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Comment by cld8483 | Hacker News Reader

> [1] Black Panther and the 3rd Star Wars trilogy were surrounded by some of the most vile harassment campaigns I've seen, for example

Or, movie studios have exaggerated the impact of (real, but not very numerous) internet trolls to protect their own egos from valid criticisms. The third Star Wars trilogy was an incoherent mess. And for reasons I still don't understand, the end of Black Panther was released in a rough half-rendered state. But the people making these films don't want to hear criticism of their baby, so online critics get dehumanized as "trolls". Rare instances of real trolling from the likes of 4chan get highlighted and blown out of proportion as a defense mechanism.

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I agree that the SW trilogy was a mess, but that does not excuse Black actors being blasted with n-bombs and other slurs on Twitter and other social media, nor does it excuse the amount of sexist comments against Daisy Ridley.

For BP, it was the same. The whine from the far-right about "who wants to see <N-word>s in movies", "we're being ethnically replaced", "this is our future" etc. was unacceptable.

> but that does not excuse Black actors being blasted with n-bombs and other slurs on Twitter and other social media,

I'm not denying, much less excusing that. What I am saying is that such trolls are an irrelevant minority who's voices are amplified by those to whom nutjobs are a convenient excuse for their own failures.

Black Panther sold many millions of tickets in America, and had maybe a few thousand 4chan-style trolls complaining about it. Am I really expected to believe those few thousand trolls were the reason the movie got less than flawless glowing reviews from critics, rather than flaws in the movie itself being to blame? And if the Star Wars trilogy failed to perform as Disney expected, it certainly wasn't the fault of trolls. Star Wars fans outnumber trolls a million to one. If the Star Wars trilogy under-performed, it was because the Star Wars trilogy was flawed. Trolls are just a convenient excuse for the people involved in the production who don't want to face the facts about the quality of their product.

For the targets of hate campaigns, even a few thousand nutjobs on the Internet is way more than enough to ruin their quality of life. People have been driven to suicide because of that.

The worst thing are the stalkers that don't leave it at comments on Twitter but cross into real world intimidation (e.g. invasive photos, ordering pizzas, ...) to outright violence - you never know when they are gonna hit.

That's very unfortunate for the individual victims, but it cannot explain the under-performance of the targeted movies.

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