The thing about overnight stardom is that it leaves you with very little time to prepare. There’s no extended period to emotionally ready yourself for being recognized everywhere and gaining millions of followers in a matter of weeks. And there’s barely a moment to do a thorough sweep of your digital footprint to wipe any potentially embarrassing middle school vlogs or long-forgotten Instagram posts. For Hudson Williams, star of the hit series (and my current hyperfixation) Heated Rivalry, a now-deleted Letterboxd account—which was public and available for investigative new stans to find—recently captured the internet’s attention, and has also managed to stir up a bit of controversy.
It was earlier this week that fans uncovered the page where the 24-year-old actor logged films like Lolita, Dune, and The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. And, like many a Letterboxd user, did not hold back his honest thoughts in his reviews. To summarize: Hudson loved Challengers (“very inspiring as far as artistic swings go”), did not love Nope (“It’s not subtle. It’s slow, it’s unrewarding,”), and found Lolita to be proof that “Perverted movies are so good…just a terrifying mediation.” Hudson is far from the first person to write a shady review on the platform, but due to his newfound Hollywood it-boy status, word of this page traveled fast. Some online expressed a lot of concern that he dared to post candid movie reviews on a movie-reviewing app; mostly because, as a now in-demand actor, his opinions carry significantly more weight, and could theoretically offend a future collaborator.
But like Timothée Chalamet’s widely shared high school “Roman’s Revenge” performance before it, Hudson’s current Letterboxd drama is a reminder that young Gen Z talents who grew up on the internet are burdened with far more digital ground to scrub than their predecessors. Long gone are the days when you could lock up your Facebook and consider your online past safe from discovery. Digital natives have Pinterest boards to hide, tweets and TikToks to delete, maybe even long-abandoned Tumblrs once used to share now-slightly embarrassing inspirational quotes or even worse, political takes they no longer align with.
While one half of the conversation about Hudson’s Letterboxd-gate is fixated on making sweeping moral judgments based on his not-too-serious movie reactions, the other half is grappling with the fact that they’d likely be in a similar position if their own old posts were suddenly thrust into the spotlight. We’ve arrived at a time where this “old pages get exposed” chapter has become routine for almost every young up-and-coming star. Unless they grew up Amish or with strict social media limitations, most young luminaries have humbling, unpolished content floating around the internet’s ether that their newly-hired PR representatives might miss—but young stans with an ample amount of time on their hands will surely track down. Even Hudson’s Heated Rivalry co-star Connor Storrie had his (really adorable) tween-aged YouTube channel dug up just weeks ago.
As we know, not all digital footprints are created equally, and usually celebrities’ old posts get attention because they’re offensive enough to warrant notes app apology statements (one that emphasizes how much the celeb in question has “grown” since those things were said, and maybe how they “didn’t understand the history of whatever choice slur was used at the time.)
But when these resurfaced social media profiles aren’t riddled with bigotry, they aren’t as worth picking apart for clues of indecency. Perhaps it’s better not to scandalize these moments and overanalyze every last detail, and embrace the fact that they’re relatable, humbling, and especially in Hudson’s case, quite amusing. (And indicative of great taste! The man had La Chimera in his top 4.)
The instinct to scan celebrities’ old profiles for signs of bad behavior is valid. Everyone is free to spend their time, money, and attention how they so choose, and nobody is obligated to support a celebrity whose values don’t align with their own.
But because fans are so programmed to dig for potential horrors, they miss out on this content’s fun. While some people are attempting to draw conclusions about Hudson’s political or moral standing based on his movie reviews, everyone else gets to enjoy the relatability of the situation and relish the reminder that even a newly minted Hollywood it boy once used Letterboxd exactly the way it was intended.
In early 2024, on the Las Culturistas podcast, Tina Fey offered some well-intentioned advice to host Bowen Yang and other rising stars about sharing honest opinions online. “I regret to inform you that you are too famous now, sir,” she said. “You have a problem with Saltburn? Quiet luxury. Keep it to yourself. Authenticity is dangerous and expensive.” The clip has since been widely recirculated this week thanks to how relevant it is to Hudson’s current drama.
But dangerous, expensive pre-fame authenticity is also refreshing in a landscape dominated by overly sanitized public personas. There’s something thrilling about hearing 12-year-old Connor Storrie lament the lyrics of Katy Perry’s “Firework” or reading Timothée Chalamet’s old tweet about how Nicki Minaj “wasn’t a great student.” You’ll find authentic vulnerability in Sabrina Carpenter’s old comedy skits or Ayo Edebiri’s acoustic song covers. These moments are familiar to anyone who grew up sharing every little thought and artistic inkling they had online. Maybe these old posts are just the modern iteration of the “Stars, They’re Just Like Us!” tabloid pages that keep pop culture alive.
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