Entry tags:

fandom: supernatural, misha collins trolls fandom (again), person: misha collins

Misha Collins is Supernatural's Keyser Soze
Misha Collins is an actor from Supernatural best known for two things: his cheerful shit-stirring ways (my favorite example is when he told Australian journalists that the Supernatural fandom is "an incredibly sexist group of people") and the charity he co-founded with Supernatural fans, Random Acts, which most famously supports a Haitian community center/orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti. Despite Misha's heavy utilization of sarcasm, his fiercely loyal fans seem to take everything with almost painful sincerity, which leads to a lot of wank.

About a month ago, Misha's fanbase on Tumblr were already on edge from uncertainty about whether Misha would return for Season 8 of Supernatural. Secondly, a group of fans had started a fan project called Supernatural: Silent Majority, because this is Supernatural fandom and everything has to be a fucking operation. The Spn: Silent Majority is petitioning the showrunners to focus the upcoming season of Supernatural on Sam and Dean's relationship, which Castiel/Misha fans felt was a covert attack on Castiel's continued presence on the show.

Someone began sending Misha's fan anonymous notes suggesting that he be set on fire. Or according to one post, "Gasoline is way too expensive. Someone just needs to push him into oncoming traffic. Road kill Misha Collins! rotflmao."

Then one identical message appears on a number of blogs (1, 2, 3, 4, 5): "I didn't start this whole 'lets set misha on fire craze' but I have to say that setting him on fire would be an improvement on his overall appearance. I bet he'd even be taken off the ugliest actor list. I mean, just between you and me, the guy is hideous. Everyone thinks so until they start crushing on him because of Castiel but without Castiel to make him look appealing, he's just gross to look at. You have to at least agree with me on that, right? I thought so."

Fans are upset, naturally (although my favorite response is "Set Misha on fire? Set him on fire with the flames of my love! I think that's what they meant.") One fan suggests notifying the fuzz:

If we rally together we can make sure these sick haters get the consequences they deserve. Not liking a TV character is your prerogative, but wishing to see such harm come to the actor playing them is demented. Some people are clearly lunatics and it only takes one person to be crazy enough to want to go through with any of these threats for Misha to end up in real danger. So we must take all this seriously. Report it all if it comes up on your Dash or ends up in your Ask….pass on all the permalinks to Tumblr staff and keep Clif informed of what’s going on.
Misha is a good man, he doesn’t deserve a hate campaign this extreme against him, it’s getting ridiculous and scary and I’m concerned for his well being at this point.
Don’t feed the trolls, just report them. They wont feel so high and mighty when the police come knocking on their door, death threats are after all an illegal activity.

And the troll escalates pretty quickly:

Anonymous asked: People who want to set Misha on fire have it all wrong. You wouldn't start with his face. You'd start by pulling down his pants, soaking his entire crotch area with gasoline, and then letting it spread from there! Common sense, right?

babyangelcastiel replied: Excuse me? Are you fucking kidding me? You have actually come to my ask box and said this to me?!

You sick, disgusting, creature. What the fuck is wrong with you? Setting Misha on fire?

THESE ARE THE DEATH THREATS TO MISHA THAT EVERYONE HAS BEEN TALKING ABOUT. YOU SICK FUCK.

Common sense? Get the fuck out of this fandom right now. I can’t…setting someone on fire? Gasoline on his crotch area? You’re beyond twisted, darling, and you need serious help.
If anyone dares go through with this and I swear to god I would hunt your ass down. This fandom is sick. Why am I apart of people who say something like this?

So a tumblr user named Tabby (url: assstiel.tumblr.com) on the 30th of May posts screencap of a anonymous message saying "I don’t know if it’s for real but some people have been getting these messages today":

We're declaring Thursday May 31st as "I HATE MISHA COLLINS DAY" (IHMCD). We are tired of Misha Collins and want him off Supernatural. Support us by sending this message to 10 other Dean/Sam fans. Then on May 31st log onto any social network site & post about why you hate Misha Collins. Take a moment to send an email to the CW asking them to have Misha removed off Supernatural permanently (or fired). Let's make this quietly viral to represent the majority! Follow us on Twitter @ IHMCD. *KEEP THIS MESSAGE PRIVATE*.

As Asstiel points out, there is indeed a twitter called IHMCD (now deleted) which had over 600 followers at the time.

As Misha's fan rush to report the account for "spam," someone tweets another Supernatural actor, Jim Beaver (@jumblejim), about the IHMCD campaign. He responds:

@jumblejim: @estherrrmarieee Aside from one's desires about a TV show, I wonder if they ever think how much something like this hurts. I doubt it. xx

@jumblejim So I get requests to tweet to get somebody fired and requests to tweet for a cure for MS. Which one's from a decent human being?

@jumblejim A handful of dipwads is trying to get Misha Collins fired. A lot more people are focusing their energy on humanitarian causes. Them I like.

@jumblejim It's a bunch of dweeb folk with jealousy & spite as their guidelines. Forget 'em. Go do a random act of good today. Tell 'em Misha sent u!

@jumblejim BTW, I'm certain Misha laughs this stuff off. He's got his head screwed on straight. He'd probably be amused at my attempt to defend him. :)

@jumblejim @Nunney2584 That's the other point. Nobody's getting "fired" because a bunch of dorks send emails asking the network to fire him. ‪#realworld‬

No one really expected Misha to respond because he rarely talks about fandom (and never mentions Supernatural on his Twitter) but he defies expectations, posting the same update to his twitter and Facebook (and adding a picture on FB): "Some jerks are trying to get me fired, but it's not gonna be easy because I've got seniority at the gas station where I'm working these days." Accompanied by a very bad manip of Misha working at a 1950s-style gas station, no doubt created by Misha himself with his mad Photoshop skillz.

Four of Misha's tumblr fans get together and declare that May 31st will be We Love Misha Collins Day instead and try to get #welovemishacollins to trend. They also collect pictures and submitted anecdotes from fans explaining why they love Misha Collins. (My favorite is this story, recalled separately, of Misha trying to get help for a homeless man with diabetes.)

The tweets draw attention from website Hypable, who report on it, and Kristy Walker, from endofshow.com.

Now, all this attention angers SPN: Silent Majority, who believe they've been unfairly associated with the hating Misha Collins campaign, who call the whole thing a hoax and claim it was orchestrated by Misha fans in order to make Misha seem sympathetic. Of course, there's another theory.

So who was responsible for the trolling? Was it a hoax? Tumblr doesn't log IPs of anons so there's probably no way to know. Only one thing is certain: Misha gives no fucks.