In cast you missed it, Sam Smith is smashing it right now. Their collaboration with Kim Petras on Unholy was an absolute banger, they’ve just headed out on a UK-wide and European tour to celebrate the launch of their fourth studio album, Gloria, and last year they were invited to the White House by President Biden and First Lady Dr Jill Biden to celebrate the landmark enactment of the federal law Respect for Marriage Act.
So why is Twitter so intent with dragging them down?
It’s been noted by many that Sam seems to get a hard time on the platform, with some even going so far as to call it bullying. Most recently, it’s their tour performances that have drawn cruel comments from trolls, and the whole thing has got more than a whiff of fatphobia about it. You only need to scroll their hashtag for evidence, some using coded language to shame them, others outright using abusive and violent language.
Hearteningly, though, most of Twitter is stepping up to defend Sam and call out body shaming, and have pointed out that Sam’s far from the only one to put on a raunchy tour.
It happens periodically with Sam Smith, whenever they're seen on stage or screen Twitter erupts into a vile breeding ground of hatred. Most recently, he was trolled simply for wearing a sparkly jumpsuit on stage.
‘I see a lot of people trashing Sam Smith for wearing this fab jumpsuit but praising Harry Styles for wearing basically the same thing,’ said one Tweet that’s been retweeted nearly six thousand times, alongside images of the two performances side by side.
In the last few years Harry Styles has become as famed for his elaborate stage get ups as he is his music, and despite facing accusations of Queer-baiting in the past, he’s by and large been widely revered for his looks, with the purple sequinned jumpsuit he wore to headline Coachella back in May heraldedby this very publicationas a boundary-busting, sartorial success. That Sam Smith wearing a similar look has drawn such crude social commentary evidently isn’t actually about the outfit, but the body wearing it.
‘Can we just take a moment to appreciate Sam Smith in this outfit?!’ wrote body positivity activist Alex Light on her Instagram.
‘They’ve been getting body shamed online - the comments are pretty cruel - but they look bloody great and I reckon we should take control of the narrative and hype them up.
Because as the tweets say, if it was a thin person wearing this outfit, there would likely be no negative discourse, so why should they have any? Fuck that. They looked amazing and their performance was 👏.’
Of course, there are those who’re (very strangely) proudly insisting that the sparkly jumpsuit look was ‘horrendous’ or ‘an embarrassment’ when either person wore it. A quick look back over history and it’s clear to see the piece is a true symbol of rock and pop, from Elvis to Freddie Mercury, David Bowie and Mick Jagger. You name a rock icon from the last sixty years, and I can guarantee you they’ve donned a sparkly jumpsuit at least once.
No, for those with the double standard, it’s about one thing only. Sam has really come into their own in recent years, coming out as non-binary in 2019, moving away from the soppy love songs with which they first found success in favour of high energy collabs and, yes, experimenting with clothes, in true pop icon fashion.
Speaking to The Gay Times of the decision to rebrand, they said, ‘This is what I think people don’t understand: that the first five years of my career, I almost felt like I was a woman, at times, dressing up in male clothing. It didn’t feel like I was regressing in any way. I just felt like I was trying new things out.
‘Like, “Oh, wow, people think this is who I am and what I’ve always been. And so if I change this now and go a bit more experimental with my clothes, it’s gonna ruin this brand that’s been created,” you know? So that was weighing on my shoulders for a few years.’