Dear Negative Reader

"You are the audience! I am the author! I outrank you!"

— Franz Liebkind, The Producers

For various reasons, the creator of a work has fallen into disfavor with a part of their fandom. Maybe They Changed It, Now It Sucks! or a Creator's Pet has elbowed the Ensemble Dark Horse in the face one too many times, or the next book/film/series/whatever is taking too damn long, or Executive Meddling decreed something and the author is the most obvious target, and the fanbase haven't been shy about expressing their displeasure.

But this creator is no one's punching bag, oh no. So up The Rant goes, telling the audience why they're wrong, and why they're being unfair, and how they just don't recognize a good work when they see one. Usually, it's distributed via the creator's blog, but the worst cases might involve a foreword or afterword for a different book, or lengthy social media tirades. It also very frequently overlaps with a Creator Breakdown. A very common characteristic of creators who don't have anyone to restrain their ego or temper. Common sentiments include:

Don't Like? Don't Read!
You're Just Jealous
Let's See YOU Do Better!
"Most of my readers are nice, understanding people, but..."
"The problem is my readers, not my writing."
"I love my haters, bring on the downvotes and angry messages."
As Penny Arcade memorably put it (tongue in cheek), "You can't criticize it. It's not for you."
The Ray Bradbury Defense (strongly not recommended).

Unfortunately in most circumstances, this is often what ultimately results in Creator Killer going and taking effect anyway. After all, a creator willing to attack their fans for criticizing their work comes off to those fans as an egotist who Can't Take Criticism, and many fans will refuse to support such creators on principle.

From time to time a Dear Negative Reader moment comes across as more sympathetic or even justified. Fans can be entitled and overzealous, haters can be too personal or extreme in their attacks or criticism, and sometimes the issue in question isn't the fault of the person being blamed. Some Moral Guardians and Heteronormative Crusaders are angry about the presence of minorities in fiction, or are upset if a minority author finds success. Sometimes even the most mildly worded "I'm sorry you didn't like it, but here are the reasons I made it this way" is sorted into this trope as well.

Trolling Creators can also engage in this trope in their own weird ways. See also Take That, Critics! or Take That, Audience! for when this happens in-show. If irritation with the fans moves the creator to outright walk away from the job, it's Artist Disillusionment.

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

One of the last episodes of Zan Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei has Chiri and Jun breaking the fourth wall and responding to viewers' complaints about the series. All of their answers are to this effect, and the last advises the reader to enjoy Rebuild of Evangelion and other fine series.
Bleach creator Tite Kubo released a couple of these on his Twitter account sometime during early 2010 in response to fan complaints over Seasonal Rot. He even went as far as comparing said fans to children (which, given that this is a Shōnen manga, may or may not have been intended as an insult). Upon being told by a fan that they could draw something better than Bleach:
Kubo: If you can draw something more interesting than Bleach, you should become a manga artist right away! If it is more interesting than Bleach it will definitely sell!
Haven Paschall, the English voice actress of Serena in Pokémon: The Series, has stated that while she respects that some fans prefer the Japanese voices and they can't please everyone, it can be irritating when they review the English cast's work with cruel comments while using anonymous screen names and asked that fans consider what they were saying before commenting.

Arts

Gustav Klimt's The Goldfish was originally titled To My Detractors, and depicts a nymph mockingly baring her butt to the audience.

Comic Books

After fans responded negatively to her run on Runaways and later writers decided to undo the more dramatic changes that she made, Kathryn Immonen responded by having almost the entire team killed during Age of Ultron. Naturally, this all took place in an Alternate Timeline, and thus after the Age of Ultron was undone, the Runaways were okay, but still, it's not a good look.
Marville creator Bill Jemas blamed fans for the series' unpopularity, claiming it was their fault for not buying it and not understanding it. The fact he was badly losing a bet with Peter David didn't help his mood.
Whenever Mad Magazine poked fun at the pop idol or teen sensation of the moment, the fanbase will flood the letters page with angry letters in defense of their heroes. The magazine's response is usually very snarky in return, such as the letters regarding the magazine poking fun at Justin Bieber:
"Who are we to judge your pathetic toyboy cravings?"
The Pro contains a sarcastic dedication to Jim Steranko, who had ranted at length about how The Pro and similar comic books constituted "cultural terrorism."

Comic Strips

Lynn Johnston of For Better or for Worse became known for this in The Comics Curmudgeon fandom, after they started voicing their opinions about Anthony.
Bruce Tinsley of Mallard Fillmore engages in this from time to time, though it's not clear if he's actually addressing any actual letters or simply people he has invented out of thin air to address criticisms of his strip.
After Lisa died in Tom Batiuk's Funky Winkerbean, numerous fans issued their displeasure with the long, drawn-out death of one of the main characters, with whom they sympathized despite the fact that she seemed to be the Butt-Monkey of the universe (but then again, that seems to be common in this comic). Following said criticisms, the author has made numerous Take Thats to his disapproving fanbase in his comics, including most making a strawman group out of their ideals and basically telling them where they can stick their opinions. It culminated in a Crankshaft strip where the title character finishes his rant by saying that "the comics page is supposed to be funny," which seems either to liken the audience to unpleasable old men or to imply that anything printed in the comics is automatically funny.
Gary Larson parodied this phenomenon in The Pre-History of the Far Side:
And, finally, my response to all those who took the time to register their complaints:
[self-portrait of himself stretching his mouth and sticking out his tongue]
9 Chickweed Lane and Pibgorn creator Brooke McEldowny did this via an FAQ section where he insulted both the hypothetical negative reader for daring to interpret his feminist character as a Straw Feminist and the fan who suggested making an FAQ section ("sometimes they have good ideas").
The creator of Crock wrote this in response to The Comics Curmudgeon riffing it. Though the insult and Josh's witty comeback becomes Harsher in Hindsight once realizing that Crock's author died five days later.
Infamously, Dilbert creator Scott Adams used a Sock Puppet to post on online forums and engage with critics of his work, arguing that if you didn't understand Scott Adams, it's because you're an idiot and he's a genius. Once he got busted, he claimed a "Just Joking" Justification.

Fan Works

In response to the large number of readers complaining about the Slayer being "nerfed" in Remnant Inferis: DOOM, GamerJay addressed the issue in the author's notes of the 27th chapter, pointing out that the Slayer has been winning his fights and that just because it's taking more effort to win against certain opponents doesn't mean he's weaker. He also points out that a lot of the complaints he received seemed to confuse his 2016 version with the level he was at in DOOM Eternal.
The "Author's Note" for My Inner Life by "Link’s Queen" consists mostly of this. It goes on for three pages.
The top fanfic writer for The Lion King, ThatPersonYouMightKnow, hates trolls. If they make him snap, they can expect an angry message.
Nimbus Llewelyn, author of Child of the Storm and The Wizard in the Shadows, is usually fairly polite and more than happy to answer questions (even inviting them), in Author's Notes in the case of anonymous reviewers. He also seems to have mellowed out somewhat in the last few years, remarking that he spent his teenage years (when he was writing Shadows) in a state of near-constant rage. However, even post-mellowing out, he's known to get snarky or icily polite if someone particularly annoys him, and he's absolutely not afraid to call a suggestion monumentally stupid if that's the impression he gets.
In the Warrior Cats Troll Fic StarKitsProphcy, the author frequently insults her readers for giving her bad reviews.
In another Warrior Cats Troll Fic called Hidden Prophices, the author insults negative reviewers directly, and a character named after a frequent negative reviewer is randomly murdered in one chapter.
The poorly written author's notes at the beginning of each chapter in My Immortal are quite a treat. Tara will yell at the reader to stop "flaming" in response to the vast number of negative reviews it gets, going so far as to call the reviewers "gay fags" and threatening to slit her wrists if people don't give her "tin god revows"
The Prayer Warriors has the author bashing his critics, often saying that they will go to Hell for "mocking" him.
(from Chapter 10): Stop reviewing my great story if you hate it. You will burn in hell anyway! There is not point in trying to save you at all for you have ben corrupted by powers of evol, and that is Satan! And no Stan, I have no idea what that is. Only review this story if there is something good to say or that you agree with every I say. All the rest of you are sick! You should not allow such evil things such as gays, women in power, and people that are crippled in the minds.
Mercilessly parodied in Supper Smash Bros: Mishonh From God. The "author", Sara, frequently rants about the negative reception of her story, at one point threatening that her friend Lauren and brother Josh will physically assault the detractors. However, the fic is in fact a Troll Fic, and Sara is little more than a Straw Character who exists to be loathed and mocked. Unsurprisingly, this means that her rants on her negative readers make her appear even more immature and moronic.
One such instance occurred in "IYCBEEE" with a reader criticizing the amount of gross humor and Meowth being put into an My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic story. The author's response was a calm, but blunt "Fuck off" and even MORE gross humor, making it also a case of a Writer Revolt.
The well-known Conversion Bureau author, Chatoyance, tended to insult critics and those who don't agree with her fanon.
The author of In This World and the Next, Knowledge is Power, and many others, has a Dear Negative Reader as one of his rotating pool of predefined author's notes at the beginning of chapters.
Dakari-King Mykan, author of My Brave Pony: Starfleet Magic, does this once in a while, even telegraphing a certain chapter in the fifth season that he went through with Cadence's miscarriage, albeit not in the way Mykan wanted. He's even made blog posts attacking TV Tropes on more than one occasion for listing trope entries that he doesn't agree with on pages for his works (the contents of which will not be reproduced here but do include many instances of the words "troll" and "moron").
Gibbs_yeah, writer of To Trope or Not to Trope; thanks to many comments by critical readers, so much as breathing funny in the comments will result in the author coming down on the commenter like a ton of bricks, or just purging their comment entirely. While it is completely understandable for the trolls and overeager MCU fans (especially the Tony stans that the fic makes fun of) who love picking fights with the author, some of those attempting to give genuine constructive criticism meet the same fate.
