A few months ago, Adele posted an Instagram picture that appeared to show her pretty substantial weight loss. This picture (again, an Instagram picture) kicked off a debate over whether it was cool to celebrate her weight loss due to it potentially indicating that there was something wrong with her before. There was probably more nuance to it, but normal people usually "x" out of a tab while scrolling down and saying some variation of "oh man, I'm not reading all of that" on many of the internet's thinkpieces.
Still, the majority vibe seemed to be positive (I mean it got more than 12 million IG likes). For celebrities—and their publicists—that would seem to indicate a win.
Fast forward to Sunday and Adele's newest post is also getting attention of the trending-on-Twitter variety. As you may know, that can often suck. The post, which we'll embed in a second, had the singer rocking a Jamaican flag-themed bikini top with her hair up in Bantu knots. It's clear from that caption that it's a tribute to London's annual Notting Hill Carnival, which was called off in 2020 due to COVID. Peoplesays the event "celebrates Black and Caribbean culture in the U.K." While TMZ says the picture was probably taken at last year's fest.
*Stops stalling* Here it is:
In addition to the people who reacted positively (I mean, 2.8 million 'likes' and counting is better than most of us do), the image was commented upon by a lot of Twitter users, most of whom fell into camps of: claiming cultural appropriation, claiming cultural appreciation, saying she kind of looks like Katy Perry, remixing her music, or just general ball-busting/roasting. Here's an extended sample:
