Quick train of thought: Entitlement and being "liked."

There's this very common (if unspoken) assumption among white people, most especially in regard to white men, that the default should be to like them/be kind or accommodating to them unless they are overtly bad/rude/violent.

You'll rarely see them admit to it in those exact words. Instead, you'll see them react to people doing the opposite. Namely believing survivors, calling out bad behavior or just plain being ambivalent or "not a fan" of a white person. Which is treated as rude/hostile.

While this is often the reaction to people not liking a white dude, I feel the behavior and ingrained assumption of defaulting to liking everyone unless they're proven unworthy is most common in women because we're conditioned to be accommodating and compassionate ALWAYS!

Anyone who's spent a lot of time among white women knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about. We've seen criticism of it on Twitter (toxic positivity). This belief that not giving praise and the benefit of the doubt to everyone is hurtful and indicative of badness/deceit.

This mindset works dangerously well with rape culture and patriarchy to protect white men from criticism or even ensure the overvaluing of their mediocrity, because no one wants to be the "bad guy" by pointing out that the Emperor is in fact naked.

We especially see this when people dismiss or worse attack survivors of abuse who speak out, because people often value their own experience with someone over believing a survivor, but also because of that default of not wanting to be the one to say something not nice.

That's where you can get a lot of this "why are people being mean to this guy I worked and don't actually know that well?"

This behavior is far more pervasive than studios' possible pressuring employees to do some PR clean up for an actor or "twitter drama."

There is nothing wrong with not liking or being uninterested in a celebrity, much-less making twitter quiz asking people to arbitrarily pick their least favorite of 4 white dudes with the same name.

However the defensive reaction shows how overprotective we are of white men.

There's a lot of things going on here. The threat to a white man's reputation, which could have monitor repercussions for a billion dollar franchise, but also people who earnestly believe that they're limited knowledge of a co-work's behavior makes them authorities on him.

And people who just genuinely believe that we should think everyone is good and worthy of our praise unless proven unworthy and sometime not even then. "Well he was always nice to me." As if predators and bigots don't know how to be on their best behavior at work.

To say nothing of the hilarity of straight people acting like they can judge better than queer folks whether another straight person is anti-gay. Or prioritize their friendly acquaintance with conservative republican over the LGBTQ+ community under the guise of bipartisanship.

Likewise we see this rule of nice at play when People of Color call out racism, where white people act like "racist" is a bad word and that someone "nice" could never be bigoted. Again, "they've never been racist around me." As if they don't know how to use their inside voice.

It's also at play when white people get called out by POC for doing rude and entitled shit, especially when they make demands of POC or when we're just not in the mood to listen/interact with them. We're the rude ones. We're the mean ones. They were just trying to be nice.

Again, white people (especially white women) believe everything they do is good or nice, unless they are purposefully being mean or are performing niceness. They get super upset and even insulted when people don't give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them with care.

They get even more fervent and vicious when they're defending someone they believe to be good or nice, even in the face of contradictory evidence. Because you're not just attack their "friend" you're attacking their personal judgement of their friends, associates, and co-workers.

No one is owed positive attention or adoration, but certainly not white dude celebrities who already get paid more money in a year than most of use will earn in a lifetime.

The assumption that not liking or being interested in a celebrity is bullying is insulting and entitled.