Photo: @blakelively, @vancityreynolds/Instagram; lev radin, Asier Romero/Shutterstock.com; Canva
They're one of the most popular celebrity couples out there — and some fans have had enough.
By John Sundholm — Written on Dec 31, 2022
Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively have been one of Hollywood's "it" couples for years now, partly because of how normal they seem, despite their impossibly glamorous life.
Rather than cultivate the usual celebrity aloofness, the pair's self-deprecating jokes and constant Instagram pranks have become something of a pop culture institution.
And each new iteration is always met with a resounding chorus of fans declaring their marriage "relationship goals."
But their shtick has begun to wear a bit thin for some fans, who are starting to feel like the whole thing is an act—and one that has long since worn out its welcome.
In a recent thread on the "r/popculturechat" subReddit, a fan asked bluntly, "Why do people love Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively?"
And the answers show that plenty of pop culture vultures have had it with Hollywood's zaniest couple.
Fans began to air their negative feelings about Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds.
Many fans aren't buying Reynolds and Lively's "picture-perfect" marriage, and think it's all just another Hollywood PR stunt.
It's easy to forget in the face of celebrities' carefully crafted public personas that they are, at the end of the day, gazillionaire celebrities whose lives bear no resemblance to a normal person's.
In the case of Reynolds and Lively, many people feel like they're taking the whole "normal" thing a bit too far.
One Redditor called the pair "manufactured," while another called their "lol so quirky persona" a calculated move conjured up by their PR team.
A TikTok user had a similar take, arguing that the constant jabs at each other are just a modern iteration of "ball and chain" culture.
Another commenter on Reddit said that the more the couple "try to push the perfect marriage/relationship goals narrative online, the less I believe them."
Fans have had it with Reynolds and Lively's constant trolling.
Reynolds' and Lively's constant social media trolls of each other have become an institution among fans.
Fans especially seem to love Reynolds' yearly roast of Lively on her birthday, like the one below in 2019 where he posted a series of unflattering photos of his wife.
But for some fans, the act has gotten real old, real fast. One Redditor called Reynolds' whole style "too much cringe for me," while another pointed out that his jokes are all the same, including in his movies.
The user wrote, "His humor gets very stale once you realize he does jokes same way all the time."
"He says something funny with a very straight face, and then just keep staring at the person he says that to."
Another wrote that while they like Lively, they "can't stand him," and they're particularly irked by Reynolds' trolling of his wife, which they wrote, "comes off as try hard."
One Redditor heartily agreed, calling Reynolds' trolls of Lively, like a 2017 birthday post in which he cropped Lively out of a photo entirely, "really old."
And then they made a most unfavorable comparison to Reynolds' comedic stylings—"It’s kind of cringe to me like boomer humor of sorts."
Ouch. Tough, but fair.
Still, for every person who seems to hate Reynolds and Lively there is another who loves them and doesn't "get the intense hatred," as one Redditor put it.
In the end, Reynolds' and Lively's social media portrayal of a perfect, hilarious celebrity marriage isn't hurting anyone.
But after years and years of public performance, it's hard not to see through it a bit.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.