Spoiler: people are awful (especially pre-teens with Bieber-inspired usernames) and racism is still alive and well.

Freshly Grammy-nominated artist and cooler teen than you ever were, Lorde, is currently copping lots of shit online for having an Asian boyfriend. Here’s the depressing context: Lorde apparently called One Direction and Justin Bieber ugly (she didn’t), and now Directioners and Beliebers have united via racism to target O’Connor’s 24-year-old boyfriend, James Lowe, and simultaneously bring down my already very little faith in humanity.

This is what you’ll find if you search “Lorde boyfriend” on Twitter:

Lorde gets all the props. So far she has gone against all the rules of pop star media training to criticise the industry for its gross misogyny; slammed Selena Gomez’ Come and Get it song for generally being the very opposite of feminism; and even stepped up to Tyler, The Creator when he laughed at her. Those under accomplished feels are very real right now.

Also, here are some mandatory totally-not-groundbreaking-but-after-this-apparently-they-are lessons to take away from this story: society is still well and truly fucked and racism is never okay – yes, even (and especially) if you start a sentence with “I’m not being racist, but…”. Ugh, I just typed that in 2013, you guys.

More Lorde

Lorde and Selena Gomez get catty under the guise of feminism