Candice Brown Just Reminded Twitter About The Dark Side Of Television
A new season of "Great British Bake Off" premiered in Britain on September 21, and that means Twitter once again lit up with the #GBBO hashtag. It's still early, and GBBO Twitter is still getting its feet wet. People are making relatable memes from screenshots of the show, or they're trying to decide who they're going to stan this season. "Stan" is fitting because GBBO fans do get a little obsessive ... and more than a little mean. In 2014, after GBBO baker Claire Goodwin was the first contestant eliminated, Twitter trolls body-shamed her and blasted her for crying on camera, according to the Daily Mail. Winning "Bake Off" doesn't bring immunity from the trolls either, as Nadiya Hussain can attest (via Closer).
Just last year, "Great British Bake Off" finalist Laura Adlington was attacked by Twitter trolls merely because she advanced while a fan-favorite in the semifinals did not, per Cosmopolitan. All the hate directed toward Adlington even prompted GBBO judge Paul Hollywood to get on Instagram and ask the trolls to stop (via Heart).
GBBO winner Candice Brown doesn't want this year's bakers to endure Twitter trolls
The problem with social media is that it's too easy to judge others, invisibly and anonymously, while those others are putting themselves out there and actually doing something. What's not easy is stepping into the famous white "Great British Bake Off" tent to confront the pressures of the cameras, the competition, and the clock. Contestants already get plenty of judging from those assigned to the task: Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith (via Channel Four).
In case Hollywood's Instagram message from a year ago is no longer fresh in viewers' minds, former GBBO champion Candice Brown decided to post another anti-troll public service announcement at the beginning of this new season. She tweeted a photo of herself from the 2016 season with text that read, in part, "I felt proud, I knew how lucky I was, I loved every second of it. I also got torn apart by trolls." Her message to the potential trolls of 2021 was, "If you have a s**** thought then keep it a thought. If you don't and you choose to be mean publicly then I hope you get the squitts." (Our British-to-American dictionary couldn't help us with that last word, but we think we get the picture.)
If trolls were lurking around Brown's tweet, they apparently took her advice and stayed quiet. Twitter user @ChelleBL had some wise words, though. "No one should ever get trolled for putting themselves out there," she said. "Everyone this season, you do you and ignore what everyone else says ... well, except @PaulHollywood and @PrueLeith."