Slashdot Mirror
'I Got Death Threats For Writing a Bad Review of Aquaman' (huffingtonpost.com)
The Huffington Post recently published a post by one of the 300 members of the Broadcast Film Critics Association -- and a contributing writer to Variety:
I saw "Aquaman" on a brisk Monday morning in December. Though I appreciated that star Jason Momoa didn't take himself too seriously while playing an underwater superhero, the glut of CGI effects distracted me from the story. Which was hollow and nonsensical anyway. As with every movie I watch -- up to four a week, hundreds a year -- I expressed my opinion in print and online for Us Weekly, as well as my own site, MaraMovies.com. The review was also linked on Rotten Tomatoes, where I'm a Top Critic.
Since I had a lot of films on my busy holiday schedule, I quickly moved on. Hundreds of men who read my review did not.... [Example comment: "I will kill your mom, dad and friends Bcoz I want [you] to regret for what u did. I have your address and details about your family members."] I reported the messages to Instagram and was rebuffed because, per the automated response, the vitriol didn't "violate community guidelines." Didn't matter. They found me on Facebook and Twitter, too.... Nearly 2,000 people "liked" a post in which some guy made a collage of my face and a few negative reviews.... I wasn't scared by the threats as I much as I was disheartened. One guy summed it up when he messaged me: "How many of us are you going to block? There are thousands of us."
Ironically, the review wasn't all negative. It called Aquaman "the first live-action D.C. Comics movie in which a superhero actually appears to be having fun. Batman, Superman, the Suicide Squad, even our beloved Wonder Woman tend to behave as if they just lost their 401(k) savings during the apocalypse." Yet rifing on the critic's last name, one commenter still wrote "hope another Holocaust happens."
Instead of "thousands" of angry fans, it could just be hundreds who are using multiple accounts. But there's a larger issue. "I worry that reading volumes of hate mail is starting to get in my head and cause me to consider the potential angry male ramifications while I'm writing my reviews, thereby compromising my integrity."
Since I had a lot of films on my busy holiday schedule, I quickly moved on. Hundreds of men who read my review did not.... [Example comment: "I will kill your mom, dad and friends Bcoz I want [you] to regret for what u did. I have your address and details about your family members."] I reported the messages to Instagram and was rebuffed because, per the automated response, the vitriol didn't "violate community guidelines." Didn't matter. They found me on Facebook and Twitter, too.... Nearly 2,000 people "liked" a post in which some guy made a collage of my face and a few negative reviews.... I wasn't scared by the threats as I much as I was disheartened. One guy summed it up when he messaged me: "How many of us are you going to block? There are thousands of us."
Ironically, the review wasn't all negative. It called Aquaman "the first live-action D.C. Comics movie in which a superhero actually appears to be having fun. Batman, Superman, the Suicide Squad, even our beloved Wonder Woman tend to behave as if they just lost their 401(k) savings during the apocalypse." Yet rifing on the critic's last name, one commenter still wrote "hope another Holocaust happens."
Instead of "thousands" of angry fans, it could just be hundreds who are using multiple accounts. But there's a larger issue. "I worry that reading volumes of hate mail is starting to get in my head and cause me to consider the potential angry male ramifications while I'm writing my reviews, thereby compromising my integrity."
Oh, this is really just a female being hounded by nerdy incels. It likely has little to do with Aquaman, if anything.
The fact aquaman is grossing over a billion dollars worldwide so soon ahead of so many other titles is proof we are now in an alternate timeline.
>"Welcome to the internet. You seem to be new here..."
Indeed. There is a component of Internet users who apparently have a huge lack of social skills, respect for others, or even basic moral values. Having watched this Internet grow from nothing to what it is today, I think it is showing just how detached some humans can be from reality when they are not actually in front of other people. They can spew hatred and stupidity without any regard to how it affects others, because perhaps those others are not real.
It seems to be the same thing that happens when some people drive- it is as if their brains fail to compute that those other cars around them are not just stupid machines in your way, but vehicles being driven by people. People who have thoughts, feelings, motivations, desires, hopes, goals, deadlines, frustrations, just like your own and yet with different viewpoints and realities.
The other main problem with Internet communication it that it is primary written. And usually written rapidly and with little thought. As a social creature, humans rely surprisingly heavily on social cues when communicating. We already went through one dramatic change when phones came on the scene- we lost all visual cues and had to adapt to just vocal ones. But with text, we lose not only visual cues, but the audible ones as well. It is so very easy to completely misunderstand such text- especially when emotions are involved.
So my advice to those using the Internet/texting/whatever:
1) Remember that you should never write (or say) things you wouldn't do if your audience weren't right in front of you. There are actual people behind the scenes.
2) Remember the golden rule.
3) Remember that what you write/say/do is often public record. And even if it were meant to be public, it can easily be so when copied/forwarded.
4) Remember to give people the benefit of the doubt. Don't assume you know exactly what was meant.
5) Remember to place reason above emotion. I am not saying you shouldn't be emotional, or have emotion, or passion, or empathize; just don't let emotion drive all your interpretations and responses.... try to have balance and run things through your logical mind before acting.
Honestly, if it isn't, I would have stopped using the service... and if my job depended on it, I would explain to my employer why I did so, or at the very least, require a raise on account of needing danger pay.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
What does the word "male" do in that sentence except adding sexism? Does it matter what gender the hate mailers have?
