YOUR FAVORITE MTV SHOWS ARE ON PARAMOUNT+

Delete Your Account: We See You, Hillary

Also this week: Anderson Cooper explains 'delete your account' and FernGully High graduate Shailene Woodley does math

Delete Your Account is a weekly column that takes the hot air out of celebrities and their social-media shenanigans. Every Friday, I will decide whether each perpetrator should delete their accounts and never grace the internet again. This week, Hillary Clinton's clearly a fan of the column, and the media at large has no idea what Twitter actually is. Also, a Hollywood starlet should seek medical treatment for still "Feeling the Bern" after Super Tuesday, and two gay actors you've never heard of enter the Thunderdome.

HILLARY CLINTON

I'm honestly flattered that one of Hillary's interns has been reading this column, which probably happened in March when I told Hillary herself to delete her account for pretending a Bernie Sanders supporter at a coffee shop was #WithHer. I also beat her to the Donald Trump punch and told him to delete his account when he and Ted Cruz got into a Twitter spat over whose wife was more attractive. To be frank, that's a real reason to tell Donald to delete his account, but I'm not gonna fault Hillary's social-media team for wanting to cause a media sensation that has nothing to do with Bernie and his continued slouch toward Bethlehem. It would've been nice to get a shout-out, but maybe we'll find that Hillary's been reading my column once all those redacted emails surface.

The most aggravating thing about Hillary using the phrase "delete your account," however, is that a bunch of white people in the media clearly have no idea what the phrase means, even though they ostensibly use Twitter every day to promote themselves. CNBC does a really bad job while also making their opinion on the phrase sound like Tipper Gore discussing a Juicy J album.

"That's what kids use to, like, say they don't like you." What the hell are you even talking about? You could have found this column and invited a brother on CNBC to explain, but I get it. I'm not a white woman wearing a Chewbacca mask. And THEN there was the moment that felt like Brutus stabbing Caesar. Anderson Cooper goes on CNN to "explain" what "delete your account" means, using some overly verbose definition cobbled together from the New York Times. "Your tweet or opinion is so bad that you should be immediately disqualified from further participation on the platform." Did the crossword puzzle editor write that? It sounds like a fucking riddle Batman has to solve before he can save Gotham City.

Maybe even worse than any of this is the white people who think a simple usage of the phrase "delete your account" qualifies as shade. It doesn't. Shade, as an art, is a subtle thing. There's absolutely nothing subtle about commanding that someone vanquish themselves from the internet. Who knew that a simple phrase on the internet could reach "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" levels of pandemonium. (Or Dallas's "Who Shot J.R.?," if you're an old person or CNBC employee who doesn't know what The Simpsons or Twitter or 2016 is.)

And by the way, this was the best thing to come out of this entire mess:

Should Hillary Delete Her Account? No; what she needs to do is come and guest on this column. We could make magic together, Hillary. #GirlIGuessImWithHer

SHAILENE WOODLEY

Sis, did they not teach you math at FernGully High School? You should probably stop eating clay, because it's done something to your deductive reasoning skills. You don't have to be Nancy Drew to figure out that the word presumptive does not mean definitive. The AP used presumptive for a reason. Because they PRESUMED that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee, based on the number of pledged superdelegates she had (also, from winning the popular vote, but we don't have to get petty here).

But also, for as much as Bernie supporters hang on his every word, they don't seem to have heard anything he said before 2015 when they first discovered he existed. Because in 2008, PRESIDENT OBAMA WAS THE PRESUMPTIVE NOMINEE. And Bernie supported him being declared presumptive nominee well before the primaries were over. So, is the system rigged or is it only rigged when your candidate is losing?

Oprah Truth

Also, this is only a small sampling of Shailene's Twitter antics, because homegirl is ON ONE. Her account has turned into a Sanders live blog and I'm just wondering how her Divergent fans feel about all of this. Maybe the latest installment of the franchise wouldn't have flopped if she'd bothered promoting it instead of retweeting whatever tongues Jill Stein has been speaking in this week. You know, the woman from the Green Party who ran for president and thinks people actually noticed?

DYAJill

Should Shailene Delete Her Account? Yeah, because I'm not even sure she's the one tweeting all of this nonsense. Are we sure she hasn't been hacked? How does she even get Wi-Fi from her home inside the tree from Pocahontas?

