#toxic fandom

*sigh* well there was a time back in 2024. the news about lewis hamilton leaving for ferrari had just hit the f1 fandom and it was obviously the biggest newscycle since the conception of pineapple pizza. for context, the previous year's mercedes car was so terrible and the backlash from specifically teamlh was so intense, that mercedes had to release an open letter addressed to the fans ensuring them they were working on the car. and in their defence, lewis' performance did improve as the season progressed and mercedes ended the season with lewis in p3 and george in p8 (don't even talk about that actually, gr's season was abysmal).

so when the f1 returned in 2024, with the biggest bombshell driver contract news since nico rosberg invented the genre, it became consistently clear that george was now, rather mysteriously according to some fans, outperforming lewis. by june 2024, lewis had been out-qualified by teammate george russell at eight of the nine races that had happened until that point.

in june 2024, an anonymous email was sent to senior f1 personnel and media members alleging that mercedes was systematically sabotaging hamilton's car because he was leaving for ferrari. it also went on to claim that toto, george, and the team were actively mistreating lewis and putting his life in danger.

now it's well known within the paddock and the fandom that george and toto's relationship is not built on the usual boss-employee professionalism — which let's be honest, none of them are. all the team bosses know these drivers since they were kids, they are hardly going to have the same 9-to-5 corporate cube job professional boundaries we are used to seeing. george is an even more of an outlier since the way he got signed to the mercedes junior program was unconventional, but still toto wolff is infamous for weird inter-personal relations with his drivers.

not too long ago, the day before the ferrari news went public, lewis went to toto wolff’s house for breakfast to break the news in person. in subsequent interviews explaining how the whole ordeal went down, it was casually revealed that george russell had been staying over at toto's house the night before.

naturally, the fandom reaction to this information was to start making jokes about how george was sleeping with toto. to be clear, the favouritism rumours had existed since george joined mercedes and won a race in 2022, while lewis didn't — all in the season he was supposed to get his vengeance after ad21. the "sleeping with Toto" joke began months before the anonymous sabotage email, yet this revelation later paired with the sabotage allegation claimed the entire fandom like a forest fire.

the "meme" morphed into a situation that caused a police investigation and required intervention from lewis himself. toxic corners of the fandom took the narrative seriously. there were genuine accusations against george russell of using a personal relationship with wolff to push lewis hamilton out of the team and steal his car parts. this resulted in an onslaught of online hate directed at george. the abuse escalated to the point where george received explicit death threats publically.

another relevant thing to mention here is that george's perception in the fandom and media wasn't exactly positive even then. he cried when he scored his first points for williams, cried when mercedes fucked up his first race with them in sakhir and cried on the podium for his first ever win. and god forbid a man has any display of emotion, because the internet weaponized this "softness," using it to paint him as someone who would use charm, compliance, and favoritism rather than raw, aggressive masculinity to get what he wants from his boss. he would rather apologise when he goes wrong than swear aggressively or act aloof and cocky. his specific public image, coded as traditionally feminine or "submissive", acted as a major catalyst for these specific rumors.

From DC's Star Trek Vol 2 issue 8, 1989.