Let’s be clear: This is not about you. There are a lot of assholes in the world, sure, but you are not one of them. You’re a smart and sensible human being, empowered enough to know not to take ad hominem attacks personally and empathetic enough to feel for the people who do. And clearly, you are not Paul Feig, because the director of the new Ghostbusters reboot is taking some attacks very personally, just because they were directed straight at him. Yes, merely because he’s been on the receiving end of some incredibly vituperative personal insults and threats for more than a year, Feig is responding by striking back verbally at those who have harassed him, as though turnabout were fair play or something.
“Geek culture is home to some of the biggest assholes I’ve ever met in my life,” the director says in a new interview with New York Daily News, where he is definitely not talking about you. He came to this shocking conclusion about all the mean people who say things online that you would never say, because you’re a good person, after “being attacked by them for months because of this Ghostbusters project.” Feig, who apparently has yet to realize that certain people are just going to tell him he should die in a tire fire because he dared to post a picture of his stars in costume on set, should develop the same thick-skinned mentality everyone else on the internet (like you) has perfected. “I don’t care what shape or size or color or anything they are,” Feig adds, which is something you also for sure think, not like those people tweeting death threats at him, though he should really lighten up and accept that as part of life, too.
It’s this kind of unnecessary anti-being-endlessly-insulted attitude that causes all the problems, you would surely tell Paul Feig if you had the chance. Problems like the Ghostbusters trailer being the most disliked trailer in YouTube history, for one. Although that’s really two problems, you might additionally point out, because although all the insults are certainly wrong and outside your standards of proper behavior, you also weren’t thrilled with the lackluster trailer itself, an opinion you share with Melissa McCarthy. So let’s watch that recut fan version of the trailer that we all agree is so much better, while you sincerely hope Paul Feig can learn to stop taking all those very personal attacks so personally, because what right-thinking person would feel directly attacked by a death threat?