1,635 More Reasons to Love the Internet: Going Through Armond White's Social Network Hate Mail
Hoo boy. Norway isn't the only place you'll find plus-size trolls this morning: A tsunami of bile has flooded Rotten Tomatoes' Social Network review page, where noted hater Armond White dared to spoil a pristine 100% positive rating for what he described as "a movie excusing Hollywood ruthlessness." (Among other things.) Coincidentally, it also seems to be a movie excusing Internet commenters' ruthlessness.
At last count White's review had absorbed 1,635 comments -- not all negative, and, in fairness, not all legitimate. Take these two erudite contributions, which were spammed hundreds of times each because, well, what the hell. it's the Web! We can!
Chaz SMITH on 09-29-2010 09:03 PM
You sick son of a bitch. F*ck you. F*CK YOU. GO ROT IN F*CKING HELL, YOU A**-SUCKING C*NT! GO ROT IN F*CKING HELL!
Ron P. on 09-29-2010 09:05 PM
YOU WANT THE ATTENTION ARMOND??
WELL HERE YOU GO.
ZANY YUCKERS. REPRESENT.
Indeed. But hundreds and hundreds more have accrued alongside these, all the more remarkable for the invective they've managed without even seeing the movie. Again, knowing what we know from this summer, let's not pretend to be surprised. Let's just luxuriate once more in others' rage and, if you like, the warm glow of superiority:
· You're not getting into heaven, you know that right?
· Just because you are entitled to an opinion doesn't mean your opinion should be heard. Hitler's opinion was that Jew's should be eradicated, and he had the right to his opinion.....doesn't mean anyone should have listened. Armond White's opinion (whether troll driven or not) is fine and dandy, but should not be featured on a movie review site that uses legitimate critics to come up with a consensus for a film. My opinion is not featured on this site because I am not a legit movie critic. Armond White's voice, in turn, should not be heard on this site.
· Armond White: the reason we will soon discover just how many comments can be posted in a thread before it crashes.
· I think it's hilarious that there are only SIX comments on the actual RT boards about the movie itself. Obviously, none of you actually care about the movie. Just about humping the leg of Armond White.
· WHY ARE YOU ALLOWED ON THIS F*CKING WEBSITE. You're totally one of those people who gives negative reviews to good movies and vise versa because you want to be different. Nobody judges someone who jumps on the band wagon, but really, you have fake opinions on movies so stop lying to yourself and the entire world you prick.
· Armond White is my father, and I have to take protestation to this effrontery of adolescent remonstration. He is an educated film critic, unlike most of these other so-called film critics on here that praise any popular film. If my father conjectures that The Social Network is specious, then it must be.
· DO NOT CLICK TO READ HIS FULL REVIEW. DO NOT FEED THE TROLL.
· Another review created using Mad Libs for Douchebags.
· he needs to be banned. not just because he disagrees with the T meter, but he never gets the point of the movie he watches. EVER
· everything he complained about is what makes this movie great! (or so i hear). how a guy who made a social revolution really lost is only true friends. This excuse that armond has made up is exactly why ill be seeing it this friday. secretly he really loved this movie, deep down inside his troll heart.
· OH NO! Someone gave a bad review to a movie I haven't seen yet! I AM TEH OUTRAGED!
· The negative review after this has more comments, f*ck Armond White he is old news. Lets hate on that ugly white broad instead. Down with Prairie Miller!
Oh, yes, her. 3,518 More Reasons to Love the Internet: Going Through Prairie Miller's Social Network Hate Mail, coming right up...
· The Social Network [Rotten Tomatoes]
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
Your hate only makes him stronger, trolls.
Armond White is a professional troll, and your continued defense of him - as well as your own low journalistic standards - is testament to the state of professional criticism today. You are why you are only relevant enough for people to line and bash you, because you've absconded nuance and reason for gimmicks and tiresome snark. And it's abundantly clear you go out of your way to bash certain social phenomenon to provoke a response. So who's trolling who?
Fuck Rotten Tomatoes fanboys and their puerile fucking OCD over 100% ratings. Talk about your first-world problems... Goddamn. They forget that White was positively effusive over that other fanboy jerk-fest, Scott Pilgrim. Or does that not count?
Armond White isn't a troll, he's just ridiculously silly. He criticizes filmmakers for not having characters basically judged on screen. Because David Fincher doesn't condemn Mark Zuckerburg's character, the movie automatically promotes ruthlessness. Armond White apparently only likes really really dumb movies, and while really dumb movies can be good from time to time, I find his panning of movies like this stems from different artistic instincts rather than anything else. If Armond doesn't like characters dying at the end, he will pan every movie where characters die at the end, regardless of why they do.
Dude is a self-serving douche. He knows what he is doing...that is why he's doing it.
Fan-boys are also douches.
They can all meet in Douche Hell and do the Princeton Rub.
What's laughable about Trace's comment is that his complaints about Armond are even more applicable to his idol Stephanie, whose every last airheaded declaration and capricious judgment he vehemently defends, but who is also guilty of "liking really really dumb movies" all the time, and finding the most absurd rationalizations, instead of reasons, for her picks and pans.
And Stephanie has worse taste than Armond. Armond isn't the one who openly declares he doesn't "get" Kiarostami or find anything of interest in him, who snarkily pans Malick's masterpiece The New World, who refuses to ever mention with approval any of the greats Kael happened to be bored by (Tarkovsky, Cassavetes, Ozu). How is praising Norbit or Soul Man any sillier than praising Salt, 17 Again, Daddy Day Care, or Mr and Mrs Smith? It wasn't Armond who went into raptures and ecstasies over that Citizen Kane of our time, Salt. And Stephanie's reasons for hating Christopher Nolan are stupider and more inconsistent and self-contradictory than Armond's.
Take a good hard look at Armond's writing, and his top ten lists over the years. He may be a jerk, but his taste in film is certainly not as bad as Stephanie Zacharek's. She has all his bad qualities and none of his good ones. If Movieline has ever been guilty of feeding a troll, that happened when it hired Zacharek to be its chief film critic.
ZANY YUCKERS! DOUBLE REPRESENT!!