Summer Walker is a name you’ve probably heard popping up a lot in the past few months. Her debut album, Over It, charted number two on the Billboard chart and she broke the record for most streamed R&B album made by a woman of all time. Everybody knows she can sing and she can certainly make a good song, so it was surprising when she posted on Instagram this week clarifying that she was going to be quitting music. She started her post with, “na fr though I’ve decided y’all don’t deserve me lol,” and not gonna lie that hurt me. She just got in the music game and she is doing great, but the pressure of social media and the backlash from people is obviously affecting her and it’s sad to see society break down another wonderful artist.

These past few weeks, she hasn’t caught one break. People immediately ran to her comments saying how her NPR Tiny Desk performance was lackluster and she looked unhappy even though she prefaced the video by explaining, “Look, I’m really freaking excited to be here, but I have social anxiety like a motherf*cker. So yeah, I’m freaked the hell out. I’m sweating. But this is so exciting for me.” In the video, she sang beautifully, but she was stuck in a trance holding her beloved pink stuffed animal. It was obvious that she was nervous and anxious, not that she didn’t want to be there. 

Whitney Young students noticed.  Lauren Skiba ‘22, “I saw that video and she really did look like she was scared.” She also got dragged for saying she hated showers on her Instagram story after people jumped to the conclusion that she just doesn’t stay clean. Walker shot down all those claims by explaining that she preferred baths and that she couldn’t believe people thought she didn’t use soap. However, Twitter and Instagram were still overrun with jokes about how she is dirty and disgusting. Nandi Myhand ‘21 rushed to her defense,, “The jokes about her all over Twitter are crazy, because she doesn’t deserve that at all.”

At the end of the day, y’all got to remember that celebrities are still human. Aaliyah Taylor ‘20 explained, “They have feelings, problems, and lives just like us. Popping off on their comments and stating all your opinions is immature and unnecessary. Just because they have millions of followers doesn’t mean that they don’t see your hate.” They constantly see the hate and it makes them dislike what they love to do. Walker has the potential to be one of the most influential R&B singers of our generation, but the extreme judgement has to stop. We have to support and love good artists rather than criticize them or we won’t have any music to listen to.