Huffpost is not long for this world. They are owned by AOL/Verizon. Verizon gives companies 2-3 years to 'prove themselves'. Then they come in and tear shit up if it is not 'performing'. There is no way huffingtonpost is performing. Dialup is performing better from what I remember.
Media outlets owned by corporations or other special interest groups operate by different rules than other companies. The way they perform is measured by how many people they reach because that translates directly into the ability to shape public opionin which has all kinds of benefits for the owner of the outlet other that what nickels and dimes they earn off of it. If a media outlet turns a profit that is only gravy.
2% of the population are psychopaths; also 2% are sadists.
In a world of nearly 8 billion people - with 4% psychopaths or sadists that is 320 million people who have a natural tendency to do such behavior. So when you are on a platform like twitter or instagram and can be contacted by anyone - chances are you are going to encounter a large number of them. Since the platforms allows some anonymity - they can engage in their behavior with little risk of repercussions.
You people posting these hateful replies and death threats (!!) in response to a movie review need to get a life.
If you have a life, then you need to get a better one.
I can't imagine being so incensed over a movie review as to actually start making death threats.
For example, casting that pint-sized douchebag Tom Cruise as the character "Jack Reacher" really, really, really pissed me off, but it never occurred to me to send a death threat to anyone over it. Sheesh.
(For those of you who aren't familiar with the original, actual Jack Reacher character, one of his main distinguishing features is that he's a big guy- really big. Like, way way way bigger than Tom Cruise. That's part of his whole schtick- he's a great big dude. It's central to his entire character.
Picking Tom Cruise to play Jack Reacher was the single most fucked-up character casting choice I've ever seen in my life, period. It would be like picking one of the Oompa Loompas to play Arnold Schwarzenegger, or having Liberace play "Dog The Bounty Hunter.")
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I'm saddened that the average person is more like Donald Trump than any sort of intelligent, thinking being
Why did you have to throw in a smear on Donald Trump? You were making an excellent point right up until you dropped that. After that, you completely nullified everything you were just saying. The guy gets ridicule and vitriol no matter what he says or does. Its exactly this garbage that is the problem with discourse on the Internet these days.
and sifting through crap you and I would find abhorrent for the sake of reporting and chronicling things is what she does for a living? She might, for example, be searching for a point in all that hate.
I've been trying to figure out why folks are so obsessed with SJWism lately. It's treated as a major crisis online on par with our economy, education, global warming and the US Healthcare system. A few angry feminists with little or no political power doesn't seem to be a good focal point for a movement when 45,000 Americans will die this year from preventable illness and by all accounts our economy is on it's way to a recession. Nevermind that we've been at war with Afghanistan for almost as long as my kid's been alive.
If you want to understand something you're going to have to dig into it. A lot of what I get out of the Incel crowd is pretty abhorrent, but I'd like to think there's something to their frustrations & misplaced rage than simply being nasty, mean spirited people. And to get anywhere you have to listen to them. Yes. there have been cases of men abused by feminazis. Based on the stats I think there's about 10,000 false rape accusations a year, which is scary (it might be scarier that there's somewhere in the ballpark of 800,000 rapes per year of that 10,000 # is accurate....).
If you're going to try and fix somebody's complaint you have to try to understand it. Few go through life full of rage because they want to. If we can get a bead on why and tackle root causes in a way that's beneficial for all that's the right thing to do.
If you're a journalist or writer you're on the front lines of that. What you're hearing from her is the journalists equivalent of a solider complaining about war. Nothing wrong with that.
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And the problem is worse thanks to how Facebook et-al work. People end up in bubbles of "friends" that all agree with them, so it makes a dissenting voice (like a movie review) seems abhorrent to them.
...
You can be pretty lax on what sort of comments are allowed and still draw the line when someone makes a threat against a person's life without really worrying about trying to censor people's views.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
As a counterpoint, I'll kill your family.
Until certain factions decided that we should take the internet into the real world, this was supposed to be the Internet, where nobody knows you're a dog.
Whereas our corporate overlords insist on me giving my every personal detail, I propose the alternative: don't tell me who you are. Don't tell me where you live. Only give personally identifiable information to people you trust, don't broadcast it to the universe.
That's why I post AC exclusively these days. I don't trust one of you not to track me down. So go ahead, threaten me, threaten my family, threaten my city, threaten my country. Doesn't matter. I'm just an AC.
Two issues.
1, "Huffington Post"
2, "Hundreds of *men* who read my review did not" (which is exactly why, Huffington Post gives a shit)
Jason Momoa is a handsome man, currently in the "omg yes please!" Club for girls (and some men) across the world. I find it hard to believe this guy was threatened only by men. Furthermore, I suspect this was exaggerated, due again to #1, who have an act to grind.
They may as well be called "extreme left, hate white men post" at this point.
http://i.4pcdn.org/tv/14639966...
Dude, it's a woman reporter.
"i got death threats for being brave/truth speaking" etc etc... aren't I fabulous. Please give me validation.
It's the new black.
Ok, I'll bite. He installed a cabinet of people that want to dismantle everything we've accomplished thus far. Head of EPA: against the environment. Head of Education: against public education. Head of DOE: didn't know it meant nuclear. Head of FCC: against net neutrality. He filled the proverbial swamp rather than drain it. He essentially kidnapped thousands of children at the southern border. He's simply not a moral or ethical person, and often acts beneath the dignity of the office.