Immodest And Disrespectful, TikTok Biggest Star Loses Followers And Receive Hate Messages

If there is something social media has introduced that changes the way people see currency, is 'followers'.

For internet and social media personalities, as well as influencers, followers mean so much for them. The more the followers, the more they are respected. The more they can be famous, the more they become influential, the more they can also make money.

Followers are everything for them. Many people may go to great length to get them, and can experience mental breakdown when losing them.

This also applies to Charli D'Amelio.

Born in 2004, the teenage social media personality from the U.S. was a competitive dancer before starting her social media career. She started actively posting content on the video-sharing app, TikTok, in late 2019, where she would post dance videos to trending songs on the platform.

She quickly amassed a large following, and eventually became the most-followed creator on the app.

As an influencers and a social media star, D'Amelio learned things the hard way.

This happened when she lost a huge number of followers in a very rapid rate.

It all started when the TikTok’s most-followed star posted a family dinner video called Dinner With The D'Amelios that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. In part of the video, she complained to YouTube star James Charles about only having 95 million followers, and not 100.

"Ugh, I wish I had, like, more time because imagine if I hit 100 mil a year after hitting a mil," D'Amelio said, to which Charles replied, "Was the 95 not enough for you?"

She answered, "Well, I was just like saying like, even numbers."

Fans felt that her comment was anything but humble.

Fans were also annoyed that D'Amelio and her sister, Dixie, scoffed during the family's meal, when private chef Aaron May served them a giant plate of paella, a Spanish rice dish. Dixie looked repulsed by one of the ingredients, a snail.

"Don't be so dramatic," her father Marc D'Amelio said, leading James to ask, "Is she being real?" Dixie then left the room and threw up as her mother Heidi D'Amelio remarked, "Classic Dixie." Meanwhile, 16-year-old Charli asked, "Do we have any Dino Nuggets?"

Since its release, the video has sparked backlash from viewers.

As a result, a lot of her followers were unfollowing her. In just a few hours, more than one million people unfollowed her. She also started to receive hate messages.

In tears, D'Amelio responded to the backlash in an emotional Instagram Live on November 19, calling it "one, huge misunderstanding."

"Seeing how people reacted to this, I don't even know if I want to do this anymore," she said. "This is messed up stuff that people are saying. Like people telling me to hang myself. People just blatantly disrespecting the fact that I'm still a human being is not okay at all.

"We should have done better on our part with the editing to make you guys know that it was a joke and that's on me," she continued. "I take full responsibility for that."

She also specifically addressed the backlash over her comment over her growing fanbase.

"When I had said about the followers things, I genuinely just thought it would be so cool to hit a huge, huge milestone a year after hitting another milestone," she said. "I never meant for you guys to make it seem like you were numbers or did not mean anything."

During her tear-filled post, she wondered how she should stay on an app where there's so much hate.

As for her sister, Dixie, she also responded to the backlash.

"So my family and I have been working with chef Aaron May for a couple months now, working on content for our channel, working on content for his channel, and made an amazing friendship," Dixie said in a TikTok video. "I'm so grateful for every single person that follows me, every single person I care about, every single person I work with, every single person who works with me because I'm just so grateful for all the opportunities I've had, so I would never in any way want to be taken as disrespectful, especially from an out-of-context 15-second clip."

"So basically, my team knows I throw up a lot," she continued. "I throw up at the smell, the thought or the taste of anything. So when they saw the snails, they were like, 'Oh, let's get her and try to see if we can get a reaction out of her.'"

"I love chef and I would never disrespect him in any way," she said. "And maybe don't judge someone's personality over a 15-second video."

Her father also posted another Tiktok video to explain the situation.

James Charles on the other hand, experienced the exact opposite. Many people praised him.

"James has such good manners," wrote on fan in the comments. "I feel bad for him that he had to see Dixie and Charli's disgusting and disrespectful behavior." Added another, "That is so rude and the chef probably felt so uncomfortable."

Others applauded James'. "Alright cancel culture, you know what to do," said one user, "but don't touch James because he was actually POLITE."

And as for Aaron May, the chef, he said that things are getting blown out of proportion. He also said that it was "all fun and games."

While the damage is done to the sisters, the two are still having a healthy millions of followers. It's the hatred the internet is giving them that is sometimes more than anyone can take.

Days later however, she quickly rebounded, celebrating 99 million followers on Saturday, and 100 million just a day later.

This is a proof that while the internet and social media are unforgiving and cruel, sometimes, things are temporary.

Despite that the internet will forever document the D'Amelio sisters as once "disrespectful", "immodest" and "ungrateful", the internet will also forever acknowledge that Charli D'Amelio is the first on TikTok to ever reach 100 million followers.

This kind of moment shows the result of fans and followers that may have unrealistic expectations on young influencers.

Simply because the D'Amelio sisters are big celebrities, people tend to forget that they are actually teenagers doing teenagers stuffs.