Leslie Jones, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon in Paul Feig's 'Ghostbusters'
On Saturday, the cast of
Ghostbusters visited the Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. Director Paul Feig's reboot of the
1984 film is shooting in Boston near the hospital, and the production
noticed some of the patients had put signs in the hospital's windows which spelled out "
Who ya gonna call?" So the cast dressed in full costume, put on their proton packs, and
visited sick children and their families, which Tufts
posted images of on their Facebook page.
However, if you think doing something for sick kids would be immune from the criticism of internet trolls, well you'd be wrong. Whenever there's a remake, reboot or re-imagining of a classic film or TV show, opinions can be strong. But since it was announced, this new all-female iteration of Ghostbusters has been the source of scorn for grown men who somehow believe the movie will be able to bend the space-time continuum to go back and take a shit on their childhood, thus leading to it being a target for their misogyny. And that contingent of unhappy fanboy assholes descended on Tuft's Facebook post of hospitalized children to leave nasty comments, with the invective being so much that Tufts had to ask people to watch their profanity and threatened to delete comments.
The key characteristics of this sort of dynamic is obsession, entitlement and a loss of perspective. Within any sufficiently large group of people united behind some commonality, eventually things will splinter when some portion of the group starts believing they are better and the truest of "true" believers who are the self-appointed defenders charged with protecting its honor. And it doesn't matter whether it's a religion, political movement or fans of a film, TV show or book series, sooner or later a meta discussion will take place which goes nowhere, satisfies no one and is a waste of time that accomplishes nothing since the whole thing is irrational. Because declaring victory in an internet flame war is about as nebulous as true victory has been in the real wars over the past decade or so.
This got me to thinking about the whole thing, and what would be the silliest, most ridiculous, nastiest, or (insert mocking adjective here) internet flame war you've ever been witness to?
Continue below the fold for more.
If you spend a great deal of your time pretending to be an asshole to get a reaction from people ... you aren't pretending. You are an asshole. —Ed Brayton
The one constant to every internet discussion I've seen go south has been the desperate need to be "right" by one side or the other, or both, even when the argument wasn't logical. And this was true whether the subject matter was movies, music, sports, or dare I say politics. Because, whether one might think so or not, there are a lot of similarities between the people who want to argue about which is the "true" version of
Star Trek or the bestest captain of the
Enterprise, and those that want to define who or what is a "true" or "real" Democrat.
The most demonstrable behavior exhibited in what happened to Tufts in the Ghostbusters example above, and is a clear sign of trolling, is the need to do the equivalent of taking a dump in the punch bowl by bringing their irrelevant hangups, which may or may not be based in sexism, racism or ignorance, into discussions that have nothing to do about them. And they do it because they either can't stand someone having a good word to say about something they dislike, or there's just the desire to piss off another group of people.
- For any positive story about a politician, public figure, institution, or country performing a good act or accomplishing a goal, invariably someone will feel the need to make sure their personal criticism is part of the discussion, whether it's relevant or not.
- With any band or artist that has a significant cult following, if they should have a top 10 Billboard hit single, some part of their fans will accuse the band or artist of "selling out." The old fans may look down on any new fans that come into the fold after the band or artist becomes successful. If the album is successful, some will say it was done for the money, not "the art." If the next album is even more successful, then the street cred of the previous successful album goes up, and the new album is the "sellout album" for a new subset of fans.
From Randy Lewis at the Los Angeles Times (April 8, 1990):
The Grateful Dead are feeling the symptoms of a condition that few people ever expected this oddball group to contract: an overdose of commercial success ... In 1987, the Dead did something no one expected. They turned out a hit single. Suddenly, the Dead became the focal point for a whole new audience that knew little about the sense of brotherhood and camaraderie that typified Grateful Dead gatherings. These people looked at the Dead and saw only the quintessential rock party band, an entity whose followers seemed to emerge from suspended animation long enough to shout, "Can you dig it?" "groovy" and "ohhhhhh, mannnnnnn!" for a few hours at a concert before stepping back into mothballs--headbands, cotton drawstring trousers and all.
Dead shows soon began to draw more and more fans interested in nothing more than partying their brains out, oxymoronic as that may be. That contingent isn't by any means new to the group's following, but the dimension to which it has grown is.
"I have friends who were complaining about the 'new' Deadheads in 1972--really," said the group's longtime publicist, Dennis McNally. "But without being invidious to any one group of people, in general (problems have resulted from) sheer numbers. You put lots of people in a small space, and some people start stepping on some people's toes."
- Any remake, re-imagining, sequel, prequel or cover will inevitably spur long debates over how much the new material sucks compared to the original. In each case, there will be some fans arguing against the new material, even if they've never seen or heard the new iteration.
- Any film adaptation of a popular book or novel will usually have some fans of the story who think the movie is vastly inferior, instead of judging it on its own merits and accepting it as a different entity.
- To paraphrase Sircar's Corollary to Godwin's Law, if Robert Heinlein or Starship Troopers should be mentioned in an internet discussion, it's only a matter of time before accusations of fascism and/or Nazis will be made.
- Any discussion where the question is asked which TV series was better (e.g., Breaking Bad versus The Wire), which character was better (e.g., Kirk or Picard, Mike or Joel on MST3K, Fourth Doctor or Tenth Doctor for Doctor Who, etc.), or who would win in a fight will lead to strong opinions. And the same thing is true if the dynamic is applied to discussions about music. (e.g., Tupac versus Biggie, The Cure versus The Smiths, The Who versus Led Zeppelin, Metallica versus Megadeth, Velvet Revolver versus Guns N' Roses, etc.)
- Any comedy or drama with a storyline about unrequited love or a love triangle will have fans that are willing to argue for hours for their preferred fictional relationship with other fans who disagree (e.g., team Edward or team Jacob).
- For any television show or film where the appearance (clothes, hair style, etc.) of major characters are changed from the norm, there will at least be some fans who will argue it negatively impacts the story. This happened with J.J. Abrams's first television show Felicity, where falling ratings were blamed on Keri Russell's shortened hair. A more recent example was the fan reaction to Kaley Cuoco's shorter hair in last season's The Big Bang Theory.
- Any television show which has its story experience a time jump and/or a warping of reality for any reason will have at least some fans screaming bloody murder. The most infamous example of this is Dallas, which erased an entire season's worth of episodes by saying it all occurred in a dream. Also, some Lost fans didn't like the introduction of time travel into its story.
- For any musical production with a devoted fanbase, those fans will eventually argue about which production is better, whether or not actor X was as good as actor Y while performing role Z, character motivations, etc., etc. If there is a movie version, expect heated debate over whether or not it did justice to the source material. For example, the better Elphaba? Kerry Ellis or Idina Menzel?