Lady Gaga, ‘Venom’ and when fandom is weaponized

It’s the battle of the monsters this weekend. In one corner we have the alien symbiote Venom who could very well launch a new cinematic universe for Sony. In the other we have the “Little Monsters,” Lady Gaga’s fanbase who is fighting for audiences to show up for her awards worthy performance in A Star is Born. Tuesday, it was discovered that a group of Lady Gaga fans were attempting to sabotage Venom’s opening weekend box office by writing negative reviews of Venom on Twitter once the social media embargo lifted. Twitter users noticed that a significant number of reactions to Venom following Monday’s premiere contained the same content right down to the punctuation, and one of them told Buzzfeed it was a coordinated attack on Venom.

The most prominent faux hot take offenders were “I am the biggest marvel fan but I just watched #Venom and I don’t know what to say. Easily the worst movie this year. I expected so much better and now I’m just disappointed” and “Just got out of a #Venom preview.. Thankfully it was free. Worst two hours of my life. I will be taking my wife to see Lady GaGa’s new movie #AStarisBorn with Bradley Cooper on Friday. Their song Shallow is great..”

Welcome to the last days of the second decade in the 21st century, where the battle for dominant pop culture is fought through alternate accounts and falsified reviews for films that the vast majority of would-be audiences have yet to see.