Demi Lovato made headlines on April 18, while visiting the Los Angeles-based frozen yogurt shop The Bigg Chill. She claimed that the yogurt shop’s marketing promoted diet culture. Lovato admonished The Bigg Chill for forcing customers to walk past diet options and sugar-free cookies before getting to the counter.

She said the whole experience was triggering and made it hard for her to order frozen yogurt. She posted several comments on her Instagram story attacking the shop and calling them “diet culture vultures.”

Lovato has always been outspoken about her history with eating disorders and the dangers of diet culture. She promotes body positivity in the hopes of bringing awareness to fatphobia and harmful messaging that equate being thin with being beautiful.

She goes in-depth about the nature of her eating disorder in a new documentary called “Dancing With the Devil.” In the documentary, she recalls her near-fatal overdose in 2018 and how her eating disorder contributed to it. Since then, she has worked to accept herself and use her platform to bring awareness to toxic beauty standards.

But her response to the yogurt shop remains an overreaction. The store has over 400 distinct flavors and is known for its sugar-free, gluten-free, fat-free and dairy-free products. Anyone with dietary restrictions is able to enjoy the wide selections of options.

The yogurt shop was in no way indicating that people need to go on diets. It was providing options for people who have health conditions or specific dietary restrictions. People who have medical disorders like diabetes or celiac disease would benefit from The Bigg Chill’s sugar-free and gluten-free options. Lovato’s outspoken commitment to body positivity is something to admire, but in this case, it was unnecessary. 

Lovato’s incident shows how celebrities are unaware of the influence and power they hold. She dragged the yogurt shop through the mud. She was encouraging fans to boycott the business and creating bad publicity for an illegitimate reason. The yogurt shop’s reputation was put on the line. All because one celebrity did not like their marketing. 

However, it is important to acknowledge Lovato’s emotions. She has struggled with mental illnesses and cannot control her triggers. She brought up a good point in criticizing the shop for using the term “guilt-free” in their advertisement. The phrase suggests that people should be feeling guilty for their eating decisions, and this does feed into diet culture.

This advertising was correct to be brought to the attention of the shop owners. But the mature thing would have been to leave the shop or contact the owners privately, instead of prompting the whole ordeal on social media.

Lovato’s actions only fuel the ongoing issues on social media with “cancel culture.” This characterizes the phenomenon of tarnishing someone’s reputation and potentially ending their career. While in some instances, it is necessary to de-platform people doing sufficient harm, it was unneeded in this case. It can be dangerous when an innocent person is subject to this. 

This is what happened to Tony Piloseno, a young college student who went viral on TikTok for his paint mixing videos. Users of the app tried to cancel Piloseno after he posted a video of himself mixing blueberries in one of the paint buckets. Piloseno explained the blueberries were only a joke and not intended to be sold.

But the multiple complaints were enough to get him fired from his job. He had a passion for mixing paint and made it clear to the company that he never stole any materials. He used his employee discount to purchase the materials, and he only wanted to show off his passions.

In the end, Lovato did apologize for the overreaction and the way she called out the company. The apology video was posted on Instagram and explained how she failed to see that the various options were helpful to those with specific dietary needs. She stated that her eating disorders triggers are harder to avoid than those related to her past drug addiction. She cannot avoid eating as she can with drugs. 

Lovato misused her voice. She pressured loyal fans to target the wrong institution when she slandered the shop’s reputation on social media. As a society, we need to realize how big of an impact celebrities can have on our lives. They influence the views we have on beauty, health and lifestyle. When one celebrity speaks out against something they do not like, this does not mean society should follow in their footsteps.

Luckily, the yogurt shop gained sympathy from all the negativity aimed at them. In the end, they were even able to gain new customers and an apology from Lovato. She hopes to work with the company in order to make their marketing clearer.