“I’ll find you and kill you … You’re a clown. Kill yourself … Dude I’ll kill you.” All tagged with @dongatory, Flappy Bird creator Dong Ha Nguyen’s Twitter username, these death threats popped up around the Internet like weeds.
What was the offense? Nguyen decided to take down Flappy Bird after he thought the product was too “addictive,” according to Boy Genius Report. The threats seem even more ludicrous upon closer inspection. Anyone can continue to play the game; the only change was that no one could download it for the first time.
These personal attacks on Nguyen are just another entry in a long list of game creators, artists, writers — creative people in general — who have received vitriolic anger in response to their product, or their decisions regarding it.
What everyone needs to realize, though, is that these people do not owe the consumers of their work anything, and need to be treated with respect.
This isn’t the only example of unjustified hatred. Think back a few years to 13-year-old Rebecca Black and her song “Friday.” While some people argue that the song itself was poorly written, the personal attacks on her were unwarranted and unnecessary.
Imagine yourself at 13. Could you have handled people calling your song “the worst song EVER,” as one YouTube comment read? What about insulting your appearance, making memes with your face where the caption was “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore?” or being bullied at school to the point that your parents pulled you out?
Today, Black is a vlogger and singer on YouTube. Last year, she created a “Draw My Life” video, an autobiography of her life so far. In describing the “Friday” phase of her life, she talked about how she felt that she had “no friends” and recalled thinking things like “At least my computer loves me.” She even took down “Friday” for a short period because she couldn’t handle the flood of negative comments.
It’s clear that the backlash she was forced to deal with after uploading “Friday” catalyzed a period of depression in her life, which could have had life-threatening consequences. Cases like Black’s are what people need to consider before verbally abusing their least favorite artists.
Some people might argue that since artists decide to publicize their work, they need to be prepared for criticism. After all, they rationalize, creators put themselves out there and they often earn a lot of money.
But this logic is faulty. Publishing a song, game or piece of writing deserves constructive criticism, not unrelated assaults on a person’s body or personality. A comment like “I thought the lyrics were redundant” would be much more appropriate than one like “I hate this song…one million people [the number of dislikes currently on ‘Friday’] hate you.” The jump from disliking a product to disliking the person is the issue.
In short, modern society needs an update on its attitudes towards creative minds. They deserve respect and constructive criticism, not attack. Hateful thoughts should stay just that: unsaid words.
