When a celebrity impresses us, we can sometimes show our appreciation for them in some pretty wild ways.
Even if we try not to get too mad when people fail to appreciate the nuance they bring to every performance (especially that throw-away commercial from 10 years ago), our fandom can still seem a little on the extra side.
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Many of us have seen what happens when people’s fandom goes too overboard. But it’s hard to know where that sweet spot where we’re obsessed enough to be endearing without crossing that line into creepiness lies.
Well, it was hard to know because one clever Photoshopper just found it.
Twitter user Bolu Babalola started this saga off with a simple request that nobody needed to be suspicious about.
All she wanted to do was reconnect with the man she met in this photo. Oh, and that man just happened to be Creed and Black Panther star Michael B. Jordan.
What a strange coincidence. Photoshop, you say? Never heard of it.
OK, fine. To the surprise of nobody, she started getting messages that she had touched up that picture a tad.
Of course, such a serious accusation shocked and appalled Bolu and her homegirls. A love this pure could never be sullied by the Photoshop tool.
It’s hard not to admit she did a quality editing job, though.
The picture may not have been real, but as we’re about to learn, this next part definitely was.
What’s interesting was that Bolu was suddenly playing it so coy. I thought this was just a simple attempt to reconnect with an old flame.
It seems Twitter did its thing as promised, but how?
It seemed that there was no time to worry about that, though. The squad of people yelling “fake” had returned in full force.
Only this time, they apparently unveiled their secret weapon: Pointlessly drawing red circles on things! Unfortunately, their secret weapon turned out not to be as effective as they’d hoped.
A mere three days after posting the photo, it seemed like Bolu was about to have her moment.
As she came closer to the big day, her mind was full of questions . Would it be too much to wear a white dress? Would she successfully ask Michael her question, or would she buckle?
Not only did she get her question out, but we finally learned what thing Twitter did.
Not only did we have confirmation that Michael had seen her photo, but he was obviously willing to play along if “remember last summer” was all it took to jog his memory.
And his response wasn’t just idle chatter, either.
Yes, this time she got a real picture with Michael B. Jordan.
Now those who doubted her could come with all the red circles that they wanted.
Pasting a picture of Michael smiling on somebody else’s body might be doable, but finding another picture where Tessa Thompson made that face in the background probably isn’t.
Just in case some people still weren’t convinced, the man himself confirmed everything with this tweet.
We all know what that shrug emoji next to “for the second time” means, but this saga just doesn’t feel complete if he doesn’t commit to the bit. So it’s a good thing he did.
Of course, Bolu wasn’t the only one who felt vindicated by this shout-out.
If you recall, her and her homegirls were upset by these Photoshop accusations. Now all of her supporters could celebrate.
And the rest of us can just be amused, I guess.
Apparently, others were just here to appreciate how nicely this story came together.
After all, even if Bolu told us that this was how she thought this situation would unfold, it seems unlikely that she expected it all to go down in less than a week.
That is some pretty concise storytelling.
