The Summer I Turned Pretty doesn't deserve the rage. Why are the actors being harassed over a vanilla romance?

‘He is pathetic, vile and an absolute manipulator. If you support him, that really changes how I see you,’ reads a Twitter comment.

Who could this be about, you wonder, if you read this in isolation. Is it about a former flame, who gaslit and broke this person’s heart, leaving them to pick up the pieces? Presumably, someone they know very well, who hurt them irreparably.

But… hold up. It’s about a fictional character. And it’s not just this one tweet—there are hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of posts debating two men named Jeremiah and Conrad, and whether Belly’s choice of Conrad is justified. Abuses, insults, and profanity are flying as both ‘Team Jeremiah’ and ‘Team Conrad’ battle it out online, two weeks after the show ended. It’s hypnotic to watch, the constant flood of posts, reels, and tweets, with each side insisting their hero is morally superior.

Full disclosure: Fan wars for love triangles are inevitable; no one’s doubting that. We did live through Team Edward and Team Jacob and Robert Pattinson’s latest interview where Jennifer Lawrence weighed in on The Summer I turned Pretty. Pattinson seemed to have turned a few shades paler, as he relived his Twilight days.

We also lived through The Vampire Diaries, where fandom was divided into battle camps, Team Damon and Team Stefan, and it grew to the point that Ian Somerhalder, who played Damon, actually wanted to leave the show in Season 3, alarmed by the craze around ‘Delena’, which means Damon and Elena, the protagonist of the show.

But in all this, everyone forgets, that it's...a character. The actor, has nothing to do with it. And now we’re witnessing it in real time again. In the recent interview, Jennifer Lawrence actually mentioned that her friends had warned her to not talk about the show, but JLaw still aired her opinions: She called Conrad, the final choice toxic, and rooted for Jeremiah.

Instantly, the outrage on Twitter began, trashing, and abusing Lawrence. “I don’t think that I can respect her again,” wrote one tweet. Lawrence will never know or care, but alright, this person has made their stance clear. The debates are so intense that while they still continue, it was also revealed that Gavin Casalegno, who played the role of the unlucky Jeremiah in the show, was harassed so much online and received hateful messages. Lola Tung, who played Belly had to make her point nervously in an interview, “It’s really not that serious, guys.” Think pieces and blogposts have been penned, accusing creator Jenny Han of being a manipulator.

She just wrote a story, folks. Get over it.

It’s not as if the show promotes violence, condones abuse, or depicts emotional or physical harm that could justify such intense debates—or the flood of hatred online. At its core, it’s a vanilla love triangle about a girl named Belly, torn between two boys. Both boys are dealing with their own issues, including the grief of losing their mother.

That’s it. Sure, it’s entertaining—and sometimes frustrating—but it doesn’t deserve the level of rage, resentment, and fury that makes it feel as though Conrad and Jeremiah personally wronged viewers. Some of the tweets and reels even make Jeremiah seem like the second coming of Sauron from Lord of the Rings.. You don’t have to be team Jer. You don’t have to be team Conrad. But you can be team-human-who-watched-a-show-and-quietly-forgot-about-it.

Maybe save your outrage for shows and films that actually perpetuate harm, rather than TSIP (The Summer I Turned Pretty).