Camryn Grimes sister ill Y&R
Credit: Howard Wise/JPI

Mariah’s portrayer is staying out of the ship wars. 

Ship-dom can be rough, and social media can be even rougher. Put the two together, and you’ve got a minefield to tip-toe through. That’s something few know better than The Young and the Restless’ Camryn Grimes (Mariah). With her TV dad, Nick, bouncing between Phyllis and Sharon for decades now, the couple’s camps have become pretty entrenched.

But when a fan posted a reaction video to Nick and Phyllis’ breakup with various Young & Restless clips and capping it off with Grimes’ Emmy acceptance speech at the age of 10, the actress couldn’t help but giggle. In fact, it tickled her funny bone enough that she decided it was worth a share.

“This is hysterical!” the actress wrote, retweeting the video. But also realizing the potential hornet’s nest she could get into, she tried to get ahead of potential criticism with what she hoped was a humorous “*immediately gets unalived by Phick fans*.” (That is, of course, a reference to the fact that after Cassie’s demise, Grimes was brought back to play Mariah, her secret twin sis.)

The word “unalive” has also taken on a life of its own on social media as a way for, as they say, “the kids” to inject levity into an otherwise dark topic. As the Daily Beast put it, “Saying or writing ‘unalive’ in a humorous video or plastering it on a hoodie is the perfect way to let people know that the topic itself might be serious but the intended tone isn’t.”

Still, the reactions ranged from Shick fans rejoicing to Phick fans feeling attacked, and, of course, Grimes fans loving her adorable Emmy reaction. Plus, there were Phick fans who chimed in on the joke, too!

But when Grimes got a particularly strong negative reaction (the original tweet has since been deleted), she felt the need to speak up.

“Holy hell,” Mariah’s portrayer wrote in a follow-up tweet, “I thought the video was funny.” And while fans jumped in to defend her, some suggested she’d be wise to avoid having opinions on who should be paired with whom… which was most definitely not the case.

“Me liking it had nothing to do with ship alliances,” she stated firmly. “And people wonder why I’ve been quiet on social media for a long while.”

We need to make clear we aren’t taking a side in shipping Phick or Shick either — but when fandom reaches the point at which talking about favorite couples is navigated with the diplomatic precision of negotiating a treaty, maybe it’s time we all take a breath and a step back.

Meanwhile, maybe it’ll help everyone if we take a walk down a particularly adorable Memory Lane and check out this gallery of Grimes’ life in Genoa City, from her rag-doll hugging earliest days as Cassie, to her sharp-tongued modern times as Mariah.