Zoë Kravitz Gets Real About the Pressures of Social Media: "It's a Power Struggle"

Zoë Kravitz's social media presence has been a balancing act. She's struggled with shaping her online persona in an era in which one's posts can be conflated with their entire identity. In an interview with Elle, published Oct. 13, the 33-year-old actor opened up about the role social media has played in her life and her career, and spoiler alert: it's complicated. "I have had my ups and downs with [social media]," Kravitz said. "I'm sure it's helped my career in some ways, but I also think it's hurt it."

For the "Batman" actor, one of the biggest challenges of social media has been her own impulsivity. Following the 2022 Oscars incident in which Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, she referred to the ceremony as "the show where we are apparently assaulting people on stage now" in an Instagram post. After backlash, she deleted the post and voiced her regrets months later in the Wall Street Journal, saying, "It's a scary time to have an opinion or to say the wrong thing or to make controversial art or statements or thoughts or anything."

On the same note, the actor also regretted how she handled "High Fidelity"'s single-season run. Upon hearing that the series was canceled in 2020, she criticized the show's lack of diversity in a since-deleted Instagram post. "I didn't really sit and think about [using Instagram to call out Hulu for canceling "High Fidelity"], which is sometimes my problem. I'm a very impulsive person," she told Elle. "That's one of the problems with social media in general. You can just do something without thinking. There's good things about that, in terms of the fact that that was my honest opinion in that moment and still kind of is, and I said it. But we're also living in a time where it's good to be thoughtful about what you say."

Impulsivity aside, the actor just wants to be real. "In this time of social media where people constantly present perfection, that's really important, so I try to allow myself to be as human as possible," she said. "We live in this time where people are triggered and people are sensitive. But then people are saying horrible, horrible things to each other on the internet, it's all just a power struggle."