she was buying. We didn't really have a word for it then. But Julia was a proto-influencer. Amory: An influencer who the internet loved to hate. Gawker wrote dozens of posts mocking her content. They called her the"fameball queen," a"wannabee,""famous for not really being famous." They speculated about her sex life. They made fun of her boyfriends. And people flocked to the comment sections, adding their own snark about Julia. Amory: Like Caroline, Julia is a conventionally attractive white woman, who grew up in a relatively affluent suburb. She's from the north shore of Chicago. Ben: Also like Caroline, she first found some level of internet celebrity when she was at an elite university — in her case, Georgetown. That's when she started her first blog. And discovered her very first anti-fan community. Julia: I had taught myself HTML in 1999 when I was very lonely my freshman year of college and created what was in essence a blog, what was literally a blog, and immediately got my first hater. I mean, this is a true story. Ben: Julia’s first website was called juliajuliajulia.com Julia: And I swear to God, someone created a site called JuliaJuliaJulia sucks.com. (Laughs.) Ben: Wow Julia: Unbelievable. Yeah. And I didn't know this person and they didn't know me, but they were deeply offended already by my existence. Amory: Julia says she was shocked when she found this blog. And sad. And that's another thing she has in common with Caroline. Before the smolbean subreddit, there was a Facebook group snarking about Caroline's Instagram account. Caroline talked about discovering the group’s existence on the Going Mental podcast . [Caroline: It absolutely wrecked me to go from thinking that there were just like some people who didn't like my account or would leave an occasional mean comment to realize that there was an organized group of people who, every time I did anything were going to be there to pick it apart, whether it was just, you know, anything, what I was reading, what I was wearing, what my face looked like, what my hair looked like, what I said, what I misspelled, what font color I chose, what I, anything that absolutely wrecked me. I was like literally incapacitated for like one week with grief. And that was really bad and I really tended to believe them.] Amory: Julia Allison knows this all too well, the more famous you become, the more haters there seem to be. Julia got a column in Time Out New York, she eventually even her own reality TV show, and her anti-fan community, grew larger and larger Ben: In 2008, Radar magazine voted Julia the third most-hated person on the internet. Instead of ignoring the vote, or condemning it, Julia released a statement thanking all of her detractors. It started with:"Wow, you hate me! You really, really hate me!" Amory: I mean, that’s good. If people are going to do that, that a pretty strong response, in my opinion. And at least this was a laughing-with situation, as opposed to being laughed at? Ben: Kind of. Julia: So if let's just say we had a psychiatrist or a psychologist, look at the situation. From my perspective, it was a classic abusive relationship. I just went along with it because I didn't know what else to do. I was 26. I had no power. I had very little money. I didn't have people backing me. I was on my own in New York City and I just tried to do the best I could with what I had. I had no mentors. One of the, one of the things that people often said is, oh, you were in on the joke. Oh, you were a part of, it was like, that was the best I could come up with. I didn't have the security or the strength or the wherewithal to say, f*** no, f*** you. Ben: I wonder what you think about this idea that sometimes people find community online in this kind of snark or criticism or hate? Julia: Yes. I think… (Sigh.) People are so desperate for connection and for community that they will take whatever way they can to find that community. And I know at least for my haters, they bonded very deeply with each other. They exchanged book recommendations and they talked about their cats and they talked about their struggles with their jobs. And they, what they really were looking for was an experience of being seen and recognized within a group. And the thing that tied them together was their shared distaste for what they believed I represented to them. So, the projection screen that was Julia Allison to them. And then they just lived out their desire for connection through snark. But snark is such a, a light word for the things that they did. And I think snark is a really, dangerously, how do I wanna put this? I believe snark is a cover for hatred. And by using the term snark, you allow people to quote unquote, get away with something that potentially in another context, wouldn't be societally acceptable. Ben: Sometimes that snark about Julia bled from the internet and into her real life. And her family's real life. And friends. And the businesses she was working with. Even her boyfriends' parents would get random emails about her. Julia: I spent a ton of money on lawyers just to keep people from, you know, like literally they tried to stop my business dealings. They would email all the companies I worked