Why fans are turning against Timothée Chalamet

Timothée Chalamet failed to win at the Oscars last night, despite running an energetic, expensive and arguably quite innovative campaign (and, it must be said, being incredibly good in Marty Supreme.)  In a shocking twist, the Academy voters (average age 63) failed to be gooped and gagged by his collaboration with EsDeeKid. It turns out you can’t Brat your way to Best Actor glory with canny marketing, carefully staged viral moments and the elusive quality of “white boy swag”.

Many Timothée fans aren’t just mourning last night’s defeat, but something much more painful: the actor they so admired, slowly morphing into someone they find annoying. People on TikTok are sharing eulogies which read, “RIP Timothée Chalamet, you would have hated Timothée Chalamet” and wondering, “Where did my beautiful boy go?” But are these people grieving a fantasy, or has he really changed? 

It’s hard to know exactly when the popular perception of Chalamet began to change, at least among some quarters (let’s not overstate the case here: he remains a hugely popular actor.) When he began stepping out with Kylie Jenner, there were murmurs of discontent, some fans seemingly displeased that someone they considered an arthouse darling would associate with someone so mainstream. This was the beginning of his transition in the public imagination from gentle soft-boy to arrogant jock, from a man who reads Kerouac to a man who reads Atomic Habits, from a man who titters at Noah Bumbauch films to a man who guffaws at fart jokes and Borat 2, from your dream boyfriend to your actual boyfriend. 

But it wasn’t until the Mary Supreme press tour that things really shifted: at a certain point, Chalamet’s relentless bravado and undisguised ambition stopped being charming and started to appear, to some, a little graceless. While our culture worships success, we expect those who achieve it to at least perform being modest and humble; when someone refuses to play into that game and backs themselves fully, it can read as a little obnoxious. 

There also emerged the criticism that he was using Black culture to advance his campaign, only to discard it once it was no longer convenient: this was mostly at the level of fashion, but arguably applies to his collaboration with Esdeekid (hip hop being a Black art form, regardless of the Scouse rapper’s own identity.) Finally, there were the dismissive comments about opera and ballet, which saw him dragged by everyone from Whoopie Goldberg to Doja Cat (although defended in Dazed). For many fans, it all became too much.

Tio, once such a fan of Timmy, describes herself as “deeply disappointed” by his recent trajectory. “He seemed to have such a deep love and appreciation for [acting],” she says, “but now it feels like something he wants to conquer and dominate, which makes me very angry. Maybe it’s because he’s playing more masculine roles, but it feels like a domination thing now.”

Another former fan of Chalamet, Zara, has downgraded herself to the more neutral status of Timmy observer. “People [at first] saw him as old money, European and elegant, but he has become American. Arrogant, greedy, dating the symbol of American excess: the Kardashians-Jenners.” Zara doesn’t actually think this backlash is fair, though. “Lowkey, he’s been woman’d,” she adds. “He has a bit of arrogance and pride, and suddenly he’s Satan.”

It’s Chalamet’s failure to be humble, or at least to adequately perform humility, that seems to be alienating people the most. However, according to fan Lindsay, Timothee hasn’t actually changed: we’re just finally seeing what he really likes. “I think he’s been putting on an act for years because his appearance allowed him to slip into the soy boy crowd, and he knew that was what was going to make him money and get him the roles and attention,” she suggests, adding that, now he’s with Kylie Jenner and achieved the wild success he was aiming for, he no longer has to pretend. “People have been ignoring lil Timmy Tim for too long, because they liked this cute boy image of him, but he is and always has been lil Timmy Tim,” she says, referring to his infamous high school rap alter-ego. Maybe people have been projecting onto Timothee all this time, mistaking someone they don’t know for the tortured, sensitive roles he inhabited in early films like Call Me By Your Name and Beautiful Boy.

“Lowkey, he’s been woman’d. He has a bit of arrogance and pride, and suddenly he’s Satan”

Not everyone in the fandom is souring on Timmy in the same way, though. Iana Murray, a journalist and OG stan, understands where people are coming from and acknowledges that he has changed. But, she adds, “I think people are holding onto a projection of this delicate French boy that was a product of the roles that made him famous. In his very first Jimmy Fallon appearance, he’s practically vibrating in his seat from nervousness, and of course, that’s really endearing, but I think it’s naive to assume he’s going to be just as overexcited eight years later when he’s well settled into his celebrity.” Rather than being driven by egotism alone, she suggests that Chalemet’s heavy self-promotion is ultimately in service of a larger goal. “I think he earnestly believes that he has this responsibility to ensure cinema and cinema-going survives, which is probably bolstered by the narrative that’s circled him for years: that he’s one of the very last movie stars.”

There’s no doubt an element of projection at play in people being upset to discover that a celebrity they don’t know is, seemingly, a different person than how they’d imagined. But when Chalemet is doing media appearances with Theo Von (a podcaster who is at the very least right-wing-coded) and reportedly telling Vogue that “procreation is the reason we’re here”, there are reasonable grounds to suspect that he’s taken a more douchey turn. On the other hand, it’s refreshing to see someone be so honest about their desire for greatness – better that than the faux-humility that we’ve become to demand of our celebrities, which can be every bit as preening and self-flattering. 

A lot can be birthed through “failure”, which many people view his Oscar loss to be. There is a rawness to it – a humanness. It’s all very Marty Supreme. And as cultural critic Patrick Sproull argues, Chalamet is increasingly becoming a performance artist. “It is so exciting to watch him perform as a celebrity,” they tell Dazed. “Everything he wears is a costume”. It could be that, as he becomes less relatable and appealing to his fans, he is becoming a more interesting actor.