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To no one’s surprise, people are still being incredibly unhinged about The Summer I Turned Pretty. At the start of the third and final season of the series, official social media accounts for the show encouraged viewers to “keep the conversation kind this summer” and avoid bullying, doxxing, and hate speech in online discussions. But fan battles about the love triangle at the heart of the plot have only become more intense, insane, and borderline psychotic with each weekly episode release. It has gotten to the point where author and series creator Jenny Han has stepped in, too.
“I know fans of the show are passionate and no one has bad intent,” Han wrote in an Instagram Story post on Aug. 26, the night before a particularly pivotal episode of the series would premiere on Prime Video. “But even in jest, posting images of a woman being slapped or choked is not funny.”
Fandoms reacting to series and engaging in discourse about their favorite and least favorite characters is nothing out of the ordinary, but something about The Summer I Turned Pretty in particular has unleashed an unusually combative sense of engagement.
The Summer I Turned Pretty follows main character Belly, who still has feelings for her first love Conrad even though she’s engaged to marry his brother Jeremiah. The book series that the show is based on concluded more than a decade ago, so it isn’t the case that no one watching knows what happens in the end. That’s how adaptations usually work. Still, people are allowed to form their own opinions and have their own preferences — and that shouldn’t come with vitriolic attacks on social media.
Earlier this week, Love Island USA star Leah Kateb deleted a TikTok post about the show because of backlash she received from viewers. “I’m not about to fight over a TV show,” she said in a new post, noting that she deleted the video after 15 minutes because of the “comments and DMs” that started pouring in. “Be whatever team your heart desires. Defend whoever your heart wants. I’m gonna watch it on my own in private.” She added: “To be honest, I think all the characters are annoying as fuck. Go argue with the wall.”
Drew Afualo, who built her TikTok following by tackling misogyny and pissing off men who see themselves in her criticism, similarly found herself warring with viewers over her take on the show. Despite opening a video with “I need everyone to remember that nothing I’m about to talk about is ever that serious,” the post sparked backlash to the point that people who disagreed with her opinion challenged the very morals that have been foundational to her career.
“Some of the videos I’ve been seeing made about me, in regards SOLELY to my ‘team’ choice for this fictional scripted tv show, has women saying things to me that are actually very upsetting & weird to see/hear,” Afualo wrote on Instagram earlier this month. “Watching white women call me a PERFORMATIVE feminist & ‘not a real feminist’ solely bc you prefer one fake brother over the other, is a level of tone deaf idk how to really articulate nor process.”
She added: “Using a pop culture reference to anchor your belief that someone aligns with BIGOTRY, is not only confusing to me but also incredibly insulting. That would be like me demanding you tell me whether your team Edward or Jacob, and then called you a bigot in some fashion if your choice didn’t align w mine. Popular media is fun, expressive & important, and art is subjective … If you don’t agree w my ‘take’ that’s okay! Bc we can both have opinions! And i don’t think you’re a bigot for yours! So i would appreciate the same courtesy.”
The Summer I Turned Pretty will conclude on Sept. 17, 2025, at which point hopefully the mass psychosis some subset of its viewership has been experiencing all summer will subside.
