Receipt Culture Isn’t Letting Selena, Hailey, Or Anyone Else Move On

A set of suspiciously timed posts about laminated brows has reignited a decade of bad blood between Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber, fuelled by Selenator and Belieber fandoms. And of course, there are receipts to prove it. But is our cultural demand for receipts starting to do more harm than good?

I’ll be the first to admit that I know way too much about Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber’s laminated eyebrow-raising feud, stemming from both of their highly publicised on-again-off-again relationships with Justin Bieber until it was all (supposedly) put to rest after Hailey and Justin’s marriage in 2018. Did you know that the double popsicle reference in Selena’s single ‘Ice Cream’ with BLACKPINK might have been related to Justin Bieber’s love for that particular type of popsicle? Are you aware that, when Hailey said she wanted people to ‘know her heart’, she may have been copying something that Selena has often said?

I’ve been watching this stuff go back and forth for what seems like most of my adult life. Selena and Justin first started dating in 2010, and thus #Jelena was born. They were famously on and off for several years, during which time Justin and Hailey were also involved. When Hailey and Justin got married in 2018 after being engaged for two months, Jelena stans were stunned. And in the years since, we’ve witnessed Selena and Hailey try to navigate their lives online, amid the swathes of Selenators, Beliebers, and everyone in between.

As a result, there’s no shortage of material out there when it comes to this feud. Every time a perceived slight was made against either party, we had the receipts to prove it. But is our cultural obsession with keeping receipts perpetuating a feud that could’ve ended years ago? Fans may deflect, claiming that Selena is clinging to the past or that Hailey used to be a Jelena stan herself. But aren’t we all part of the problem?

Rehashing each moment, receipts in tow, keeps everything so fresh that it’s hard to believe that Hailey and Justin’s marriage was already four and a half years ago. And that’s just as an observer! I can’t imagine what it’s like to be either Selena or Hailey themselves, constantly reliving past moments in excruciating detail. Sure, they are fueling some of the drama themselves, like when Selena commented “I love you” on a TikTok that called Hailey a ‘mean girl’, or Hailey’s suspiciously timed TikTok about how “god’s timing is always right” when Selena was copping some serious body shaming from the media. But it’s our receipts that do most of the heavy lifting.

I’m certainly complicit here by throwing myself into the conversation. But our meticulous receipt-keeping was originally meant to stop speculation, not perpetuate it. So now every perceived slight, however minor, comes bolstered by several years worth of controversy. How are any of us supposed to move on? (Disclaimer: I am absolutely not talking about literal crimes that we should be holding people accountable for.)

Meanwhile, Selena and Hailey remain strapped to this not-so-merry-go-round — and our receipts are holding them there.