HBO"Wear your scarlet letter thotchel."
"The behive is coming after you rat and then you'll be known as becky with the bald hair bc beyonce snatched u."
"No talent ass, home wrecking ass, "Becky with the good hair" ass HOE!!!!"
Those are the types of phrases being thrown at Rachel Roy, the woman that Beyoncé is allegedly referring to on the song "Sorry" off her Lemonade album. After Roy posted what fans took as a nod to the lyrics on her Instagram page the same night Lemonade aired on HBO, Beyoncé's fans, aka the BeyHive, came for her.
They flooded her social media accounts with bee emojis and insulting jabs at her supposed affair with Beyoncé's husband Jay Z until her comment section was a cacophony of hateful noise.
This was expected. Beyoncé's fans will come for anyone that dare disrespect their queen, from Amber Rose to Lululemon. When Roy made her account private to ward off the stinging comments, the BeyHive went for someone else.
No, not the man who also allegedly did the cheating. Though you will see his Twitter mentions are also filled with similar comments. The Beyoncé fanbase went after Roy's daughter on Instagram with comments like:
"Sorry your mom is a hoe."
"Your mother is a worthless whore."
"Hoe just like your mother. I hope you don't follow into her footsteps. Keep your legs closed to married men, Becky."
Did we mention this girl is only 16 years old? And therein lies the problem with passionate fanbases. Sometimes good intentions go very, very bad.
To be fair, there are plenty of Beyoncé lovers in Ava Dash's mentions that are begging other fans to stop harassing Roy's daughter. They are just hard to spot among the all-caps, rage-fueled paragraphs that are splashed with words like "slut" and "hoebag."
The Beyhive had such crazy tunnel vision that they didn't take a breath to make sure they were attacking the right person on social media! Poor celeb chef Rachael Ray got a big chunk of the backlash from the masses because no one stopped to make sure they were yelling at the right Rachael on Instagram.
Something similar happened when news broke that One Direction's Louis Tomlinson was expecting a baby with Briana Jungwirth. Instead of congratulating Tomlinson and Jungwirth on their upcoming child, 1D fans viciously attacked Briana online. From the second the news broke last year to this very morning, Briana probably hasn't seen a day where a Directioner isn't spamming her with terrible comments on Instagram.
Why are fandoms so quick to turn the love for their idols into rage toward another person? Well, we can definitely blame the Internet. Now these fans have access not only to the celebs they are devoted to but also to anyone who has anything to say about them EVER.
It's also possible that these fanbases don't think it's enough to just buy the albums and see the concerts. But now you have to fight the battles and smack down anyone who you deem unworthy in your eyes. Fans have so many channels to display their devotion (Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), so maybe they feel a responsibility to be the eyes, ears and mouth for the star who doesn't (or won't) engage in the online conversation.
It's also easy to fall victim to a mob mentality when it comes to fandom activity on the Internet. One person sees someone else writing the exact thing they are thinking on Twitter, and they are given instant validation that it's fine for them to follow suit. And so on, and so forth. Suddenly, thousands of people who might have thought twice before tweeting insults at a stranger are doing it without skipping a beat, simply because the rest of the fanbase is partaking. A wave of hate from a fanbase is quick moving and once it starts, it can't be stopped.
We might never know for sure whom Beyoncé was referring to in that song, if she was referring to anyone specific at all. All we know for certain is that while the Beyhive will keep buzzing along, it's important to remember that just because you're a fan army, doesn't mean you always have to go to war.