Last weekend, Sarah Brady, a semiprofessional surfer, posted a number of screenshots of text messages she claims she exchanged with her then-boyfriend, the actor Jonah Hill. In one of the texts, Hill appears to dictate a highly specific list of “boundaries for romantic partnership,” which included not surfing with men, not maintaining friendships with “women who are in unstable places” and not posting pictures of herself in a bathing suit.
(BuzzFeed has a roundup of all the screenshots, as Brady’s Instagram stories have expired.)
Brady accused Hill of emotional abuse. Online, the reaction was initially overwhelmingly sympathetic toward Brady. Hill’s assertion of “boundaries” also reinvigorated a debate about the weaponization of therapy terminology in relationships. (My colleague Dani Blum wrote a great piece earlier this year on how therapy-speak took over dating.)
The medium mattered too. By sharing purported screenshots from their relationship, Brady sparked a second debate about digital ethics.
“In the realm of digital totems, screenshots feel unvarnished and objective, and therefore believable and true,” writes Delia Cai over at Vanity Fair, a description that I think perfectly encapsulates why so many were willing to take Brady’s screenshots as legit.
If the texts are indeed real, is it a violation of privacy to share screenshots of private messages? When is it OK to share relationship texts?
Full disclosure, I am, because of my job, a paranoid person. I assume every piece of gossip I tell a friend has been shared sixfold. That every texted disclosure could wind up in someone else’s camera roll. That every email I write for work could end up on TikTok or on the evening news.
I know that’s not how most people operate. But you might be wise to (especially if you’re a celebrity). So much more of our existence is recorded: Facebook statuses from 2005 that emerge to tank a political campaign. Video recordings of Snapchats that were supposed to be ephemeral. Every single sext you and Adam Levine have ever sent. (Lest you forget, Levine’s purported DMs were also leaked last year.) It’s all recorded, floating in the ether protected only by an invisible and unenforceable social contract.
This week, Brady followed up by posting even more screenshots of alleged text messages between her and Hill. She wrote that she wanted to err on the side of oversharing so she could not be “accused of taking the texts out of context.”
“Keeping it to myself was causing more damage to my mental health than sharing it could ever do,” she wrote.
But was it ethical to share the text messages in the first place?
Reactions to her decision to post remain split between those who support her efforts to alert others to Hill’s alleged behavior as a warning and those who firmly believe Brady took it too far and crossed a line.
There is no line, though. Not one we can all identify and agree on. I don’t think Emily Post ever had anything to say about screenshot etiquette. We’re writing the rules of the game as we go, and we can’t all be winners.
Internet Candy
Here’s what else is happening online this week.
Milk is having a moment
A series of breathless TikToks are out to convince you that “blueberry milk nails” are a trend. Let me translate that into plain English for you: People are painting their nails a milky shade of blue.
I’ve written before about how social media has heightened the temptation to slap a label on any activity, no matter how niche, and declare it a micro-trend. “Blueberry milk nails” fall into that category.
The TikToks do get one thing right, though: Milk is on trend in the world of beauty products.
Last month, Hailey Bieber posted pictures of herself wearing a “got milk?” T-shirt, and later, drenched in the beverage, to promote her beauty brand’s Glazing Milk (it’s a skin care cream). There’s also Glossier’s Milky Jelly Cleanser, Laneige’s Cream Skin Milk Oil Cleanser, fresh’s Milk Body Lotion, and the brand Milk Makeup.
None of these products are edible, but “Milk” has a more natural and earthy connotation than their actual ingredients, which include substances like “Poloxamer 184” and “Sodium Acryloyldimethyltaurate Copolymer.” And it’s a slightly less gross way to describe any whitish liquid that mostly looks like laundry detergent.
As Emily Sundberg reported in 2021, the actual milk that you drink may also be mounting a comeback against its plant-based foes. The word “milk” has clearly held on to some cultural capital it acquired with the “Got Milk?” commercials (If you’re of a certain age you remember: “Aaron Burr!”). Beauty brands are taking that aura of goodness and running with it. Just don’t forget your Lactaid.
— Callie Holtermann
