The Real Reason TikToker Addison Rae Has Fans Seeing Red
'Tis the season for TikTok meltdowns... Yes, not only toddlers, but also viral sensation celebs also have their not-so-adorable moments at this time of year. First we had the D'Amelio debacle where Charli and Dixie dissed their personal chef's paella, and now we have Charli's arch-rival Addison Rae who seems to have forgotten that the COVID-19 panic is not "so last summer."
Just a few weeks back Rae seemed to agree with Ariana Grande when she criticized social media stars who were out partying and socially doing anything but distancing. She (Rae, not Grande) told Pap Galore, "I just have been trying to stay in and work out. I've been working out a lot and also preparing for my movie." Well, it seems prep time is over, since she's now out and about filming that movie, which is bad enough, but what's truly egregious is that her filming schedule required that one of L.A.'s largest COVID testing sites be shut down for a day! While The New York Times reports that the proposed shutdown was canceled at the last moment, social media, a.k.a. the hand that fed Rae, is now giving her a well-deserved biting because of it.
L.A. residents felt disbelief and disgust at the city's priorities
According to the Times, Rae, plus about 170 cast and crew members, would be filming a scene from He's All That, a gender-switched reboot of 90s teen romcom She's All That, at Union Station. While movie shoots probably disrupt L.A. transport hubs on a daily basis, the problem is, Union Station these days happens to be one of the city's main COVID testing sites. All appointments for testing on December 1 were to be canceled due to the filming, with full blessing of the local government, at least until homeless outreach and advocacy group Ktown for All made a stink. This finally caused L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti to tweet a retraction saying that testing would go on as scheduled. One Twitter user cast some doubt on whether that actually happened, however, saying: "I have a friend who had an appointment there today and it was canceled and he hasn't heard anything since."
Another non-Rae fan tweeted: "in hour two of my wait for a covid test at dodger stadium but it's good actually that garcetti closed a testing site so addison rae could make her little she's all that remake because we need a bad she's all that so everyone can appreciate the good original." Still another Twitter user said "very on brand for an influencer to be put above covid. jimmy died but at least addison rae got to hit the woah on a freddie prince classic."
Rae may have been upset by the backlash
Although Rae never addressed the testing center shutdown directly, her Twitter account for December 1 and 2 is full of little comments that may possibly have been prompted by either the delay in or change to her filming or the vocal criticism of Rae herself.
She first tweeted "accept the things we cannot change, and change the things we cannot accept," then a cryptic "ugh," followed by a sad face emoji and a mood status of stuffing her face. She then switched to passive-aggressive holier-than-thou mode, asking rhetorical questions like "can everyone in the world just be nice for one day and we just see what that's like" and "imagine if everyone collectively said 'ok I'm just not gonna be hateful today' and then we were only positive!!?!! that's such a simple choice and for some reason people think it's impossible to do."
She got over it pretty quickly, though
After one last "stop wasting your time on earth (that is not even promised) on hating people," followed by the contradictory directives to "stay mad" and "BE NICE," Rae no longer seemed to be too bothered by the whole issue, or by whatever else had been bugging her. Two days after the planned COVID testing cancellation, she'd moved on to tweeting about holiday gifts as well as retweeting a Kim Kardashian tweet of a Kylie Jenner TikTok video. And such is the attention span of a social media influencer...
But then again, audience attention spans are pretty short, too, as Rae may come to find out sooner or later. Her videos, and her movie-to-be, may not seem quite so relevant anymore in a post-pandemic world where many of us may have much bigger things to worry about than keeping up with the Kardashians or what brand of pricey makeup makes for the best stocking stuffer.