Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber speak out on online bullying
A new question tonight about what happens when celebrity stan culture goes too far with superstars calling out the drama and calling for an end to stuff like online death threats. That is what we are hearing from superstar Selena Gomez today who's posting on Instagram now that she's been in touch with Hailey Bieber who's also very famous and who's also been getting death threats. Selena wants it to stop. Long story short Selena fans have basically gone into attack mode doing what they see is defending Gomez. They think Bieber mocked her online. To Bieber it's just bullying the cross the line. That's why today's post from Selena Gomez is such a big deal.
Bieber is thanking Gomez tonight to saying we all need to be more thoughtful about what we post and what we say. She includes herself in that. I want to bring in now entertainment TV host Andrew Freund. Andrew we're good to have you on it. Glad to have you on this topic because it's not just about it's been on everybody's for you page. Like I have to think it's been everywhere. If you have any online social media presence you've heard about the Selena Hailey stuff.
To me that's not the point like the newsy point. The newsy point now is Hailey Bieber has been getting death threats. Selena Gomez is coming out and basically telling her fans like Yo guys like chill out a little bit here and we see it with not just these Selena fans. We see it with Taylor Swift fans. We see it with Beyonce fans. We see it with BTS fans. I'm just naming a few of the big ones here.
They are they are so so loyal to the person to the celebrity that they adore. Yeah. And you know it's funny because when I was doing some research for this I was looking at the numbers and the stats because I love a good stat. Hailey I love a good stat. And so bring it up a on TikTok alone 750 million people have done hashtag team Selena and 57 million people have done hashtag hashtag team Hailey. Sorry. Hailey team Hailey Hailey Bieber.
Yeah. Yeah. And I kept thinking like if those amount of people put all their effort in like I don't know say getting rid of voter suppression as opposed to Selena and Hailey Bieber the world could be a little different place. And it is getting absolutely out of control. And you know no matter what side someone's on in this pop culture thing when you start getting death threats because of who you're married to or who you're seeing it's getting a little crazy. And honestly it has to do with social media and people posting. And you know it's OK for fans to be enthusiastic about their favorite artists.
But when it gets you know to death threats it's getting a little bit over the line. Well so to the point you're making no like listen people can stand who they want to stand like no disrespect to people who are really into Selena Gomez or Hailey whoever like whoever you like go for it. Right. The question is when it does start to take a turn who does the responsibility fall on at that point. Is it up to the social media platform. Is it up to the artists themselves. Is it the fans themselves holding the other fans accountable.
I think it's a mix of all those things. But what I will say just having done this for a long time is these celebrities live in a totally different world where they're surrounded by yes people. So they think that whatever they do whatever they post it's not really going to have an impact because everyone around them is like that's great. That's great. You're great. And then you know they post something and it explodes. And a lot of times people are like did they know that if they post this something and sometimes they actually don't know.
And another thing that I'm finding is it's kind of sexist because it all is mostly surrounding women against women like when J. Lo started dating Ben Affleck again. Did A. Rod get death threats. I don't remember hearing anything about that. But when it comes to two women like Selena like Hailey like Beyonce like Nicki Minaj there's something in the zeitgeist about pitting women against each other which I really hope it stops. People need to take a chill pill.
It's just showbiz. It's just entertainment. We all just got to love each other. It's Friday. You know I'm channeling my inner zen right now. That's what I'm doing. Channel away.
Andrew we will join you in just about an hour and seven minutes when we're off the air. Thank you so much. I appreciate that breakdown. Thanks for watching our YouTube channel. Follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the NBC News app.
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