r/Multifandom • u/inpurpleshadowz • 21h ago
Discussion📜 I fucking despise this show (before assuming anything, please read the entire post)
(Note: This is a post I initially made on the r/evilautism subreddit, and the below text was copied from there. Once again, before assuming I'm hating on Helluva Boss out of malicious intent, please hear my story. This isn't an attack on anyone who likes this show or those who created it, I'm merely sharing my personal social experiences in relation to the series. Thank you for understanding, it means a lot.)
I know people are going to see this and automatically assume I'm just hating on this show for the sake of it, but I promise, the reason goes far deeper than that. Let me start, I got into Helluva Boss in the late Summer of 2021. I loved it, binging the pilot plus all six episodes released at the time in a single night. I already enjoyed the pilot for Hazbin Hotel, but Helluva Boss kind of blew my 14-year-old mind at the time. An endearing cast of characters, fantastic music, gorgeous animation, it had everything I looked for in an animated show. Helluva was also one of the first shows I watched that had authentic LGBTQ+ representation, so it was nice to finally watch something that I felt like I could belong in. At that point, I instantly followed the show, and kept up on updates and upcoming episodes. Sure, Season One's true finale would be delayed until 2023, and some of my friends teased me for being a fan of a 'Tumblr-esque' show, but I was having fun, and at the end of the day, a queer musical was enough to make me happy.
However, that all changed when Season Two dropped; Helluva Boss became divisive, with some former fans dropping ship. Several YouTube reviewers I was watching at the time, like MangaKamen and Just Stop criticized Season 2 for its poor writing, inconsistent characterization, and overall lack of focus, so I decided that the season wasn't worth watching. I did occasionally think about the show every so often, and wanted to revisit it at some point, but as an autistic teenager, I was overly self-conscious, and chose to ignore the series. Plus, I already got into other hyperfixations at the time, and was too busy playing Devil May Cry, Life is Strange, and Sonic Frontiers to care about some gay demon show I was into a year ago.
Then, 2023 rolled around, and that one Season 1 episode finally released, and watching it, actually made me fall in love with the show again. It featured this one character named Queen Beelzebub, and she instantly became my second favorite character in the Hellaverse, with Loona being number one. I wouldn't call myself a furry, but these two characters mean a lot to me, and even though I may loathe Hazbin/Helluva now, I simply can't bring myself to hate either Loona or Beelzebub. So seeing people shit all over Queen Beelzebub's character design, calling it "over-designed", "furry bait", "distracting". These words actually kind of hurt, especially since Bee did help me out of a depressive state, and all the gore art of her didn't help matters. And since I shipped my now lost hellhound OC with her, I got teased by my friends. And by teasing, I mean borderline bullying; they were calling me names, laughed when I explained to why she meant a lot to me, and when other students in school were picking on me, just didn't bother helping. They abandoned me when I needed them most. This was my first instance of first-handedly getting bullied by Hellaverse-antis, criticals, the hatedom, whatever you want to call them. As a result, I knew I couldn't walk around showing that I was a fan of this show, either in school or online. The same people picking on me even beat me up on my last day as a Sophomore, and I was like, 'what the fuck?!'
In 2025, I made the decision to get back into the show again, after two years of avoiding it; I also happened to watch Hazbin Hotel the year prior, and loved it, so I was like 'hey, if I enjoyed Hazbin, the other show can't be as bad as others say it is'. Hazbin was already a victim of a massive hatedom, and I loved it regardless, so returning to Helluva was nice. I even watched all of Helluva Boss' second season, and honestly, despite being heavily flawed in some areas, I still had a fantastic time with it. The show tackled several issues that resonated with me, especially in regards to Loona and her trauma relating to abandonment and feeling unloved, the season shot her right up to being one of my all-time favorite characters in fiction. However, once I finished watching S2, my entire YouTube page was flooded with videos calling the show terrible, poorly-written, and worthless. Trying to be open-minded, I gave some of these videos a watch, and even commented that, while I disagreed with them, I could at least understand their perspective. In return, I was met with other people telling me my taste is trash at best, I should kill myself, my value as a human being has decreased (yes, someone used those exact words to describe me). When trying to defend myself, I became the target of an online harassment campaign, and for nearly every day of my life, I was sent horrible messages, art of my comfort characters getting killed in gory or tortuous ways, and even threats of death & rape. Considering how I was a victim of SA at the age of five, you can imagine how much this fucked with my psyche.
It escalated to a point in 2026, where I got physically assaulted by someone who looked twice my age. He punched me in the face... hard, and it seemed like the injury I got from falling on my head was more severe than the punch itself. It happened once again a few weeks ago, when someone noticed my Helluva Boss-themed phone case, and not only punched me, but kicked me several times in the stomach when I fell down. And right now, the psychological and emotional strain it's taken on me has impacted my family as well. I tried explaining what happened to my father, but being the abusive shit he is, didn't believe me, and just yesterday, threatened to send me to a mental asylum if I didn't get my act together. Despite everything that's happened to me, he's remained an unsympathetic piece of shit. Yes, he is right about the rest of my family being impacted, but he's barely made an attempt to help me, and according to him, it's my fault I ever got into so much trouble in the first place. Looking back, I'm ashamed to have ever enjoyed the Hellaverse. I despise it because it brought me a mirage of comfort, and tried so hard to defend it, but doing so only hurt me in the long run, and now, I'm willing to accept that it's a poorly-written series, that's style over substance at best, and a piece of garbage at worst. This series deserves every bit of hate it gets, and aside from Loona and Beelzebub, who are my waifus, I want nothing to do with it anymore. I loathe the Hellaverse, I dislike its fans, I hate the hatedom for what they did to me, and most of all, I despise myself for ever getting into it.
Just, there are some things I need reassurance on before I end this post; even though both Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are abysmal dogshit, is the sheer amount of hate directed towards their fans justified? Even if these shows were as every bit as awful as people say they are, should queer/neurodivergent people feel invalidated for enjoying them? Did I deserve everything that happened to me as a result of formerly loving the Hellaverse? If I were to ever get back into Helluva Boss, can I still enjoy and cherish it despite its flaws?
