Love Island’s Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury welcomed their baby girl into the world on 23 January. Much excitement surrounded the pregnancy, so it should come as a surprise to no one that fans were waiting in eager anticipation for the announcement of the baby’s birth, and her name.
Some fans had already been guessing the name, with the most popular guess being Nephele. Nephele was the name given to a cloud nymph in Greek mythology, which fans reasoned could have been the baby’s name due to Molly-Mae’s constant use of the cloud emoji in her Instagram captions. This was not the name that the new parents chose, however. The name they chose for her was Bambi.
This name choice caused a lot of controversy, both among their fans and others. Some were very excited about the name and did nothing but congratulate them on the wonderful news. Others were less impressed by the name, stating that Bambi was not a good name for a person, or that the name ‘Bambi Fury’ would be ridiculous once the baby had grown into an adult. Even UK celebrities weighed in on the situation, with Kerry Katona slamming the name choice and Peter Andre defending it.
The criticism for Molly-Mae and Tommy did not stop there, however. Others began to criticise many aspects of the way they were handling parenthood, from the amount of money spent on furniture and accessories in the nursery to the way they were holding or carrying the baby. They could not do anything without someone on the internet criticising them.
One could argue that, because these pictures and videos of them with Bambi are being posted online, they are being left open to the wrath of the internet. These comments are a part of social media, and they should learn to expect it every time they share something online. This issue though, I’d argue, is much deeper than that.
There is a tendency online for people to slam down on celebrities like this when they announce the birth of their child. When Kylie Jenner gave birth to her son with Travis Scott, she had announced that his name was Wolf. She was mocked on social media for this name choice. She later shared that his name would be changed, and only last month shared that his name was Aire on a post celebrating his first birthday. She is not the only other example – there are lists compiled on a regular basis of the strangest celebrity baby names. It seems to be an obsession online to ridicule celebrities in this way, to such an extent that it is clear the internet has forgotten that these public figures are human too.
Instead of coming down on celebrities about their baby’s names or the amount of money they spend on items for them, users should maybe learn not to comment such horrible things about them. We may not agree with all of their decisions, but that is no excuse for this behaviour. It would be very difficult for someone to share such exciting news with the world, to be met with vitriol and criticism from thousands of strangers. No one should have to face such negativity, especially when they are new parents and are still learning.
Besides, in the case of the people commenting these things, it is not conductive for anyone’s mental health to spend time this way. This time would be better spent focusing on what we should be doing in our own lives, instead of critically analysing someone else’s.
