note to self…

This is more evidence of John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory – http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/

Lol, Orangutan. Hadn’t seen that before, but I think that is too true! People do all sorts of crappy things when they think they can act with impunity (with or without an audience).

Hmm.

1. A “witty” reiteration of the critics original line but with the critic the subject of scorn and ridicule: Check
2. Lashing out at the critic by insulting the most minute details about the critic, such as attacking the name of his/her site: Check
3. Sexist and misogynistic attacks on the critic based on their gender: Check. Check. Check.

These are the kinds of people who are absolutely terrified by any opinion that doesn’t reinforce their own and resort to any cheap insult to bring that opinion down. This is generally why you don’t frequent the comments sections of places like imdb, rottentomatoes, et al. Because giving the average moron the power to say anything without any accountability results in heinous fuckery. Youtube comments border on terrifying.

It’s weird to think that these people actually exist somewhere in real life, and they’re allowed to drive cars, vote, and procreate.

MaryAnn, I typically never agree with you, but I enjoy reading your opinion because it is always thought provoking. And this posts brings me to two thoughts: 1. I don’t know why we ever give internet posts a microphone. I saw CNN reading posts about Jolie and Pitt off of Facebook and there’s never any good reason to legitimize nutjobs. 2. Halloween is one of the worst horror movies I have ever seen. It is boring. And it isn’t scary. Seriously, what was his motivation? And why does he walk so slowly? You’d be in another state by the time he got down the leaf-filled, lonely sidewalk. So I say kudos to you for saying what you thought and it sucks you had to read the ridiculousness of trolls.

Oh, that was delicious. I love nerdrage. It nourishes my soul.

3. Sexist and misogynistic attacks on the critic based on their gender: Check. Check. Check.

Only if the critic is female, that is.

Whilst I may not agree with your assessment of Halloween it doesn’t make it right for small minded people to try to belittle you just for having a different opinion. It’s sickening and is one reason that I don’t visit certain movie sites/blogs because they allow people to be offensive and attack other people in their comments.

It’s really bizarre, isn’t it? I don’t usually have much truck in these pseudo-sociological worries about how the internet will affect us because most of the same fears have been aimed in the past at pretty much any technological advance, but it does seem increasingly like the internet is breeding a generation of people who get genuinely angry when someone doesn’t agree with them, which is freaky.

It’s like: back in the bad old days, we had genre snobbery, where people used to say that horror, fantasy, science fiction et al weren’t real art and didn’t deserve serious consideration. That was bad. But it’s gone now. What it seems to have been replaced with – and you can see this even on a relatively civilised site like io9 sometimes – is a sort of genre supremacy, the idea that every time someone either praises a non-genre film or criticises a genre film they’re doing so out of some terrifying elitist snobbery, because of course anything that doesn’t feature spaceships and monsters must be really boring and pretentious and Commie. It is just so weird.

MaryAnn Johanson. Your husband probably finds you boring but scary. There. I said it.

C’yeah, as if some guy would want to marry someone who’d find Halloween derivative.

3. Sexist and misogynistic attacks on the critic based on their gender: Check. Check. Check.

Only if the critic is female, that is.

If the critic is male, substitute claims about his sexual proclivities and the size of his penis.

Your husband?!? Dang, you’ve been holding out on us, MaryAnn!

I can’t speak to the film (because you know I’ve never seen nor will ever see Halloween or its ilk) but the comments are seriously harsh. I recently read an article that people sometimes don’t think that a real person is actually behind reviews & blogs & such and, when reminded, they are contrite. Perhaps you need to get to reminding … large knife & hockey mask optional.

EEEE-yew! It’s like prising up a rock, isn’t it? I didn’t think anything could be worse than the brawls that break out in the comments at cbc.ca. (You’d think people reading a news site would get a grip, but no, it’s like watching an accident in slow-motion; I gotta quit reading them.)

This, though….This is just depressing.

So out of curiosity, I decided to check out some of the other comments sections on negative reviews of Halloween. They’re mostly obscenity laced, with everyone basically parroting the ‘defined the genre’ comment with varying degrees of grammatical accuracy. They also seem very fond of the word ‘revolutionary’. And there was one shining example of the ‘well let’s see you make a movie then!’ retort.

But none of them come even close to the level of vitriol and rage hurled at MAJ in her comments section. There was one personal attack on Josh Larsen, the only other negative review to have a picture attached. Even that was just a standard ‘stupid face’ insult.

I’m left to assume this disparity is because Mary Ann had the audacity to be out of the kitchen and not breaking a heel while running in the forest.

still thinking about changing your name to Mark Johanson?

You are simply beyond the comprehension of the troglodytes who posted that trash at Rotten Tomatoes, MaryAnn. Those comments are *not about you*. They tried to make their comments about you, and they failed. They instead commented *only about themselves*.

If you could hold onto that fact, you might be able to study such comments with cold detachment, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Then it might be an interesting academic exercise to seek out the few intelligent minds who might, on rare occasions, be lost somewhere in that mob.

But if such cold detachment eludes you, as it eludes most of us — if reading that shit starts to affect you in the slightest negative way — then you are absolutely right to avoid them. The vast majority of those comments are utterly devoid of merit, and not worthy of anyone’s time, except possibly a psychotherapist nobly attempting to cure whatever the fuck is wrong with one of those people.

Good catch, Bluejay! And in answer to your question, no. I merely borrowed that metaphor as an apt description of the mind-boggling gulf between the ambitions of those Rotten Tomatoes commenters, and their puny powers of perception.

And if that commenter wanted to come here, where the conversation is actually civil conversation, I would be happy to engage with him.

I suppose I’m more on the side of showing up the morons on rotten tomoates through the use of intellegent discussion as a way to hijack their small minded vomit-drops. By limiting civil discourse to your own turf where, let’s face it, such utter pollution would be deleted on-sight (and rightly so), you deny frequenters of RT an example of reasoned argument and challenging opinion as well as form. I’m not saying you should visit RT comments daily or anything, but once every 6 months or so is a vastly different attitude to “don’t ever read it again”. In fact, if you were to respond in an assured, engaging way, those who are writing and thinking on a higher level will be more likely to respect such attitude and move to commenting here.

I’d be curled in a fetal ball and unable to do anything at all.

I’m just curious, how serious/sarcastic is your response to the haters, emotionally I mean? If it does genuinely upset you I’d be sorry to hear that, but you really shouldn’t take it that way. Victor is absolutely right to say:

Those comments are *not about you*. They tried to make their comments about you, and they failed. They instead commented *only about themselves*.

I suppose I’m more on the side of showing up the morons on rotten tomoates through the use of intellegent discussion as a way to hijack their small minded vomit-drops.

How many of those commenters do you think ever return to see what anyone else is saying?

I’m just curious, how serious/sarcastic is your response to the haters, emotionally I mean?

Reading one batch of comments once, no, I’m not that deeply affected. I couldn’t read them regularly, though. They are very disheartening. I know, of course, that Victor is right in what he says about them. But what does it say about *all of us* that there are so many people like that? These people are not aberrations: they are depressingly ordinary, and a depressingly large number of people don’t really see much wrong with them.