Sydney Sweeney attends The 2023 Met Gala in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for … [+] Karl Lagerfeld)

Getty Images for Karl Lagerfeld

Sydney Sweeney is one of our era’s biggest celebrities. The movie and television actor has starred in huge projects, such as Euphoria and The White Lotus, and was even named IMDB’s most popular figure of 2024.

Yet, as seemingly beloved as she is, almost everyone in the public eye has to deal with vicious online comments. This hit a fever pitch over the past few days when the actor was flooded with negative comments after images of her in a bikini spread across the internet.

I won’t share the Sydney Sweeney photos in this piece, as it appears they were taken from afar and without her consent. What I will share, though, is a post the actor made on her Instagram documenting some of the cruel comments she received:

The online reaction around the Sydney Sweeney bikini photos is a prime example of how the internet enables abusive behavior and has standardized public shaming, especially for famous figures.

Before we get to that point though, let’s look a little closer at what happened.

How The Internet Reacted To The Sydney Sweeney Photos

We won’t be sharing any more of the negative comments, beyond what the actor shared herself, or the bikini photos that kicked this whole thing off.

A quick look at the replies under the earliest accounts posting the Sydney Sweeney bikini pictures reveal a deluge of people critiquing her appearance.

On a more positive note, since other people online were made aware of this reaction, they began posting in defense of the actor. Sometimes that involved using famous meme formats, such as this screencap from South Park:

Or making pithy comments that highlight the reality of women wearing makeup and getting dressed:

Or even just straight-up anger at what happened:

Just these three posts reacted against the shaming of Sydney Sweeney’s bikini photos have received millions of views—and there are a lot more out.

The question is, what has driven this internet storm? Why was there such a negative reaction?

Why Have The Sydney Sweeney Bikini Photos Been So Controversial?

Sydney Sweeney is far from the only person to be body shamed online. This is something untold numbers of celebrities have to deal with—and is a real disease of the digital age.

In a paper entitled “The portrayal of online shaming in contemporary online news media: A media framing analysis” by Shannon Muir, Lynne Roberts and Lorraine Sheridan, the authors break down why these sort of public shaming happens.

This “rapidly increasing” global phenomenon is described as a form of social policing driven by what people online see as “supposed wrongdoings.”

Like, for example, Sydney Sweeney appearing in unedited photos, in an uncontrolled environment wearing a bikini. As studies show, American women spend an average of 45 minutes “grooming” in order to try and meet beauty standards. When these aren’t met, are hit with what’s known as “a beauty tax,” which is a local backlash against them.

Research shows that beauty can confer moral worth, so, for some, the change in Sydney Sweeney’s aesthetic is akin to a failure. People can view her unedited photos as a moral collapse.

The internet can intensify this. The authors of the shaming study suggest that the rise of the online world and the ease of uploading content has resulted in “countless individuals participating in social or peer surveillance as a means of social control.”

In other words, the online world made it easy to get involved in shaming. What once was local, can now be global.

While this practice has existed for as long as humanity has, what’s different about the internet, the authors of the paper posit, is that “a genuine crime no longer needs to be committed” by the person being shamed. All that needs to happen are people perceiving moral infractions.

If groups think someone is doing something “wrong,” they feel validated to attack and shame them.

In the case of the Sydney Sweeney bikini photos, they viewed the unposed, non-edited images negatively, and then tried to shame her for what they see as wrongdoing.

But why? Well, the demographic of these abusive posters is interesting, as there were large numbers of men commenting on Sydney Sweeney’s body.

A big reason behind could be the rise of groups of lonely men on the internet. In a paper by Ruth Rebecca Tietjen and Sanna Tirkkonen called “The Rage of Lonely Men: Loneliness and Misogyny in the Online Movement of ‘Involuntary Celibates’ (Incels),” the authors discuss this, as well as the idea of “ressentiment.”

Effectively, ressentiment is a sense of hostility that someone directs towards what they perceive to be the reason behind their frustration.

The researchers state that this “mechanism of ressentiment transforms loneliness into misogynistic emotions.”

These groups of lonely men form online communities, but rather than helping with their plight, they do the opposite and make many members feel worse about their predicament. Men in these loose organizations blame women as a whole for their lack of success in life, both generally and romantically.

This leads to increased misogyny, which in turn can manifest in situations like the vicious reaction to Sydney Sweeney bikini photos.

What may have happened, then, is that niche online groups, driven by their own rage and loneliness, feel they have both the right and responsibility to attack someone like Sydney Sweeney for what they perceive to be her moral failing.

Putting the blame solely on incel groups wouldn’t be correct either. Yes, when others see their actions they can be inspired and validated themselves to comment negatively, but the drop of Sydney Sweeney’s polished image and her perceived moral worth, could have upset others.

People did come to Sydney Sweeney’s defense in huge numbers, which shows this connection between traditional beauty standards and moral worth isn’t ingrained in everyone.

Sadly, there’s no quick fix to this issue of online misogyny and public shaming. But things can change. It will require people to reckon with implications of morality, beauty, and public shaming, but that’s far from impossible.