There’s nothing wrong with getting attached to a story. That’s the whole point of movies, TV, books, and games—they suck us in, make us care, and give us characters who feel like friends, romances that make us believe in magic again, and worlds we never want to leave. But somewhere along the way, fandom forgot the golden rule of loving fiction: fiction isn’t reality. And worse, we forgot that the people who bring those stories to life aren’t avatars for our fantasies. They’re real people with real lives. And when shipping culture blurs that line, it stops being harmless fun and turns into something darker—and way more toxic.
Case in point: the recent mess involving Hailee Steinfeld and Shameik Moore. Both voiced Gwen Stacy and Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, and yeah, their characters had great chemistry. Predictably, fans ran with it—suddenly every glance during an interview, every casual comment was “proof” they were in love off-screen. Never mind that there was zero real-world romance. Shipping culture doesn’t care about reality—it only sees what it wants to see.
So when Steinfeld got engaged to Josh Allen—a totally normal, completely reasonable milestone for a 27-year-old woman—the reaction from some fans wasn’t disappointment. It was meltdown. And when Moore posted a vague motivational quote on social media that same day, the internet turned it into breakup poetry. In the blink of an eye, he was cast as the tragic lead in a fantasy drama no one asked for. Moore later clarified he didn’t even know she got engaged, but it didn’t matter. The mob had already moved in. The memes were flying. And, as usual, context was the first thing to die.
This isn’t a one-off. It’s part of a much bigger, much uglier pattern that fandom keeps refusing to face. When John Boyega and Daisy Ridley didn’t become an onscreen couple in Star Wars, a wave of racist and sexist abuse came crashing down. When Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard were still literal kids, shippers forced them into relationship rumors they had no business being anywhere near. When Benedict Cumberbatch got married, a chunk of the Sherlock fandom went full conspiracy mode, accusing his wife of being a hired actress in a studio cover-up.
And then there’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Some fans decided the friendship between Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson was secretly romantic. When the show didn’t lean into that idea, accusations of “queerbaiting” blew up across social media. The irony is brutal: in demanding overdue LGBTQ+ representation, certain corners of the internet ended up dogpiling two actors who were just playing their roles. Wanting better representation is valid. Harassing actors for not turning headcanon into canon? That’s not activism—it’s entitlement dressed up as outrage.
At the root of all this is a toxic belief: that actors owe their performances—and worse, their personal lives—to fan fantasies. And when they don’t play along? The punishment is instant. Rumors. Harassment. Meme-fueled mockery. Sometimes even stalking. It’s cruel, it’s invasive, and it’s depressingly normalized.
What makes it worse? The social platforms and studios quietly stoking the fire.
Shipping creates engagement. Engagement boosts metrics. Metrics mean money. So behind every “cute” press tour moment, every flirty soundbite, every wink-and-nudge interview, there’s a PR strategy designed to encourage obsession—without ever taking responsibility for the fallout. The same studios and platforms that claim to support artists are often the ones quietly feeding them to the wolves for a trending hashtag.
Actors aren’t writers. They’re not producers. They don’t control the canon, and they shouldn’t be expected to manage the emotional needs of an entire fanbase. Their job is to act. But when a fantasy doesn’t play out the way fans want, the blowback isn’t aimed at the script—it’s aimed at the actors, as if they’ve committed some kind of betrayal. That’s not love for the story. That’s hostage-taking in cosplay.
It’s okay to ship fictional characters. It’s okay to wish your favorite pairing got more screentime. But the moment it turns into dragging real people through humiliation, online pile-ons, and delusional conspiracy threads, it stops being fandom. It becomes obsession. And obsession, when left unchecked, curdles into cruelty.
If we want to keep loving stories—and the people who bring them to life—we need to remember where the line is. Shipping belongs in fanfiction, on forums, in late-night debates with your friends. It doesn’t belong in harassment campaigns, rumor mills, or parasocial delusions passed off as “passion.” Fiction is beautiful because it’s not real. And that’s exactly where it needs to stay.
Hollywood After Dark 