Many Teen Mom OG fans speculated that the feud between Maci Bookout and Ryan Edwards peaked with Maci’s decision to have Ryan and his family fired from the show.
After all, they reasoned, it won’t be much a feud going forward, as whatever drama occurs between the exes will no longer be documented by an MTV camera crew.
Fortunately, we live in the age of social media, a time when petty beefs are never resolved, as both combatants are reminded of the other’s existence on a daily basis.
Ryan doesn’t seem to spend much time on social media, but his wife, Mackenzie Standifer — an aspiring athletic trainer and influencer — is a regular Instagram junkie.
And it seems she may have been throwing some subtle shade at Maci recently.
‘The truth is, anyone can sound confident and have anxiety. Anyone can look healthy but feel like s–t,” reads Stanifer’s latest post.
“Anyone can look happy and be miserable inside. Anyone can be good-looking but still, feel ugly.
“So be kind and understanding towards others because you don’t know their struggles.”
Mackenzie is simply urging others to be kind and reminding her followers of the hidden struggles we all face.
But Teen Mom OG fans dissect her every post for signs of shade toward Maci, and they were pretty happy with what they found with this one.
On its own, perhaps it would have been nothing.
But the fact is, Mackenzie’s post comes just a few days after another one that set out a shade alert among her followers.
“Just because you’re too stupid to get it, doesn’t make it cryptic.”
Again, it’s possible Mack was simply cracking a joke there.
But she knew how that joke would be interpreted and she posted it anyway.
So maybe the folks who are reading these comments as passive-aggressing trash talk are actually onto something.
After all, despite how much more mature she is than Ryan, Mackenzie has always been the attack dog in the family.
She’s always willing to go on the offensive when she feels that a mmember of inner circle has been offended — and Maci has been going out of her way in recent weeks to make certain that Ryan feels offended.
In addition to getting him fired from the only job he’s known in his adult life, she’s started referring to eldest child, 12-year-old Bentley, as Taylor McKinney’s son.
Granted, Ryan hasn’t been much of a father to Bentley in recent years, but at least from a biological standpoint, Bentley is still huis son.
We have zero sympathy for Ryan, as he 100 percent brought all of this on himself.
But it’s easy to see how someone like Mackenzie might feel that Edwards is being unfairly attacked and may feel as though she’s justified at lashing out against his attacker.
Of course, Maci is holding all the cards at this point, so Mack might feel that passive-aggressive posts are the only way for her to safely take a shot at her tormentor.
It’s yet another reminder that the kids who are being raised by these people might be the most mature ones in the picture.