with. Tons of defamation issues. And, and you might be like, oh, that's silly. Like, who cares if they called you a slut or whatever, but it's like, when they're emailing your place of business and doing that, that's just gross. Ben: This was no longer a joke on the internet. This was harassment. And, Julia adds, she was famous, but not famous famous. She wasn't a movie star. She couldn't hire security. Amory: Julia herself looks back at some of the content she made in her 20s and cringes. Which she hinted at when she called her work today with Solutionist a karmic apology. Julia: I was not serving something bigger than myself when I was in my twenties. I was not tuned into the planet. I was not, I cared about people, but I wasn't actively in alignment with values that I had thought clearly about. You know, here's my outfit. Here are the dates I'm going on here. Here are the celebrities I'm talking about on television. Do I think that that's a good use of, of life? Not really. No, which is why I don't do it anymore. Amory: One could say the same thing about snark as a hobby. Not a great use of life. Ben: But back then — Julia did want attention. And, like Jaws said, negative attention is just part of the deal right? Well, Julia doesn’t buy that premise. Julia: If someone had handed me a legal contract to be an influencer back in the early two thousands, when I started and I had read the fine print about what would happen and what people would feel entitled to do to me and to say to me, well, first of all, there's no f****** way I would've signed it. Ben: Yeah. Julia: No way, but when you're starting into a profession that literally didn't exist and there's no precedent, you can't possibly know how it's going to affect you. And even if you, for some reason, thought that it was a reasonable expectation that you'd be harassed. Um, there's no way to understand how that can affect your psyche. I mean, I, it took me 10 years to begin to heal the wounds of having hoards of people literally wanna destroy my life and anything good in my life. Ben: Yeah. Julia: I have just receded completely from the public eye because it felt like s***. Ben: So yeah, if you haven't heard of Julia Allison? Or you had, but you kind of forgot about her? All of the snark is part of the reason. Amory: We asked Jaws what would happen if Caroline followed in Julia's path and just stopped doing the things people love to hate. Jaws: I think that would be great. Like, I’m sure there would be a small part of me that would be upset to not have that source of ridiculous content anymore, but like, again, like that's, you know, that's her, her choice. Ben: And then in March, shortly after that lawsuit and those pictures of her apartment went viral, that's kind of what happened. Caroline Calloway kind of went away. She deleted all of her old Instagram posts, and she stopped posting new stories. Amory: And without there being a lot to comment on anymore, the new threads and posts on the smolbeansnark subreddit are getting fewer and farther in between. Ben: Caroline has gone dark on Instagram before. But this time might be different. Amory: Just like the blogs that were popular when Julia was in her 20s gave way to Instagram, Instagram is giving way to TikTok. Caroline’s medium of choice is just not as popular. Ben: And Caroline might just be entering a new stage of her life and career. For better or for worse, for most people, fame is fleeting. Amory: Most likely, the void she’s leaving on Reddit will be filled with disdain for another influencer, or “D-list celebrity.” But Ben, I’d like to think that maybe, just maybe, people will find something better to do with their time, they will resist the temptation to bond over someone they don’t like… Ben: Yeah. Photoshop some arms onto some birds for the birds with arms subreddit. Amory: Exactly. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Ben: Make a short horror film about the back rooms, you know. Amory: Watch some power washing videos together, right? Like let's gather around lovely things. Things we, we, we love together. Maybe this is just me getting older, but I think it feels so much better to just be like, Hey man, you do you, live your life. You wanna do that? Cool. I'm gonna go do that. I'm gonna go Photoshop some arms on some birds. Have a good one. Ben: Endless Thread is a production of WBUR in Boston. Amory: Want early tickets to events, swag, bonus content? Access to the AmoryAmoryAmory.com friendly web forum? Pictures of Ben wearing an Orchid crown? Join our email list! You’ll find it at wbur.org/endlessthread. Ben: This episode was written and produced by Grace Tatter. Cohosted by Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Our web producer is Megan Cattel. The rest of our team is Nora Saks, Quincy Walters, Dean Russell, Matt Reed, and Paul Vaitkus. Amory: Endless Thread is a show about the blurred lines between digital communities and a creativity workshop where you have to bring your own salad!? And salad. If you’ve got an untold history, an unsolved mystery, or a wild story from the internet that you want us to tell, hit us up. Email Endless Thread at WBUR dot ORG. Ben: Ok, goodbye! Good luck. Amory: Ok, goodbye! .