At the risk of beating a dead horse as frivolously as possible, one should always keep in mind that that any lasting impact a troll’s words has on on a creator will absolutely pale in comparison to how miserable the troll’s entire life is. As time goes on, it becomes more and more clear that those who are intentionally provocative aren’t worth anybody’s time.
Nevertheless, however ineffective it may end up being, there’s no harm in wishing that trolls can be reasoned with. One such conduit of that wish is none other than Phil Lord, one of the producers behind Sony’s high-flying Spider-Verse franchise, which is due for its second entry early this summer.
In a tweet, Lord remarked that trolls would likely hold back their unhelpful balderdash if they understood how much love got put into each and every film they choose to shit on. It’s an admirable sentiment, to be sure, but Lord has made one critical mistake in assuming that internet trolls are realistically capable of empathy.
One responder pointed out, however, that one can get much more mileage out of trying to love something than trying to hate something for the sake of vomiting up a rude tweet, which is great advice for any moviegoer.
Another responder suggested it would do trolls good to comprehend the notion of constructive criticism, but we get the distinct impression that the internet’s deplorables would be better off starting with therapy.
At the end of the day, creators get paid to bare their souls in ways most of us could only dream of; a life that trolls, too, would dream of acclimating to if they were capable of dreaming.
Nothing is beyond proper, honest critique, but very few works deserve outright hatred and unhelpful humility. In any case, the trolls are going to need all the ammunition in the world if they want to dent the spirits of the talent behind Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which will no doubt be the recipient of a love that outshines the hate by several orders of magnitude.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will release to theaters on June 2.
