Why Social Media Won’t Stop Talking About The Met Gala 2022

Over the past month, you’ve probably seen or heard numerous people posting and talking about the Met Gala this year on social media. This event has gained so much attraction from the public due to the amount of drama, controversies, hate and arguments it has caused, but how could a fashion event cause such a significant, negative outburst on social media?

First off, the Met Gala is a fundraising, fashion event in New York City that has been taking place since 1948. It is held to raise money to profit the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. It’s known as the highest ranked fashion event in the world, due to the amount of celebrities, musicians, actors/actresses, models, influencers, singers etc. that attend it. These people all gather at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the first Monday of every May and are expected to dress uniquely and according to a certain theme; this year’s theme was “Gilded Glamour.” However, the fashion at this year’s Met has caused more drama and attention than expected.

The most talked about controversy that was caused by this event was Kim Kardashian deciding to model Marilyn Monroe’s exact dress that she wore when she sang “Happy Birthday” to former president John F. Kennedy in 1962. It was taken out of the historic museum it was in, just so she was able to wear it. This created a tremendous amount of hate from thousands of people online, all over the world. People were, and still are, claiming that this was extremely inappropriate for her to do and that she should have left it in the museum. Many fans of the Met and professionals said that Kim was putting the dress at risk of damage and that it would get ruined. As they predicted, it did end up getting slightly damaged due to the dress not fitting Kim. Even Bob Mackie, the original designer of Marilyn’s dress, said that Kim’s action was a “big mistake”, that the dress was “designed for her” (Marilyn), and that “nobody else should be seen in her dress.” Overall, even though the dress only suffered minor physical damage, people everywhere still strongly believe that Kim destroyed the history behind Marilyn’s dress and that the historical value it held was interrupted.

Most of the other events that happened at the Met this year did not cause nearly as big of an eruption on social media as Marilyn’s dress, but there were still a significant amount of more minor events that caused fans of the Met to speak up about their opinions. For example, the famous youtuber known as Emma Chamberlain modeled an antique necklace that formerly belonged to a king in North India. Many people on social media said that this was cultural appropriation and that it was extremely disrespectful and offensive to the king and this culture. In addition, most of the uproar that this year’s Met caused was simply due to the public’s opinion that the outfits were “ugly” and “disappointing”. Hundreds of fans on social media were very open about bashing the looks and weren’t afraid to make posts saying that they were “unfitting of the theme” and that they disliked them. One of the celebrities that was affected by this was Kylie Jenner. Due to her “bridal like” gown and veil that she modeled, she received hate from hundreds of people on social media for this look and had many fans insulting it. This was until she revealed that the look was designed by a friend of hers named Virgil Abloh, who had recently passed away. This came as a huge surprise to the fans and immediately caused an even bigger eruption online, which mainly consisted of people apologizing to Kylie. Overall, most of the publicity that the Met this year received was highly negative and most of the looks that were shown were bashed by lots of people.

All in all, a significant amount of the looks that were displayed by various celebrities at the Met Gala this year were either deeply offensive or greatly disliked by the fans and public. So, all the fans of the Met Gala can do is hope that next year’s Met will feature looks that don’t offend or disrespect anyone and display the fashion that they wish to see.