Fanfiction writer Megamatt09 is known predominantly for two things: Writing stories where Harry Potter has a massive harem and writing author's notes, character dialogues, or even one-shot stories (such as Obession) mocking everyone who criticizes his work, especially anyone who complains about Harry having a harem of fifty-plus women who almost all act as a Satellite Love Interest.
Nathanoraptor, co-author of Prehistoric Earth, is generally a reasonable person, but after a reader complained one time too many about their choice of Gorgonopsid in Passport to Hell, which they viewed as inaccurate (the authors chose Gorgonops, but the reader thought they should go with Inostrancevia, which was native to Siberia, where the story takes place, while Gorgonops is from Africa), he did a very calm example of this trope by deleting all of said reader's reviews (at the request of another reader) and leaving a warning to not do this again.
Primordial Vortex, writer of The Emerald Phoenix, has two notable moments in said fic addressing negative reviews that particularly pissed him off.
- After a reviewer insisted Momo couldn't use the hero name "Izanami" due to Izanami being a goddess of death and destruction and trying to insist that gods only have a single aspect, chapter 10 had Melissa bring up that same fact. Momo points out that Izanami was originally a creation goddess, that many deities similarly have conflicting aspects, and that given her immense physical strength, Momo qualifies for both aspects anyway.
- Chapter 13 begins with a message calling out readers who claim the girls in Izuku's polycule doing things with each other instead of only with Izuku is essentially cucking him when that is in no way how healthy polycules work.
Fanfiction writer Worldmaker famously has a section on his FanFiction.Net profile entitled "Things I Hate to Read in Harry Potter Fan Fiction" that includes such things as an explanation why hatred for the Weasley family is idiotic and why Draco in Leather Pants is a bad thing. A few months after he added that section, he added another section entitled "Fun with Morons", in which he publicly responded to the hate mail he received because of the "Things I Hate to Read" list. His response to one young woman, who had said in her hate mail, "No wonder your wife or whatever left you," is particularly epic:
"I have the right to criticize other people's things and beliefs because I have a right to criticize other people's things and beliefs. Just as other people, including the hypocritical moron who calls herself 'LadyLilyMalfoy', have the right to criticize my things and beliefs. That's the great thing about Freedom of Expression: it cuts both ways.
As I say elsewhere in this screed, your right to hold a silly-ass opinion in no way prevents the opinion from being silly. Nor does it protect you from having someone else come up and point out how silly-assed your opinion is.
So... to everyone who thinks... or rather doesn't think... just like this LLM person, kiss my wide white ass.
And for the record, my wife didn't leave me. She died after a prolonged and extremely painful fight against cancer. But hey, thanks for taking an interest, you insensitive bitch."
XBrokenxDollsX had only posted two chapters (technically a prologue and Chapter 1) of their Naruto fanfic Tasting Flesh when the critiques started rolling in for virtually every aspect of the story. A subset of readers had decried the plot as a rip-off of similar works, suggested the author improve their prose before publication, and expressed bemusement (and in some cases annoyance) over the inexplicably inconsistent characterization. The author promptly responded with a massive diatribe at the start of Chapter 2 stating, among other points, that they weren't being given a chance and didn't need to mind their grammar because they were only writing for fun. (Naturally, they also invoked Don't Like? Don't Read! word for word.) To make matters worse, XBrokenxDollsx removed the critical reviews shortly afterward, claiming to protect the reviewers from trolls, and made it a point to address their detractors before almost every chapter, mainly to insist they still loved the readers who nitpicked or abandoned the fic.
In A Darker Path, the chapter after Taylor/Atropos states she's going to end the entire hard drug trade in Brockton Bay, a reader began to complain about the story apparently equating drug use with drug abuse, triggering a discussion with other readers. ack1308 used that as part of an In-Universe discussion on the PHO forums, which ended with Atropos herself stating that she's stopping the drug trade because it is horrible for both the city and the people.
StarCat: You're forgetting that drug use, and drug addiction are not synonymous. Banning people from anything "for their own good" is paternalistic bullshit.
Atropos: See, that's where you make your mistake. I'm not doing this for "your own good". The illegal hard drug trade is bad for the city, so I'm bringing it to an end. Other than that, I don't give a flying fuck.

