The Trolls that Rush the Gate: Between Bros and Girl-Ghostbusters

Oh? What’s that? HUH? We wrote about trolls and review-bombing just last week, did we?

Well if you know that, then you know we said that the internet moves fast. So hey- it looks like we did a full lap and are ready to talk EVEN MORE about review bombing, how it sucks, who it’s affecting, and the few methods for fighting back.

So What is it THIS Week?

So glad you asked!

There’s a movie coming out, maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you saw it at the top of the page, or maybe you’re reading this long after it’s written and none of it matters anymore. Well. That’s not on us. It’s on us to stay topical!

And the topic of the day is Bros, the new movie written by and starring Billy Eichner, said movie being what is easily described as a gay rom-com.

But it’s the year of our Lord 2022, which means for some people it’s the year of our Lord 1955, and WE CAN’T HAVE THAT SIN ON OUR SCREENS!

Yeah, newsflash. In case you didn’t know, not everyone supports all kinds of love, relationships, gender identities, or the freedom to be fluid, changing your mind as your life changes you. Some people hate the gays (or the women, the woke, the non-white).

And while it’s good that they aren’t turning to actual violence (we hope?), those who disagree with the lifestyles depicted in Bros can still do damage by review bombing the heck out of the film. And that’s exactly what they did.

The one star ratings rained in on IMDB, plummeting the overall rating to around a 5/10. The only issue is, the movie ain’t come out yet. Not to theaters, anyway. Which means it’s pretty obvious that anyone leaving reviews on the flick, hadn’t actually, y’know SEEN IT!

So IMDB flushed all the reviews away. When the movie comes out, we can expect the reviews to come in.

But this isn’t exactly a new problem, so- so why is it still a problem??

Obviously biases and hatred won’t disappear overnight, but as we have REPEATEDLY said: the internet is FAST. Can’t it figure this out?

WELL!

Rotten Tomatoes has.

The past few years has seen a number of review bombed films, usually films with female leads. The female Ghostbusters, Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel, and even more recently She-Hulk, and as we referenced last week, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.

Basically if the movie has a lady and she’s being strong and sassy and using her mouth for a bunch of smart-talking malarky, issa bad movie. It’s the worst. It’s liberal Hollywood propaganda, making us soft or bored or gay. Ooookay.

Well, as I “WELL’d”, Rotten Tomatoes found a way to keep the trolls outside the gate, at least on new movies that haven’t even released yet.

Rotten Tomatoes already doesn’t allow reviews to start flooding in prior to a movie’s release. But additionally, users who bought their movie ticket through Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes’ parent company, are tagged as “verified reviewers.” Meaning they can theoretically back up their opinions.

Sure, a hater could just buy a ticket, not go, then write a bad review, but that’d still be giving money to the film. And yes, they can wait until the film is out, then drop their load, but a discerning review reader will be able to toggle between the verified reviews (featured by default) and all reviews.

Is this the end? Not even close. Trolls die slowly.

But it may be the end of this blog post.