The “hot rivalry” fanbase is tearing itself apart

when Hot competitionConnor Storrie and François Arnault walked out of the Grammy Awards together on February 2, wait for the X account Connor Storrie Updates to post about it.

Starring in a bona fide global phenomenon has catapulted the show’s cast to overnight stardom, and countless accounts on X and Instagram track their every appearance, interview and career move. Rumors of Storey and Arnault’s relationship have been the talk of social media and gossip over the past month, with thousands of tweets dissecting their recent outing at Paris Fashion Week.

When Jenna and Anna woke up the morning after the Grammys and saw that the photos of Story and Arno arriving at the party were from a paparazzi agency, they decided not to participate until more official photos were uploaded. The two friends who run Connor Storrie Updates, Jenna and Anna, have a rule book for how to share content with their nearly 85,000 followers on X.

“We don’t like to post anything without knowing where it came from,” read the guidelines, which are not public but were shared with me via direct message. “If there are photos/videos that were taken without consent/without Connor knowing he was being photographed/filmed, we do not publish. This includes paparazzi photos.”

And unlike most of the content shared on their account, the two knew they needed to monitor the responses a little more than usual.

“People will be mean in the comments,” Jenna, 28, says on a video call. She and Ana, 26, live in different Brazilian states and met online before the show aired. Both asked to use pseudonyms to protect their privacy. “We have to be careful. [François] He gets a lot of hate, but at the same time, it’s a tough situation. If we post something, it’s likely that some people will leave hate comments. “But if we don’t publish it, people will accuse us of bias.”

Recently, Hot competition The fandom has been a battleground.

Based on Rachel Reid Game changers Books The series, which premiered on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the US in late November, follows the star-crossed romance between professional hockey competitors Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Storey). The previously unknown lead actors now have fan bases that rival the world’s biggest pop stars. Arno plays the smaller role of fellow gay hockey player Scott Hunter. (None of the actors were available for comment.)

For some, liking the show has turned into full-blown obsession. A month and a half after the finale aired, bars offering viewing parties are still going strong, and according to Crave, of the people who rewatched (a phenomenon fans have dubbed “reheating”), 15 percent watched an episode five or more times. One Reddit thread asks the question: “Is anyone else emotionally affected by this show?” Commentators admit to obsessing over the show’s scenes to the point that they can’t do their jobs or live their lives. Many concluded that they needed to take a break.

Others have gone further to explore the past digital footprints of Storrie and Williams’ content fame. Storrie’s YouTube videos quickly went viral. When some viewers claimed to have found Williams’ Letterboxd account, less-than-stellar reviews of Rachel Ziegler and Pedro Pascal’s performances trickled down to those actors’ accounts. king fanbases, leading to a Stan account war and Williams’ “near-cancellation”. He later revealed that most of those reviews weren’t even his own.

However, the screenshots were enough to make Williams a target of online outragers, who seemed to be looking for a reason to end his career. Rumors of his relationship with a woman led many to accuse him of gay harassment. Anti-Asian insults were hurled at Williams by detractors with relative ease on X. While Williams did not speak out about racism, during an appearance on SiriusXM Radio Indyhosted by Andy Cohen, stated that he only respects the opinions of people with a “developed frontal cortex.”