Unless you live under a rock, you probably know that Hollywood’s favorite couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie decided to split. And, well, if you didn’t know that, sorry to burst your bubble… But not really. This breakup that seems to hit America right where it hurts has been dominating all social media. “Everything You Need to Know About Brad and Angelina’s Breakup,” “A Complete Timeline of Brad and Angelina’s History Together,” or, my own personal favorite, “10 theories why Brad and Angelina decided to split” have all appeared on Cosmopolitan’s and Buzzfeed's Snapchat Story for everyone’s convenience. Interestingly enough, in these articles, the author would cite Angelina Jolie’s request for privacy for herself as well as her family during this difficult time, yet they still decided to post conventional theories and reasons rumored to be the reasons they're splitting up: money, cheating, the usual. Clearly her request for privacy was not taken to heart, cough cough.
If this isn’t disappointing enough, everyone started to make memes of Jennifer Aniston and captioning it, “When he does the same thing to the girl that he left you for,” because, you know, Brad and Jennifer used to be a thing before Angelina came into the picture. Well, actually married... But Brad cheated on Jennifer with Angelina... You get the idea. Here are just a few examples:
These Jennifer Aniston memes flooded Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and basically every other important social media platform. As if this wasn't already pretty messed up, everyone thought Jennifer was going to stay silent on the issue. But, needless to say, her response was pretty epic.
"Fuck society, you people make me sick," said Aniston on the Today Show. "While you idiots are talking about this Brangelina bullshit, you're ignoring what just happened yesterday with Terence Crutcher. An unarmed black father of four was driving home from college when his car broke down. The police showed up and shot him while both of his hands were in the air. This was all caught on video, which you can easily see on the internet. But instead, no, none of you will do that. You will instead focus on the fact that a celebrity couple is going through a divorce. Fuck you."
#RIPBrangelina
Yeah. That happened. But, needless to say, you go girl.
If this nationwide drama has taught me anything, it’s that we need to stop glorifying Hollywood couples, and I mean really. Just like Jennifer Aniston said, we could be caring about real issues happening in our world, but instead we care more about a celebrity couple going through a divorce than we do about an unarmed black male who was shot for no reason by the police force.
Although these couples are attractive, wealthy, and seem to have it all, they obviously go through problems just like any other normal couple would, thus they deserve that same degree of privacy. We don’t just see this with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie though; just like America obsessed over Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris, then repeatedly badmouthed Taylor when she dated Tom Hiddleston, this has happened before and will continue to happen unless we truly start to evaluate what is important to us, and what is not. This is a pattern, and it needs to be stopped. How about we start to care more about the increase in police brutality, the upcoming election, or the re-opening of the Keystone Pipeline? Anything else, really.
But seriously, come on people, we have more things to worry about than the trending hashtag #RIPBrangelina.
