The folks at World of Wonder have dug up a wonderfully bizarre artifact of 1993: an MTV News segment about the apparently sizable Brenda Walsh/Shannen Doherty backlash. Tabitha Soren (remember her?) reports that, in the few years after Beverly Hills, 90210 premiered, fans grew to hate bitchy Brenda and turn their anger against Doherty. The outrage gave rise to an “I Hate Brenda Newsletter,” in which one Eddie Vedder ridicules Doherty’s attempts to meet him, an enormous Brenda piñata, and a Sub Pop single called “Hating Brenda.” One hater goes so far as to accuse her of “pop-culture terrorism.” The clip also reminds us that Doherty, the Taylor Momsen of her time, once planned to front her own, U2-meets-Pearl-Jam rock band. But, as tended to be the case in the ’90s, Soren’s co-anchor Kurt Loder gets the last word: “She’ll never have as little to do as those people do.” Burn.
P.S. If you’re feeling particularly nostalgic, it looks like you can still pick up a used copy of The “I Hate Brenda” Book, a spin-off of the newsletter, at Amazon.