Only days after news spread that Star Wars: The Last Jedi actress Kelly Marie Tran deleted her Instagram in response to abuse from fans, Stranger Things actress Millie Bobbie Brown has done similar with her Twitter account. The move is the latest celebrity who decided to leave social media following fan criticism, bullying, and backlash from critics and fans.
Brown’s decision to leave her personal account behind comes with an odd wrinkle related to the type of “memes and gifs” the actress had been receiving according to Variety:
The Emmy-nominated actress has been plagued for the past seven months or so by the hashtag #TakeDownMillieBobbyBrown. It began with posted photos of Brown that were been altered to make her appear homophobic. Per Nylon, the hashtag apparently was coined in November but has regained momentum lately. Some Twits have had a grand old time with it, while others insist that it’s strictly for gay people and that “hets shouldn’t interact.”
Variety adds that the memes are an inside joke with the LGBT community online, but it is still confusing to many. Not only that, but the apparent joke was lost on plenty of fans, and some publicly thought that Brown was posting homophobic content on social media. As Deadline adds, the reasoning behind it doesn’t matter at this point and Brown is gone from Twitter apart from her anti-bullying account that hasn’t been updated since December 2017.
Brown and Tran are only the most recent, joining Daisy Ridley’s exit from Instagram and Leslie Jones’ much-publicized exit from Twitter in 2016.