Haters Gonna Hate

A week or so ago, when Angelina Jolie announced her double mastectomy, I went to the blog Jezebel, which is about all things female. There was a lot of praise for her, but many said, "I'm not a fan of hers, but..." I wonder why they had to mention they weren't fans of hers, but I think this is part of a trend in culture since the Internet--the propagation of irrational hatred.

This hit its high water mark when there were dozens of articles about the hatred of Anne Hathaway, to the extent that they are known by a name--Hathahaters. Dozens of writers tried to figure this out, suggesting everything from her presumed insincerity to the shape of her face. Other women have suffered this kind of weird vitriol, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Zooey Deschanel, and Jolie.

Which begs the question, what the fuck? This is a strictly female thing. Men are only concerned with how these women look naked, let alone start a blog about it. What is it about women that inspires this attachment to celebrities? Is it envy, an especially entitled judgmental attitude? Some women say they don't like Hathaway because she reminds them of girls they knew in high school. I'd say they should get over it.

However, men are not exempt from irrational hatred. With men, it's sports. There are vast numbers of haters of Tim Tebow, the New York Yankees, or Duke, and I'm one of them. And men do create blogs about this. But though this is irrational--whether the Yankees win or lose affects my life in zero terms, at least there's a sense of competition involved--I hate you because you beat me. Or I hate you because my father hated you. Or it's simply hatred because sports invites a kind of hatred that is born of rivalries. Those who are part of a rivalry like that, whether it's Red Sox/Yankees or the old Dodgers/Giants, can turn the hatred into a perverse kind of love.

Maybe that's what women do, too. They zero in on something annoying about a celebrity and then let it grow like a pearl inside an oyster. But really, what did Anne Hathaway do to anyone?