Bella Thorne had a big year last year, making headlines for a slew of music videos, getting engaged, and of course, her pandemic success story on the subscription social media site OnlyFans. Of course, the latter drew new scrutiny of her person and her brand, both because of her choice to join the platform and for how she handled the monetary structure once on the platform. Recently, Bella Thorne spoke out about social media, cancel culture and why she refuses to let the haters win.
Bella Thorne is known for being no-holds barred in interviews, and the social media figure and actress recently spoke about how she in particular has been perceived on social media and how she personally feels about the criticisms she's had to take on the regular. She even worked in a relevant mention to the Britney Spears doc that's been a hot topic in recent months, telling Harper's Bazaar:
You can’t fucking win. If I get rid of social media, it means they’ve won. I just have to keep being myself even if it gets me in trouble. I have to stay myself. We view women as objects, so when you’re a female celebrity, it’s double because we also view celebrities as objects. The Britney documentary is a good reference.
While some celebrities have chosen to take breaks from social media or leave platforms entirely, Bella Thorne has taken almost the opposite approach. She's all over the Internet, with a popular Instagram page and music videos dropping on YouTube on the regular. She's also one of the major names tied to the subscription social media industry and made headlines in 2020 for the way she handled her entrance onto the popular platform OnlyFans.
Subscription social media has become a way for celebrities to earn some extra money and to share more intimate content with their fanbases. Some of the time this means nudes -- though not in Bella Thorne’s case, as she’s kept stuff PG-13. Other times this simply means an unprecedented look at what celebrities are thinking (Cardi B) or even behind-the-scenes looks at what stars are up to on set (Georgia Hirst). No matter what you choose or how you handle yourself on social media, Bella Thorne firmly believes pleasing everyone is “not humanely possible.”
You literally cannot please everyone – it’s not humanly possible. You’d have to be multiple people. Someone will always disagree with you, but when you’re famous, they voice that feeling online and start some cancel-culture shit and make the whole world disagree with you.
At the end of the day, social media is a tool and it's one that each famous person has to decide whether or not to use on his or her own terms. For now, Bella Thorne is firmly in the social media is a plus faction, though she is pretty emphatic here about her choices online. We'll have to wait and see what the future brings, but for now it's at least interesting to hear about different celebrities in different social media camps and why they choose those particular paths for themselves.
