Zooey Deschanel: It's "Weird" People Criticize How I Speak

New Girl star talks about haters “attacking who I am” and the negative culture surrounding online anonymity

By Rebecca Macatee Aug 05, 2013 4:27 PMTags
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Haters gon' hate—even on someone as adorkable and lovely as Zooey Deschanel.

The 33-year-old New Girl star opened up to Marie Claire's September 2013 issue about the unnecessary put-downs she encounters on a regular basis, and why she thinks this type of meanness is affecting our culture as a whole.

"I became aware that people were criticizing the way I speak, which seems weird to me," she said. "I speak the way I speak, and I am an intelligent person. Sometimes I lean into California-speak more for entertainment value. It's not that I can't live in a world without the word like."

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"My theory is that people in this day and age want to dismiss things. So they want to be able to dismiss you. They say, ‘You don't belong, you don't deserve this because here's why, and let me find an intellectual argument for why you wearing pink or cuff sleeves or a bow makes you not worthy of your accomplishments," she said. "Everything you've done doesn't matter because you wore the wrong thing or you speak in a way that's feminine or you identify yourself as feminine.' And I just think that's bulls--t.

"And smart people are doing it, and that's surprising to me," she lamented. "I'll give them being smart, but they're being very shortsighted."

"It's just attacking who I am. A lot of times it doesn't have to do with what I get paid to do," she said. "It has to do with, ‘Oh, you stupid person.' Even I get slammed and overwhelmed by how negative the Internet can get, and I'm an adult."

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Zooey understands that this type of criticism can have a much bigger negative impact on the younger generation, particularly teenage girls. So, she cofounded HelloGiggles.com, a positive online community for women, to help provide a snark-free zone for girls. "I just felt it's important to teach young girls to be strong people, to not think, I can't do this because I'm worried about what people will say... We can't have the next generation be so afraid because they have been attacked."

On a personal level, the actress doesn't "pay any mind" to the haters, but admits, "it's pretty shocking how when you give people anonymity—it's like the worst of human nature."

There's some truth to that, sadly. But, there are still a lot of us braking for birds and rocking polka dots, and we've got to stick together.

PHOTOS: See Zooey's best red carpet looks!