Hi there! I’m Stella Spragg. I am a junior and here at Stella’s Statement I will talk about pop culture, current events, books, and everything else under the sun!

If you are active on social media platforms like Instagram and Tiktok, you probably know of the drama surrounding pop singer Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber. It’s all I have seen on the internet the past week. It began when Kylie Jenner and Hailey Bieber posted an instagram story supposedly making fun of Selena Gomez. This caused fans to break out in a frenzy making the situation widespread on the internet, and even though Selena was the supposed “victim” of this online bullying, she began to receive hate comments. 

Selena Gomez was diagnosed with lupus in 2014 and she continued to share a lot of her journey with her fan base following the diagnosis. Lupus is an autoimmune disease that affects the skin, kidney, and joints. Instead of healing the body and fighting against infection, lupus causes the immune system to attack the healthy organs of the body. Selena eventually grew a complication from her lupus, which caused her to have to get a kidney transplant.  As well as the physical tolls lupus took on her body, the disease caused depression and anxiety which began to take over her life. She has spent every day since being diagnosed learning to handle this disease and all that it entails. 

Following the recent internet drama between the two celebrities, loads of people were commenting on Selena’s Tiktok videos commenting on the weight she had gained in her face and other features of her body due to a lupus flare up. There’s no telling if these comments stemmed from the drama, but it definitely brought a lot more people to her social media platforms commenting on these things. Either way, the unnecessary hate being brought not only to Selena but to Hailey as well is growing each and every day. Tiktok videos are the main contributor to the drama as of right now, with people posting videos comparing Selena and Hailey and their past relationships with the pop singer Justin Bieber, who is also Hailey’s husband. This kind of drama is all about assumptions and cancel culture, and while Hailey and Selena have both dismissed the idea that there is some type of feud going on between them, fans refuse to believe it and continue to spread hateful messages. 

Both celebrities have preached kindness and love in the past, and they even posted a picture together after past drama trying to dismiss all assumptions about their personal lives. Though they personally tried to push that there was no need for all of the drama, the media still creates a reason out of anything.

The negative effects of social media is something I will continue to discuss in the future, but this is a very good example of how the media can depict a person or thing and target them for something they assume has happened. Social media can create hateful users if they get too wrapped up in it, and while I do know a lot about this situation, it is mostly because I’ve done my research. Social media creates a society with toxicity that can harm many people on the internet. Sure it’s only on your phone, but it’s in the real world too.