How social media created an online feud.

For months, members of Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber’s fanbases have quarreled on various social media platforms. Selena Gomez had an on-and-off relationship with pop star Justin Bieber between 2010 and 2018. Hailey Bieber married Justin Bieber in 2018. The two women have supposedly “dissed each other” online since Hailey’s marriage to Justin, and their respective fanbases added fuel to the fire. The rumors started to dwindle when the two were photographed together in 2022 at the Academy Museum Gala.

The drama skyrocketed in February 2023 when Selena jokingly posted a TikTok that she over laminated her eyebrows. In the clip, Hailey Bieber posted her FaceTime video with Kylie Jenner with their eyebrows zoomed in to the camera. Fans believed Hailey’s post was in response to Selena’s TikTok, and from then on, many individuals took to social media to declare which star they sided with. Seemingly, most fans advocated for Selena Gomez, and in turn, her streaming numbers and Rare Beauty (her makeup brand) sales rapidly increased. On TikTok, the #teamselena received over 1.8 billion views, and Hailey Bieber was perceived as the instigator of the ongoing hostility between herself and Gomez.

Bieber received death threats, lost thousands of Instagram followers, and was accused of copying Gomez in her past tweets and Instagram posts. However, in late March 2023, both Bieber and Selena took to their Instagram stories to express that they had conversed privately and were ready for the internet controversy to end.