Hola!

I'm drafting this dispatch from a cute cafe in the heart of Condesa, a funky neighborhood in Mexico City full of cafes, cute shops, and best of all: a ton of people who love their dogs. There are dogs everywhere. Am I in Heaven???

Have you heard about the feud currently unfolding between Selena Gomez and Hailey Beiber?

No?

You don't spend hours on social media following the antics of celebrities that you don't particularly care about and get invested in the drama because you love seeing people hash things out online???

Even if you don't care who these people are, there is something fascinating about watching a feud unfold in the age of TikTok and I want to talk about it!

Let's dive in.

First up, WHO are these people?

Selena Gomez: Grammy & Emmy Award winning artist, actress and producer. Disney Channel OG. Best friends with Taylor Swift. Ex-girlfriend of Justin Bieber.

Hailey Rhodes Bieber: Nepo-Baby trying to become an IT girl. Daughter of Stephen Baldwin, niece of Alec Baldwin. Best friends with Kylie and Kendall Jenner. Best known for… being semi-famous and marrying super-famous, I guess? Current wife of Justin Bieber.

Details: Selena and Justin dated on and off again from 2010 to 2018. Just two months after their last definitive breakup, Justin became engaged to Hailey. The narrative has always been the Selena was “the one that got away.” It's been FIVE YEARS since then. And yet, here we are, still entangled in some drama.

Phase 1: Mean Girls - Shots Fired

One of the staples of the mean-girl playbook is passive aggressiveness wrapped in a layer of plausible deniability. It's the "read between the lines and you'll get it" type of insult where you don't need to name names in order to target someone.

This is where our saga begins.

Selena had the unfortunate luck of being photographed by the paparazzi while wearing a bathing suit. For committing this crime she faced the usual punishment: unsolicited body commentary and shaming because our society seems incapable of being able to let women have bodies and exist in peace.

Hailey and Kendall, posted a (now-deleted) Tiktok using a sound that basically implied that Selena deserved the negative commentary she was getting. They didn't name anyone, but as I've said -- if you know these girls, you know who its about.

A few days later, Selena, still minding her own business, posted a Tiktok video about how she accidentally over-laminated her eyebrows. Once again, Hailey, joined by Kylie Jenner posted a screenshot of a FaceTime Call showing only their eyebrows.

And for some unknown reason, this became our Archduke Ferdinand moment, the unassuming detail that would unleash the fury of the Internet.

Fans started calling out Hailey & Co's behaviour and despite their denials and Selena telling her fans that she doesn't let things like this bother her, the flame had been lit.

*Cue the drums of war.*

Forces were amassing on digital borders, setting up camps in comment sections and mounting a defense campaign that no one saw coming.

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Phase 2: The Regiment of Receipts Has Arrived

Summon the Internet Cavalry and they will ride to your defense with receipts. In this case, a lot of receipts. In the social media age everyone has a pretty big digital footprint, and Hailey Bieber was no exception.

Thanks to Tiktok's ability to edit videos quickly, Selena's defenders insisted #eyebrowgate was the latest insult in a long campaign of shade. And they came armed with proof: clip after clip of Hailey copying everything from Selena's clothes to her interview answers. How many times can someone coincidentally copy you before it stops being a coincidence?

​Here is an entire playlist dedicated to the multiple (!!!) copying instances. ​

These videos were racking up millions of views. One user even uncovered Tweets from Hailey's account from 2011 talking about her love for Justin even before she ever met him. (Reminder: regularly delete your social media comments, people!)

Despite both Selena and Hailey remaining silent, the feud exploded into a full-blown media nightmare, driven by online communities creating their own content, eventually catching the attention of the mainstream media.

Online, the feud moved outside of Selena and Hailey's respective fandoms and into other communities, eventually reaching a critical mass on TikTok where it felt like everyone was weighing in.