NOAH GALVIN, PART I: THE VULTURE INTERVIEW

Wow. A controversy involving Colton Haynes that doesn't involve blackface. (We'll get to that in a moment.) Yesterday, Vulture published an interview with Noah Galvin, out gay actor and star of The Real O'Neals. While discussing the nature of being gay in Los Angeles, Noah said this of the recent coming-out of actor Colton Haynes in Entertainment Weekly: "That's not coming out. That's fucking pussy bullshit. That's like, enough people assume that I sleep with men, so I'm just going to slightly confirm the fact that I've sucked a dick or two. That's not doing anything for the little gays but giving them more masturbation material." You might be eliciting a Florida Evans "damn, damn, damn!" right about now — BUT THERE'S MORE. He also went after Bryan Singer, who's been mired in sexual-abuse allegations for years. Surely a result of Noah's publicist swooping in, his comments about Singer have been removed from the article, but I'm like Harry Potter when it comes to accio receipts, so here's his Singer statement in full:

DYAindustry

Clearly Noah was popping some prosecco and feeling himself during this interview, because I haven't seen anybody go in like this since 
 well, RuPaul's interview with Vulture. And herein lies the problem. Noah got a lot of flak for his comments about Colton Haynes (I saw no flak for his comments about Bryan Singer, but maybe I didn't look hard enough...), whereas the internet rejoiced when RuPaul's shady interview came out. I don't see how you can love "real talk" from one person, then not like it when it comes from someone else. Because if we're being completely one hundred here, as petty as the comments might be, he's not completely wrong.

Colton first entered the industry making money as a model for XY magazine, a gay publication. But as soon as he got a job on Teen Wolf, his lawyer threatened sites that published those images with legal action. Making your money off of the gay community, then turning around to try to sue them after you've used them is straight out of the Luke Evans playbook. After this incident, Colton responded to rumors that he was gay with a coy, "Was it a secret?" Which, sure, whatever. You can come out on your own terms whenever you want. It's not anyone's business. But the whole will-they-won't-they dance of stepping out of the closet, stepping back in, starring in a homoerotic television show and building a gay fan base, teasing them with "was it a secret?," then getting a spread in Entertainment Weekly is far from the natural coming-out experience of most teens, and the idea that it's inspiring is a reach.

Noah seemed completely fine with this interview yesterday, judging from his RT of someone's praise for his honesty. But this is Hollywood, after all, and so much can happen in a day


NOAH GALVIN, PART II: COLTON HAYNES RESPONDS

There's nothing I love more than the celebrity response via Instagram. Sure, you could tweet your response, but why not just type a huge note and then upload it to Instagram as a photo? You can be your own publicist!

I don't begrudge Colton his response at all. Someone came for him, and Colton should probably issue a statement. Of course, the gay media that admonished Noah for resorting to Real Housewives antics couldn't wait to proclaim that Colton CLAPPED BACK AT Noah with this post. Um 
 I don't see it. It's a perfectly fine statement, but there's no clapback, there's no drag. There's the signing off as "Colton 'Pussy' Haynes," which is cute and all, but it's not a drag. "I'm sure I'll seeya around." Still not a clapback! You know what? I don't even have a problem with any of these actors. We could all benefit from out gay actors speaking how they feel, because even if it's wrong, it starts a conversation about the glass closet in Hollywood that desperately needs to be had. I'm not expecting Colton to parse anything from an attack on his person, but I'm mostly embarrassed by the gay media, which has addressed this situation with all the nuance of a Zack Snyder film. It's not about choosing sides. It's about having a serious conversation about the environment we're creating for LGBT actors in Hollywood.

I will say that despite how Colton came out, I don't really give a damn. He can be gay and dye his hair blond and live his life to the fullest. But he will always get that drag from me, personally, because he not once but twice dressed up in blackface for Halloween. And then when he was called out on it, issued the wackest apology for blackface I've ever seen this side of a Southern college campus. It makes Julianne Hough's apology sound like Emily Dickinson.

Should Colton Delete His Account? No, I'm living for the hair dye fashion tutorials we've been getting lately. But maybe he should stay away from the MAC counter with the dark skin makeup.

NOAH GALVIN, PART III: THE APOLOGY

Noah's initial interview was published at 9 a.m. ET. This apology was published at 6:14 p.m. ET. Look at how quickly that Hollywood machine works! There's not much to say about this apology, except that he was clearly snatched from the parking lot of Trader Joe's, thrown into the back of a trunk, and plopped into a seat at ABC Studios, where his own publicist and the studio's publicist held him at gunpoint until he released that apology. Because a quick scan of Noah's "likes" tab on Twitter shows he was gleefully raking in all the praise for his article before his team was like, "Hold up, they don't love you like your paycheck loves you."

Should Noah Delete His Account? No. He's only 22 years old. If this is what we're getting from him fresh in the industry, I can't wait to see what kind of social-media mayhem he's causing in a few years.

MJpopcorn

Latest News