Last week, people noticed that Star Wars actor Kelly Marie Tran had deleted her Instagram account.
Kelly Marie Tran removed all her wonderful instagram posts 😔
Some people believed this was because of the harassment she received for her role as Rose Tico in The Last Jedi.
Kelly Marie Tran has deleted all the posts off her Instagram due to months of harassment she has received for her character Rose in #TheLastJedi https://t.co/ipxdbDH30C
kelly marie tran literally posted nothing but cute positive daily posts and y’all dudebro gremlins harassed her so much you drove her off insta. fuck all y’all for thinking you can just comment your uninvited opinion about rose on a post that has nothing to do with it
Screenshots of the now-deleted abuse have been shared across the internet over the past few months to show what Tran was receiving on her Instagram.
@NicholasJLevi Just a taste of what she was dealing with
And when the news broke that the comments might have led to her deleting the account, fans rushed to support her.
what's happening to Kelly Marie Tran is incredibly sad, and a fucking disgrace https://t.co/ez2K29XX7q
kelly marie tran was the kindest and loveliest person in the entire cast and she was so Fucking Excited to be part of such a huge franchise and take a step forward for all (!!southeast!!) asian women in media and yall decide to shit on her and take her for granted and im TIRED!!!
first y’all made daisy ridley delete her instagram and now all of kelly marie tran’s ig posts are gone, im truly going to fight every single one of you
This isn't the first time a Star Wars star has exited social media due to fan abuse. Last year, Daisy Ridley deleted her accounts, saying she found the platforms bad for her mental health.
Ridley had come to international attention thanks to the franchise, but her key role in both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi brought accusations that the new films were propaganda from a "social justice warrior," and that Ridley's character Rey was a Mary Sue — an overly perfect character inserted into the story by creators to serve an unrealistic purpose.
Ridley has shot down these claims as sexist, but they continued to be applied to her during the following film, The Last Jedi.
Tran's character, Rose Tico, a maintenance worker for the Resistance, was introduced in The Last Jedi and was quickly singled out by Star Wars fans in a similar way.
As the press tour began prior to the release of the film, Tran's social media drew a lot of (positive) attention.
“looks like my instagram is just going to be all post in support of my start wars family” protect kelly marie tran at all costs https://t.co/R4ZeFBCI9T
However, following its release — which had a more mixed reception than the previous two films — a lot of vitriol was directed at Tran's character.
Critics of the film blamed "SJW" characters like Tran for ruining the film. Racist edits were made to Tran's Wookieepedia page, and she and the film were attacked by troll websites.
Im so glad that everyone could see how upset i was when my sister #paigetico died in #starwars #TheLastJedi. NOW I'M THE HOTTEST LIVING TICO https://t.co/F34VhcRKmK
Horrible characters are horrible no matter the gender, race or sexual orientation. #StarWars #kathleenkennedy #notmystarwars https://t.co/dN06yOsOf8
Liena Gül, a 22-year-old who runs a Kelly Marie Tran fan account on Twitter, told BuzzFeed News that the account regularly received abusive messages from people taking issue with the actor's role in the Star Wars universe.
I’ve had enough of these people.
"Kelly was trying to stay as positive as possible," Gül told BuzzFeed News. "But the internet being as it always is bullied her to the point of making her [stay] away."
Some people shared photos and videos of leftover Tico toys at stores.
No one is buying them Star Wars toys. Where are you folks who wanted representation in the movies? Why aren’t you buying these toys? Force Link Rose is only 59.90! https://t.co/HsJ8OlDg99
And some people have attributed the recent release of Solo: A Stars Wars Story for the renewed campaign of harassment.
I hope it's not lost on everyone that as much hate as Solo is getting from the usual suspects, its star Alden Ehrenreich isn't getting a fraction of the hate, shaming and vile racist sewage directed towards him that Kelly Marie Tran has for being a supporting actor in Last Jedi.
I see Star Wars fans are showing their ire at SOLO by (checks notes) ...driving Kelly Marie Tran off Instagram?
Similarly to The Last Jedi, Solo has also been accused of forcing diversity — in Solo, one character is retroactively announced as pansexual. Some people have gone as far as to call the film "Soylo," a play on a popular far-right term "soy boy" used to describe men that lack typical masculine qualities.
Many people have compared the treatment of Ridley, Tran, and other targets to that of the young actors who played Anakin Skywalker in the maligned Star Wars prequels.
This is the fanbase that: •Drove Jake Lloyd insane •Made Hayden Christianson quit acting •Made George Lucas not want to make any more movies •Made Daisy Ridley delete her Instagram •And recently made Kelly Marie Tran leave Instagram I love Star Wars but fuck the fans https://t.co/yhApP7GVIH
The news about Tran, and the following tweets about Star Wars' aggressive fanbase prompted The Last Jedi's director Rian Johnson to tweet about problems within the fandom. However, he also stated that those supporting Tran and diverse elements of the films are the 'vast majority."
On social media a few unhealthy people can cast a big shadow on the wall, but over the past 4 years I’ve met lots of real fellow SW fans. We like & dislike stuff but we do it with humor, love & respect. We’re the VAST majority, we’re having fun & doing just fine. https://t.co/yhcShg5vdJ