Just doing what any normal rising celebrity usually does on the show.

However, if you looked at the comment section of any of these clips, you’ll have seen a full-blown internet execution.

Fans and culture commentators are aggressively labelling the Obsession star a classic “Pick Me”, accusing her of weaponising her mannerisms, over-intellectualising the spice levels, and acting uniquely quirky to subtly appeal to the straight male gaze.

The digital jury has reached its verdict: her behaviour was calculated, cringe, and performative.

But step back for a second and look at the broader mechanics of pop culture marketing. This hyper-fixation on “authenticity” and performative behaviour almost exclusively targets women.

Nobody called Timothée Chalamet a “Pick Me” when he entered his intensely French, artsy, unbuttoned-shirt era. He was clearly, meticulously playing directly to the female gaze and his hyper-online fanbase, and the immense commercial success it brought him was celebrated as marketing genius.

So why is it that when a male celebrity masterfully curates his vibe to capture consumer desire, it’s called star power, but when a woman does it, it’s labelled pathology?

Let’s unpack the reality: the “Pick Me” label has been weaponised. It is just the latest, updated language for systemic misogyny to thrive in modern media. As if we needed more.

From a brand perspective, the internet’s obsession with calling out “Pick Me” behaviour relies on a fundamentally naive delusion: the idea that any public-facing celebrity or brand is ever acting with pure uncalculated spontaneity.

Did we all forget we live in a highly mediated attention economy?

Every single talk show appearance, podcast interview, and hot-sauce-eating challenge is a marketing asset. Celebrities are commercial brands. The core objective of any of these clips is to generate cultural capital, fuel engagement algorithms, and drive box office value.

When Timothée Chalamet drops an obscure literary reference or leans into an aesthetic that drives teenage girls into a frenzy on Tumblr, he is engaging in precise target-audience marketing. He knows his demographic, he knows his unique value proposition, and he executes the playbook flawlessly.

Yet, when a female celebrity attempts to navigate the exact same attention architecture, the internet shifts the goalposts. Her marketing strategy isn’t viewed as smart brand positioning; it is pathologised as a desperate, internalised psychological flaw. The “Pick Me” accusation operates as a cultural trap designed to ensure that female celebrities can never successfully market themselves without being heavily penalised for the attempt.

It’s ironic, really. The “Pick Me” phenomenon was originally born out of feminist critique, a slang term used to identify women who actively threw other women under the bus to gain validation from men.

But as the internet always does, it’s taken a nuanced sociological observation and flattened it into a buzzword. Today, the label is hurled at any woman who simply acts outside of a universally approved corporate template of femininity. It’s used to police how women speak, how they eat, how they laugh, and how they express confidence.

For modern marketers, this is a masterclass in manufactured authenticity traps. Audiences claim they want unpolished, unfiltered human behaviour from the public figures they follow. But the second a woman showcases an eccentric personality trait that doesn’t fit a tidy aesthetic grid, the community punishes her for it. The marketplace demands authenticity, but strictly defines the very narrow, acceptable parameters of what that authenticity is allowed to look like.

The “Pick Me” trap proves that public-facing authenticity is an illusion with a massive gender double standard. If your brand positioning relies on catering to fickle consumer demands for “perfect, uncalculated realness”, you are playing a losing game. The internet will happily cheer for your marketing strategy on Monday and execute you for being performative on Tuesday.

And if you’re a woman, the people holding the “Pick Me” axe likely are too.

Stop trying to survive the authenticity trap by people-pleasing a cynical comment section. Lean into your distinct, polarising brand architecture. Accept that in 2026, the internet is going to find a way to criticise your delivery anyway, so you might as well control the narrative, own your audience targets, and secure the bag on your own terms.

-Sophie Randell, Writer

We get it. Creating content that does numbers is harder than it looks. But doing those big numbers is the fastest way to grow your brand. So if you’re tired of throwing sh*t at the wall and seeing what sticks, you’re in luck. Because making our clients go viral is kinda what we do every single day.