The new Selena, Taylor, Gigi, Bella, Zayn, Dua, Abel, Anwar drama, explained.

Millennial Hollywood is in a shambles and it's all because of... Selena Gomez's Instagram?

I know, I can see your eye roll from here.

In late June, people noticed that Gomez had recently unfollowed a contingent of other celebs. I don't know who noticed this first. Fans? Media? Are there people who are paid to check celebrity follow lists each day?

But what matters is that someone noticed that she'd hit unfollow on the profiles of Zayn Malik, Gigi Hadid, Bella Hadid and Dua Lipa (she's since re-followed Dua, which goes to show how... strange this whole thing is).

Malik, the Hadids, Lipa and Gomez are all connected in various, very Hollywood ways, so immediately, fans and haters alike jumped to precisely 30,000 conclusions - mostly of feuds and drama that somehow came to involve Taylor Swift and The Weeknd and almost anybody else with a slight connection to Gomez or a Hadid sister.

Here is my handy, dandy graphic:

Image: Getty/Mamamia.

From here, we can extend the universe to include Kendall Jenner, Harry Styles and probably... every single other person aged 20-35 in celebrity land. But is it not already complicated enough?

The thing is, as much as we can laugh at how dumb it is, following and unfollowing someone is a celebrity news story in the year 2023 – and the celebrities know it.

Is it a bit silly? Yes, but that doesn't mean it's not true. It's the kind of ~secret insight~ that fans thrive on, with dozens of viral TikToks racking up tens of thousands of likes just for pointing the recent unfollowing out. Then there are all the others, theorising on what it could all mean.

Celebrity socials are rightly or wrongly considered straight from the source, social media managers be dammed. 

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It could be as innocent as Gomez's team doing a clear out on accounts she doesn't engage with or of people she doesn't talk to IRL, although it would be strange for an assistant to go rogue on an A-listers socials without their approval (Gomez has said in the past that she controls the content on her IG, but her assistant actually posts it - so she does not have to see the mess that is an Instagram comments section).

Whatever the reason, I think it's fair to assume Gomez knows her every move on socials is watched like a hawk. 

It was only a few months ago that she, Kylie Jenner and Hailey Bieber found themselves in another dramatic situation caused by fans reading far too much into their TikTok content.

Celebrities of this calibre know their fans see everyone they follow and unfollow, and every 'like' they (or their assistant) dishes out is tracked down too. 

In June, Gomez's account liked a couple of Bieber's posts and you betcha that also created discourse.

Too many celebrity gossip words have been dedicated to the past alleged drama between Bieber and Gomez, on account of, well... here's an amended diagram:

I could also start a 'feud' line but I'm rapidly running out of space. Image: Getty/Mamamia.

Of course, the internet likes to be particularly dramatic about everything (unlike me, with my bespoke imagery). So, in many's eyes, Gomez's social movements mean something a little more salacious.

Because unfollows are kind of the perfect celebrity story.

They are very low stakes, easy to understand and primed for projection.

We have no real idea why Gomez unfollowed these people, so theorising becomes the whole story.

As the TikToks go: What did the Hadids do to Gomez? What did Gomez do to the Hadids? Is this a fight over the man who broke up One Direction? Does Dua Lipa desperately want to be excluded from this narrative? And most importantly, Swift knows all the tea, doesn't she?

The speculation mostly boils down to some vintage 'women be b*tchy to each other over a man' chatter, which is a societal issue I simply can't unpack right now, but on the bright side - it has also been damn good for everyone involved's traffic and engagement.

Celebrities can and should follow/unfollow whoever they like, but it should not come as a surprise to them anymore that people will read into it. Socials have been around too long now for us to pretend that isn't the case.

For those who don't want to engage with the fanfiction, there is the Beyonce, Swift and Billie Eilish option: follow no one.

For those who do, it's now very clear that a rogue unfollow can lead to at least a week of headlines.

Feature image: Getty/Mamamia.