I think supply/demand also played a big part as creators rushed to capitalize on this viral drama by making related content, increasing the reach and virality of the feud.

I cannot believe this all started because of eyebrows. EYEBROWS!!!

Phase 3: Memefication

Then the memes arrived. We moved beyond the court of public opinion and into straight up entertainment. The initial goal of sharing receipts, changed into a broader discussion. Jokes about the feuds became popular and all sorts of people started weighing in. PR accounts spoofed how they handle Hailey's crisis. This one has over six million views.​

Therapists, divorce lawyers, relationship experts and PR firms all weighed in. Thought pieces were published. Buzzfeed declared "The End of the Hailey Bieber Icon Era" ​

The verdict was in: Hailey lost. Selena Won.

​Creator @imevagrace wrote a song about Selena's imagined reaction to this conflict, currently with over nine million views. The song has also been used in combination with memes and commentary about the feud, adding a meta-level to the whole situation.

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Phase 4: Narrative Extension

Here's where things start to go off the rails.

The online narrative expands beyond the original conflict (eyebrows. Remember the eyebrows?) and starts to encompass other subjects like Hailey's marriage to Justin.

A new slew of videos are posted analyzing her body language, her photographs, her tone and that of Justin and their friends.

​In my 6 R's of Viral videos framework, I wrote about reinvention, where creators take the content past its original plot and into new territory.

The Internet is continuing the story without supporting facts. Instead of receipts, we now have conjecture. Instead of proof, just speculation.

Everything is analyzed. Facial expressions, interactions, body language. Theories emerge: they are unhappy, he's only with her for a green card, he never got over Selena.

This is the peak of interest in this story.

Phase 5: Mean Girl Rebound

The drama is finally winding down, but a different type of hypocrisy is emerging: the "mean-girl" has become herself a target of bullying.

The same people who rallied against Hailey bullying Selena are now becoming bullies themselves by flooding her socials with negative messages. It's one thing to release your take on this topic, it's quite another to go on Hailey's page and leave a nasty comment.

We're seeing how easy it is to cross the line between defense and attack. Nietzsche famously said "battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Clearly, he was talking about online feuds. (LOL).

Thoughts:

• Reputation remains a strong social currency. I'm watching to see how Hailey and her team respond to this crisis and if a come-back is possible. What will the ramifications of being a labeled a mean-girl be? Hailey has already lost over a million followers on Instagram including major celebs like Lady Gaga, Harry Styles, and Adele.

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• Don't underestimate nostalgia. Selena was able to capitalize not only on her solid reputation (she is known in the industry for being a genuinely kind person) but also the nostalgia of being a childhood staple of many millennials who grew up with the Wizards of Waverly Place actress. These people wouldn't normally make content like this but showed up to defend Selena due to that nostalgic connection.

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• More Nepo-Baby Pushback. I wonder if this was another reason this feud went so viral. On one side you have Selena who was NOT born into wealth or privilege being bullied by a group of Nepo-Babies. Many videos took Hailey to task for acting entitled when she hasn't done anything to deserve her current fame other than be born into a celebrity family and marry an international pop-star. Entitlement? In this economy?

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• New Weapon Unlocked: Making these types of videos is so easy now, that any fan can create their own "digital weapon" to protect their fave. Before Tiktok, not everyone had the ability to edit and upload a video, but now anyone can do so. I'm curious to see how this will impact inter-fandom conflicts and pan-fandom conversations and debates.

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Foushy Updates:

Currently: I'm in Mexico City for the next few days exploring and hanging out. I'm loving the green spaces, incredible food scene, and general laid-back vibes. After a number of quick trips last month it feels decadent to have enough time to write in a cafe, enjoy the weather, and wander in search of the best churros.

Up Next: I've got one full, glorious week at home before I have to hit the road again. When I did my monthly planning I knew this week would be important from both a rest and a work perspective so I've already designated it as a "no calls" week to maximize my uninterrupted focus time.