Lips, Fat, Gums, & Vagina Eyes

I know there's irony in the fact that I love the "Mean Tweets" bit on Jimmy Kimmel more than anything. I look forward to a new Mean Tweets more than I do a good cupcake. However, I think it's because the celebrities reading them have a sense of humor about it. They're okay with poking fun at themselves and watching their confident reactions to the tweets make it all even funnier. As an aside, I didn't really enjoy when other celebrities read the mean tweets ABOUT Jimmy, for his birthday, because it's not as fun when the person isn't reading them himself. Except, of course, Larry David, because of his overwhelming laughter at what he was reading. That was funny as hell.

I watched some of the American Music Awards last night. Or, I should say, I put it on, and I was half listening. I just wanted to see Kelly Clarkson and Pink's singing collaboration. I didn't know they opened the show together. I thought it would be at the end. I watched as much as I could before falling asleep. I did catch Christina Aguilera do the Whitney Houston tribute. I thought her voice sounded great. I didn't really feel any kind of way about her look. She looked pretty. I was more focused on her voice and seeing whether she was going to sound like Whitney, or change things up.

On Wendy Williams this morning, Wendy talked about how mean people were about Christina's look on Twitter. Mostly about her lips. People were tweeting that she sounded good but she should stop getting lip injections. I'm sure there were worse comments. I thought Wendy was going to defend Christina or something but she jumped right in. She wasn't awful about it, but I just thought- Why?

Mean Tweets is a bit that came out of way people feel it's okay to just pick people apart, publicly, TO them. Or about them. I thought it was brave of Christina to take on Whitney. Watching all the singing reality shows, we always hear- you don't take on Whitney, Mariah, Celine, or Adele. People are especially protective of Whitney's memory, so that had to be a scary undertaking for Christina. Yet, people wanted to just attack her look.

How about Kelly Clarkson, who always is a powerhouse, yet, most of what people want to talk about is her weight. Luckily she doesn't seem to care, as she recently said in an interview when she was on Howard Stern. It can't feel good though! It would be better if people didn't find it necessary to tweet about someone's weight.

This movie Wonder came out, that I know is from a book. I don't know the book and didn't read it obviously, but I've seen some press on it. I gather the meaning in it is to be kind. To accept people no matter how they look. And I bet some of the people who tweet about Christina's lips, Kelly's weight, or Gwen Stefani's gums (I saw that in a Facebook group this morning) are going to go see the movie Wonder. They'll cry, they'll feel all warm and fuzzy, but then the message will be lost as they walk back into daylight. They'll go back on their phone and fire off a tweet about how People Magazine must have been blind to pick Blake Shelton as the Sexiest Man Alive this year.

Psst...Guess what? No one is agreeing on the Sexiest Man Alive. I'm not sure I've thought any of the men on the cover were the Sexiest Man Alive.  But I also don't CARE who People Magazine crowns this honor. But people get CRAZY about People's choice. CRA-ZY!

I guarantee that no one Mean-Tweeting would say any of their observations about appearance TO Christina, Kelly, Gwen and/or Blake. If they were to run into any of them, you know they'd be asking for a selfie.

Many will say it's no big deal. They're celebrities, this is what they signed up for. I just don't think that's true. All of these people have talent. They have talent that the average person doesn't possess. They're famous because their talent somehow brought them a platform to be in front of millions of people. I don't think just by being born with talent should make you a target for being what I'd call cyber bullying. Yes, they have the choice not to be on social media and not to engage, but the comments are out there, whether they read them or not. The comments get talked about on the news, in magazines, and who knows where else. It's everywhere and probably really hard to escape unless you live as a recluse.

I guess I just don't get the motivation to be mean just for mean's sake. I'm not immune to gossiping and judgement of celebrities. I read People Magazine and US Weekly. Yes, I have opinions about the clothes, the styles, and I have thoughts about how people look. The difference is, while I might have that conversation with a friend in passing, I don't feel the need to tell the world in a personally directed Tweet that someone's eyes look like vaginas (that was a Mean Tweet last week- don't remember to whom it was directed!).

Sadly, I don't see things changing. We are where we are. Pandora's Box has been opened and people feel like they can say anything behind a computer screen. It would just be great if people would realize that no one needs their public opinion on how someone else looks. I'd like to see all the photos of people who tweeted about Christina's lips. I am going to venture to guess that Christina, with or without lips, would still look better on her worst day. I thought she looked great.

Christina's Whitney tribute: