Internet weasels quick to anger

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on April 9th, 2008

RadarOnline.com (“Pop, Politics, Scandal, Style” says their subtitle) has an article, “The Internet Is for Scorn, Meet the Web’s 10 most hated people.”

The Internet may provide endless hours of productivity-killing diversion and free-ish pornography, but that’s not all it offers. The Web also gives us a cloak of anonymity, allowing every man, woman, and child to expel anonymous bile on strangers—be they the real-life TV celebrities we can’t stand, or infamous figures brought to the nation’s attention via YouTube. Below, Radar’s list of the 10 people the Web really, really loves to hate.

It merits our attention here because Number 8 (click on over to the top of page 2 of the article) is David Cross.

…when the Boston-born comedian… was offered a big paycheck in exchange for a few weeks of work on the disposable kiddie flick Alvin and the Chipmunks, he put aside his artistic integrity and took the cash. To his Internet faithful, he might as well have been the Fox executive who pulled the plug on Arrested Development. Cross was immediately branded a “smug, condescending asshole,” and “a huge prick” on The Onion AV Club’s blog for taking the role (more than 300 commenters chimed in, most in agreement).

Readers of SHECKYmagazine will recall that we defended Cross’ decision to make the movie. (Well, we tried to pre-emptively head off any goofball talk of “selling out.” Our opinion is that the whole concept is weak.)

In response to a reader’s comment, who weakly defended Cross, we said the following:

We never said that Cross sold out. We said that pondering the very concept is a waste of time. That even trying to define it is a waste of time. Because those non-artists who concern themselves with such things have a tenuous grip on reality and those artists who bother to publicly contemplate the notion of selling out are either 1) Pandering to the non-artists who have a tenuous grip on reality or 2) Trying to fool themselves into believing that their art is somehow separate from commerce.

In either event, time is wasted.

It is nothing more than posturing, a New Age approach to marketing. Many amateurs who brandish the anti-selling out attitude do so as a matter of necessity. It is just as much a part of their marketing strategy as the zippered hoodie and the faux retro track shoes.

And, for some, it works.

And for some, it bites them in the ass. Hard. Witness the stinging criticism that Cross received at the hands of his “fans.”

Considering that the worldwide gross for the Chipmunk flick was $356,453,805, we figure that the paycheck for the sequel (and the paycheck for the sequel to the sequel) might soothe some of that sting. (Unless his character was killed… Perhaps there’ll be a prequel.)

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