The actor’s natural selfie attracted some pretty shameful responses.
Another day, another celebrity receiving online trolling for simply existing as they are… and this time, it’s Emilia Clarke. Her crime? Uploading a candid selfie to Instagram of herself beaming at the camera, sans filter.
In the image, shared with her 27 million followers, the Game of Thrones actor smiled and posed with a mug that read, “You’re doing f*cking great.” She captioned the photo, “Mum got me a mug. I felt it was important to share this new found wisdom. Use it and reap the rewards.”
One of the hashtags she used read, “mycoldjustgotitsmedicine” – suggesting that in-between her hectic Hollywood schedule, she’s been battling that pesky, mega cold that’s been doing the rounds with reckless abandon lately
And though lots of Clarke’s followers were quick to send her love, well wishes and messages of support, sadly, it didn’t take long for others to unpick her appearance.
Taking the time to share a screenshot of the photo to his Twitter feed, one user – with nearly 100,000 followers, wrote: “Lmao wow Daenerys Targaryen didn’t just hit the wall she flew into it full speed on a dragon.”
And this hurtful and unwarranted theme continued under the image, with people cruelly criticising Clarke’s natural features. How dare they?
We can’t work out what we feel more sad and enraged about, that so many women felt it was acceptable to tear down another woman based on her looks, or the fact a man with a large following felt it was ok to publicly mock a female actor. We’re tired, not to mention bored, of having to continually watch women, both in and out of the public eye, put up with hurtful, damaging comments on their appearance from – often nameless – people, typing from behind their screens. We’re tired of having to continually call it out, though we will never stop doing so, and we’re bored stupid of women being boiled down to the sum of their appearance.
Thankfully, the negative comments seemed to be a minority on the post, with many of Clarke’s fans leaving her messages of support, encouraging her ignore the rude barrage and and praising her strength after surviving two aneurysms during the filming of Game of Thrones, both of which were near-death experiences.
One fan wrote, “you’ve survived far worse than this, keep going,” while another said: “Ageing is a privilege and doing it so naturally and with such grace in a world of filters and plastic surgery is even more so.”
Clarke has previously discussed her own thoughts on ageing, telling Elle: “”You’ve got this idea of ageing, and then you’ve got the idea of what aging makes you look like. At 34, I am wiser, more intelligent, I’ve had more experiences, I’ve done all this stuff, and I’m proud of that. You can only do that because you are the age you are. Time is the only thing allows you to do those things. So, if my face is gonna reflect the time that I’ve spent on this earth, I’m down for that.”
Amen. And, for the record, Emilia Clarke, we think you’re beautiful – inside and out.
