‘I Regret My Grudge’

Photo-Illustration: The Cut: Photos Getty Images

For about four years, Cece was an active poster on snark sub-Reddits — especially r/fundiesnark, which is devoted to fundamentalist Christian influencers. The 29-year-old proofreader from the Washington, D.C., area grew up among Evangelical Christians and was fascinated by them, especially during the first Trump administration when religious right-wing influencers seemed to be everywhere. Soon, Cece (who asked we use a pseudonym) had one snark sub-Reddit that was her favorite. It was dedicated to a former fitness influencer who pivoted to religious content after she converted to Evangelical Christianity. Cece became obsessed, visiting the influencer’s snark sub-Reddit multiple times a day. “She was just like catnip to me,” says Cece. “I can’t explain it.” Over time, however, as she saw the forums descend into what she refers to as “mean girl behavior,” she had a change of heart — and now regrets her former grudge against her influencer bête noire. Cece spoke to us about her time as an online hater and how she eventually quit the snark forums (for the most part).

During the pandemic, I had nothing better to do than be on the internet all the time, and I was on r/AreTheStraightsOK when I saw somebody mention this influencer who’s a trad-wife, Evangelical type. She had some really rancid takes — stuff like, “obey your husband,” “men are always right,” “women are always wrong.” Someone said, “Yeah, we see her on r/fundiesnark all the time,” and I was like, “Wait, there’s a sub for this?” So then I clicked in, and that’s where I was introduced to all these random influencers who make their money off of being Christian.

I grew up in a really religious area. I wasn’t religious, but I had friends who were. They wore purity rings and lived their lives in a way I didn’t understand. I always had this outside-looking-in perspective. This was just an opportunity for me to kind of get my fix, like, what are the crazy Christians saying?

From there, I discovered this fitness influencer turned Evangelical who was accused of scamming people by selling these personal-wellness programs she never actually provided and then pivoted to Christianity. She was so fake and awful, and the grift was so clear. It felt obvious to me that she got in trouble for doing something, and then she was like, “I found Jesus, and now you can’t hold me accountable.” She also kind of looked like the stereotypical influencer — she’s got a crazy tan, she’s had all kinds of work done, and the filters on her photos are insane.

Very quickly, I went from not knowing anything about this woman to checking up on what she was doing on her social media every day. I left some mean comments about her appearance — about a week before she announced her pregnancy, I commented something about one of her photos, like “WHAT is that pose?!” And then a week later: “Oh, that was a ‘hiding the bump pose.’” Or I would leave a few comments on her form at the gym. It was just kind of easy to make fun of her. I would scroll the sub-Reddit before bed, just to see what she had been up to. And at a certain point, I was like, Why do I care? Like, why do I care so much that the last thing that I do before I go to sleep is see what my favorite mean girl has been doing? Why am I spending time and energy keeping tabs on this person who I don’t like or respect?

I wasn’t obsessed with this person because I liked her content — I was obsessed because I disliked it so much. But at the end of the day, it’s the same result. She’s still getting attention. She’s still getting Instagram views, so she’s getting money, and I’m indirectly funding her lifestyle. You know the old adage: “The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy.”

I started to have misgivings early on. At some point, people accused her of lying about having a miscarriage or policing her language on how she talked about having a chemical pregnancy. That was really weird, and it wasn’t cool. It fell in the category of “this celebrity is never gonna see you calling them fat, but your fat friends will see you call someone else fat.” I don’t really care about this influencer, but I care about the other people in this forum who are trying to conceive or have had miscarriages and are watching us make jokes about it. That was pretty upsetting to me.

The people on the snark sub-Reddits would make fun of influencers’ hair, skin, teeth, clothes. An influencer would do a live video, and there’d be six or eight posts in the forum about the video that day, talking about a two-second snippet. There would be days and days of discussion based on, like, one screenshot. And that really was not what I was there for. I was there to talk about these people’s bad ideas, not their appearance. But once you have picked someone apart that much, you get desensitized. You think, Oh, it’s just another Evangelical Christian being homophobic, whatever. Then you just reach for the lowest hanging fruit. We know this from middle school: The easiest thing to make fun of somebody for is never their ideas. It’s always what they look like.

I stopped commenting on these sub-Reddits a few months ago. I checked the former fitness influencer’s snark sub-Reddit about a week ago, just to see if anything new was up. So I’m not, like, out out. But I’ve kind of lost interest in her. I wasn’t interested in talking about the same person doing the same thing over and over again. It was just boring after a while. Also, she’s pregnant, and people have already started snarking on her unborn child, talking about how she’s going to mess him up. I’m not a parent, but when it comes to snarking on kids on the internet, I’m just like, This is not cool. I don’t want to do this.

I still don’t feel a ton of sympathy for this influencer and the life that she has picked for herself. But I do feel like the snark sub-Reddits aren’t helping anybody. You’re just kind of watching a circus.