If you have been on the internet at any point in the last 10 years, you have probably encountered the “White Boy of the Month” phenomenon. This concept mocks cyclical online trends heralding a new famous white boy for his looks and charisma. From viral pictures of Logan Lerman with salt-and-pepper hair to the reevaluation of Jeremy Allen-White, any Caucasian male celebrity can have his moment in the spotlight. With that in mind, it is natural to wonder what the female equivalent of this phenomenon is. In my opinion, famous women also get a monthly revival; their names start to trend on Twitter, Buzzfeed pops out 30 opinion articles about them, and the internet’s newest “Most Hated Woman of the Month” takes over. Before anyone points out the laundry list of sins for the women in this article, I want to clarify that the women in this article are not perfect or above criticism. However, the vitriolic hatred women are met with online, particularly when contrasted with male absolution and idolization, is astonishing. 

A few years ago, Brie Larson became the target of online hate after she played Captain Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film of the same name. Though it started with reasonable criticism of the movie and Larson’s acting, dislike of the film rapidly turned into a hate campaign against the actress. People analyzed and dissected Larson’s interviews and concluded that her co-stars disliked her. Larson’s history of advocacy for diversity in cinema was rewritten as a man-hating crusade by MCU fans. Her previous statements on diversity were twisted into the narrative that she hated men, and she was deemed too woke for Marvel. Suddenly, every social media site was littered with video compilations and rants explaining why Brie Larson sucks. Even after the steady decline in the quality of MCU movies and the plethora of controversies that have plagued the cast and crew of these films, the hate towards Brie Larson surpassed each of these in extremity. 

Hatred of female celebrities has been normalized. To this day, Joey King’s face ignites unabashed hatred in people’s hearts. The young actress has received constant, undeserved online hate. After the “The Kissing Booth” movies, King publicly dated actor Jacob Elordi and was mocked for her looks, which snowballed into mass judgment of her personality. Now, every project her name is attached to becomes subject to ridicule. 

A very different example of this phenomena is Jennifer Lawrence, who was an internet darling for a while, until everyone started to hate her. Lawrence was the poster girl for relatable celebrities; she was awkward, clumsy, silly, and pretty. Between professing her love of pizza too often and tripping during award shows twice, the internet got tired of Lawrence’s relatability and the hate began.  Eventually, Lawrence took a five-year break from acting, partly due to the wave of criticism leveled against her. 

Women of color experience a different form of online abuse at the intersection of racism and sexism, but the cycle is the same. Usually, a young woman of color is placed in proximity to one of the internet’s favorite white boys, and all hell breaks loose. This cycle is particularly insidious because of how unwarranted the hate is. Usually, women of color receive this treatment simply for succeeding in their field. When Avantika Vandanapu was fan-cast as Rapunzel with Milo Manheim as Flynn Rider, the internet rallied against Avantika, outraged over the casting of a brown woman in a previously white role. The actress received backlash over a rumor, and her comments filled up with racism and misogyny. The same thing happened to Rachel Zegler after being cast as Snow White in the live-action movie. Zegler was deemed “too dark” to play Snow White. The onslaught of hatred for these actresses snowballed because people weaponized their criticism of blind casting to scrutinize these actresses’ every move. Zegler was accused of being ungrateful for criticizing the original Disney film. As a result, her personality and looks were moralized and used against her.

Earlier this year, British actress Francesca Amewudah-Rivers was cast as Juliet in a stage version of “Romeo and Juliet” alongside Tom Holland. Fans of Holland attacked the actress for her looks on social media. The online abuse spread, and Amewudah-Rivers received violently racist and misogynistic messages about her suitability for the role. Though Amewudah-Rivers had starred in the BBC show “Bad Education,” she did not have the same level of fame as her co-star or any of this article’s aforementioned celebrities. The backlash against Amewudah-Rivers was horrific, directed at her because of her proximity to a beloved “White Boy of the Month” and rooted in misogynoir. Most of the hatred directed at her came from people who would never watch the play, and this hatred would have never occurred without Holland in the role. It was simply online communities taking advantage of a situation to disparage a woman of color.

The celebrities on this list will recover from the hate campaigns against them — some already have. Celebrities will likely bounce back from internet hate, but this is a cycle. Men accused of violence (Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Chris Brown, etc.) receive less backlash than women accused of being rude or annoying. Actor Jared Leto has maintained a successful career despite having several sexual assault allegations and a history of inappropriate behavior. Casey Affleck settled two harassment lawsuits in 2010 and had a thriving career after that. Ben Affleck admitted to groping Hilarie Burton and managed to keep his role as Batman. But Anne Hathaway says she started losing out on major roles after #HathaHate during the early 2010s. Hathaway was criticized for her lack of relatability and seemingly self-absorbed demeanor. 

Online celebrity drama might be a frivolous thing to be worked up about, but it says a lot about how we treat women in real life. In our social and professional spaces, we tend to hold women to higher standards of conduct and moralize their behavior. Men are rarely vilified for being rude, annoying, or impolite, but we use these characteristics to decide if women are worthy of respect. How we treat female celebrities reflects what we think about the women among us; it exposes how we act when there are no consequences.