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The Summer I Turned Pretty is perhaps one of the most popular teen dramas in recent years, with a fan base so voracious that it blurs the line between reality and TV. Lola Tung, the show's Isabel "Belly" Conklin, stands at the eye of the storm. When there are scorching battles over love triangles and character choices, she jokes, "It's not that serious." According to Teen Vogue, she says,
"I think we see with a lot of these love-triangle stories, people want the leading girl to end up with someone. When people have an attachment to the characters, they want to see it come together at the end. I’m so grateful that they care so much, but people get a little scary about it."
She added,
"Please don't threaten to kill someone if something doesn't go your way — I promise you, it's not that serious. Jenny [Han] is so smart and she cares so much about the story and making it the best story that it can be. It will be okay."
Her statement is symptomatic of a greater issue: the fan enthusiasm of The Summer I Turned Pretty has spilled over to alarming extremes. When season three premiered, arguing allegiance to "Team Conrad" or "Team Jeremiah" spilled far beyond useful debate, morphing into personal attacks and even threats against the cast.
Tung's statement has led to an overarching conversation regarding boundaries between fiction and reality.
The phenomenon of The Summer I Turned Pretty
Since its release in June 2022, The Summer I Turned Pretty has been a world favorite on Amazon Prime Video. Based on Jenny Han's bestseller trilogy, the show takes audiences through moments of love, friendship, loss, and self-discovery that resonate with audiences of all ages.
Season three, which became available to stream in July 2025, consists of 11 episodes and will conclude on September 17, 2025. At its root is a teen rom-com story involving Belly Conklin and her dysfunctional relationships with the Fisher brothers, Jeremiah and Conrad.
The love triangle is not only the emotional core of The Summer I Turned Pretty but also the overall source of the fandom's fierce divides. For so many, joining "Team Conrad" or "Team Jeremiah" is a deeply personal matter.
Passion or pressure? The fandom divide
Fanatics are nothing unusual when it comes to many TV dramas involving love triangles, and they provoke fiery discussion. What is special here, though, is how high the fans have gone with their enthusiasm.
Twitter and Instagram are filled with analysis of each meet-cute, speculation on what is going to unfold next, and what they will get in the next instalment, and the endless barrage of tweets defending or excoriating one brother against the other.
It might sound like innocent play-acting, but to the performers, it has at times gotten out of hand. Lola Tung pointed out that, as much as she loves the intensity, threats and online bullying are a no-no.
"When people have an attachment to the characters, they want to see it come together at the end," she said in her Teen Vogue cover story.
Amazon and Jenny Han's intervention
The backlash got amplified as the show stepped into season three, so Amazon stepped in. According to the BBC, the organization shared a TikTok post titled The summer we started acting normal online, saying, "The show isn't real but the people playing the characters are".
Community guidelines were also shared on the main Instagram page of The Summer I Turned Pretty, posting a clear disclaimer that harassment, doxxing, and hate speech would result in fans' getting banned.
Lola Tung's response
Tung herself has stayed calm. In Teen Vogue, she talked about how she was able to protect her own mental well-being in the face of public outrage. She talked about setting boundaries around her personal life and limiting exposure to the comments made online. For Tung, being outside the madness and being aware of her purpose without being clouded by external sounds is possible.
Her message, that it's "not that serious," wasn't one of dismissal but of appealing for balance. She recognized that the emotions that go into The Summer I Turned Pretty are legitimate ones, but she urged fans to turn those feelings into appreciation and not anger.
Why the fandom became so intense
Its audience is so invested emotionally, critics argue, because of its emotional weight. The series doesn't merely present a romance; it appropriates the fragility of adolescence, the complexity of loss, and the bittersweet melancholy of summers lost. The convergence of such emotions is what brings viewers so close to the narrative.
The timing is not an accident. The show offered comfort and distraction at a time of cultural uncertainty. The result is that the show's characters transcended their fictional nature; they became pals to viewers, going through their own issues. Emotional investment such as this has a way of igniting the kind of intense reactions that the cast has been seeing.
The broader debate over online behavior
The Summer I Turned Pretty scenario is reflective of a larger cultural trend: the blurring of lines between expressing enthusiasm as fans, and harassment. One finds similar tendencies with other movies or shows in which actors are held responsible for what their characters do. Social media exacerbates it all, putting fans directly in contact with actors and eradicating the distance between viewers and creators.
Tung's line, "It's not that serious," reminds us that fan-reaction can be strong but never at the cost of crossing into hurtful territory. Ship and plot arguments can explode without transgressing into hurtful waters.
Hence, as The Summer I Turned Pretty's Season 3 finale approaches, tension is at a fever pitch. Jenny Han promised that the finale would be one of resolution but also of surprise to the viewers. Whatever way the love triangle is resolved, however, the greater message may be in the way in which the show revealed both the power and danger of today's fandom culture.
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When the show does come to an end, not only will we be asking which brother Belly will be with, but also how the viewers find a way to engage with each other. Civil dialogue could ensure that what is left behind of The Summer I Turned Pretty is its storytelling and not its scandals.
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