I’m sure many of you have heard of Gypsy Rose Blanchard: a victim of abuse, a former inmate, and most recently, a social media influencer and icon. Zoe Frank ’26 describes Blanchard as “problematic but very iconic,” an opinion seemingly held by many.
Social media’s staggering reach coupled with users’ appetite for easily digestible entertainment leads to the normalization of horrific actions. The trauma of Gypsy Rose Blanchard and the brutal murder of her mentally ill mother, DeeDee Blanchard, are a case in point.
Gypsy’s mother had undiagnosed Munchausen by Proxy. Munchausen by Proxy is a mental health disorder in which a caregiver fabricates or induces illness or injury in someone under their care, often a child, to gain attention or sympathy for themselves. Gypsy’s childhood and teen years were plagued by horrendous abuse and egregious acts of medical negligence. She was forced to undergo unnecessary surgeries, was heavily and unnecessarily medicated and forced to use an unneeded feeding tube and wheelchair. Gypsy was imprisoned in her home and in her body while her mother sought attention and acclaim for caring for her. Gypsy experienced unfathomable atrocities straight out of a horror movie.
In June of 2015, Blanchard’s story was brought to the public eye when she was arrested for DeeDee’s murder. The evidence established that Gypsy met a mentally and emotionally unstable man online and psychologically manipulated him to adopt an alternate personality and stab DeeDee to death in the home Gypsy and DeeDee shared. In 2016, Blanchard pled guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
On December 28th, 2023 Gypsy was granted early release from prison. A mere day later, Gypsy awoke to a massive social media following and celebrity status. Buoyed by her own social media postings and accounts of her heroism in murdering her mother and moving on with her life, Gypsy was further catapulted into the limelight in the month following her release from prison. In January 2024, she was featured on countless talk shows, magazine covers and even published a book. Gypsy became a social media influencer and millionaire, all within the first few weeks of her release.
In contrast, Nicholas Godejohn, the man Gypsy compelled to murder DeeDee, is still serving time. Godejohn has autism and is believed to suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Gypsy weaponized his mental fragility and inability to discern fantasy from reality when she asked him to call upon his “evil side” to kill DeeDee. Additionally, after DeeDee’s murder, Blanchard posted a comment from Godejohn’s laptop to her mother’s Facebook account that said “That Bitch Is Dead” in an attempt to attract attention to her mother’s death.
Our tremendous appetite for horrific and salacious online entertainment has rendered us incapable of deeply reflecting on the stories we consume. Consciously or unconsciously, we trade fact checking and deep thought for the voyeuristic thrill we get from the sordid details of personal accounts of trauma. The power of social media and the power we have as consumers is evident in Gypsy’s story. Gypsy uses social media as a platform to monetize and capitalize off her abuse. She is not using social media to educate viewers about Munchausen by Proxy; rather she seeks to garner sympathy, viewers, book sales and movie rights and more followers by sharing her stories. For our part, we’ve turned Gypsy into a twisted hero and rationalized DeeDee’s murder as a necessary act of justifiable homicide. This dynamic underscores the use of the term “followers” in social media.
I’m not denying Gypsy’s trauma or that she was a victim of horrendous abuse. Rather, I question our “follower” ethics and seeming inability, or lack of desire, to question Gypsy’s path to fame. The many troubling facts that might cast Gypsy in a negative light are ignored or have gotten lost in the “girlbossification” of her story. We have dubbed and celebrated Gypsy as the “girlboss” protagonist we want to see portrayed on social media. Is Gypsy a victim who survived horrific abuse? Absolutely. She is also a murderer with 8 million followers and counting.