Film — Animation

Despite his own mixed feelings about the film, Home on the Range co-director John Sanford did not like Doug Walker's Disneycember review of the film, seeing it as obnoxious and taking umbrage at the review calling the film a half-assed, uncreative effort. Co-director Will Finn, while nowhere as vocal about it as Sanford, likewise disliked the review for similar reasons.
John Sanford: "Yes, I love it when people live stream Home on the Range and tweet comments. Good or bad, it’s fun. Except you, Nostalgia Critic. You can go fuck yourself, you unfunny douche-nozzle. My issue was the incredibly abrasive tone of his reviews, and in particular, when he accused the crew of HoTR of “laziness”. You can say what you want about the movie, it’s deeply flawed, but our crew was anything but lazy. I won’t stand for that."
When the United Arab Emirates declared that they would ban Lightyear (with numerous conservative Americans expressing similar sentiments) on the grounds of a scene that depicts a same-sex couple in a non-negative light, the voice actor for the titular lead Chris Evans voiced his disapproval over the decision:
"The real truth is those people are idiots. Every time there’s been social advancement as we wake up, the American story, the human story is one of constant social awakening and growth and that’s what makes us good. There’s always going to be people who are afraid and unaware and trying to hold on to what was before."

Film — Live-Action

Adil El Arbi, one of the directors of the cancelled Batgirl film, responded on Instagram to people who criticized the character's costume in a set photo as looking cheap using the Batman slaps Robin meme to tell people to watch the film and shut up, with Robin representing the critics and Batman representing the film, although it actually hurt his reputation and the film's in the process due to the use of "STFU" as part of the response to the critics (though to his credit, he did apologize for unintentionally coming across too harsh).
Vincent Gallo — writer, producer, director, and actor of indie arthouse drama The Brown Bunny — ended up in a legendary flame war with Roger Ebert after the latter gave a scathing review of its debut at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, declaring it "the worst film in the history of Cannes." Gallo fired back by calling him "a fat pig with the physique of a slave trader," to which Ebert responded by paraphrasing Winston Churchill: "It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and Gallo will still be the director of The Brown Bunny," etc. etc. Ironically, once the film reached proper mass distribution, it had been significantly Re-Cut, and Ebert ended up giving the new version a favorable 3 out of 4 stars.
David DeFalco responded to Roger Ebert trashing his film Chaos with a full-page letter to the Chicago Sun-Times, which Ebert responded to with an article titled "Evil in film: To what end?"
Star Wars:
- George Lucas has never had a particularly high opinion of the rabid Star Wars fanbase, culminating in a particularly barbed attack on them on The Daily Show in 2010.
- Pablo Hidalgo has attracted flack for his often volatile reactions to critical fans on Twitter, to the point that he called them "shitty assholes and shitheads" before locking his account. Things got particularly heated when he commented "Emotions are not for sharing" on a fan's tearful reaction video to an episode of The Mandalorian and made his tweet his account banner, which people interpreted as a sneering Men Don't Cry chastisement and criticized him for before he claimed he was joking.
Kevin Smith has frequently fallen into this behavior:
- He famously stated that Jersey Girl wasn't "for critics", inspiring Penny Arcade to create a totally nonsensical strip and then preemptively reject criticism of it ("it's not for you"). In Smith's defense, what he meant by that was that he made the film upon having something of a personal crisis, seeing his daughter grow up, and made the film for his own purposes, critics be damned. Not quite as dickish as some have made it out to be, but still this trope.
- He allegedly debated fans on the View Askew board who reacted negatively to the news of Clerks II, particularly the ones who pointed out his own prior statement that there would be no sequel.
- He lashed out at critics for giving poor reviews to Cop Out, particularly at the ones whom he had allowed to see the film for free, implying that he expected a good review in return.
- He admitted later on that this was a form of Creator Breakdown, he felt he was too reliant on positive feedback and deliberately burned some critic goodwill so he could focus on what interested him creatively and not just be desperate to go more mainstream. He carried that attitude into making Tusk (2014), but working with his daughter in a small acting role let him move on.
Kirk Cameron was fairly upset at the negative reviews of Saving Christmas and begged fans to improve the fan rating on Rotten Tomatoes to combat the bad critical reviews. Needless to say, this became a disaster, as the Audience Rating score fell from 94% to 63%. In other words, he attracted the attention of the general public, when previously only dyed-in-the-wool fans had been voting. It only got worse from there; it would then lose its 10% critic review bringing it to zero, and the audience rating continued to fall to 32%. It now has the single worst rating on IMDB, which given its competition is quite a feat.
After Baywatch (2017) was released to negative critic reviews, Dwayne Johnson mocked the film's negative reviews in a few tweets.
CinemaSins has garnered much ire from many, many, many filmmakers:
- Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts has nothing but utter contempt for the series, a sentiment best shown when he highlighted their review of his own film and nit-picked all the things they got wrong. However, he was perfectly willing to accept what he saw as constructive criticism of the film, even co-writing Kong's Honest Trailers review. His big problem is with the concept of Cinema Sins, deriding their ignorance of Artistic License, labeling them trolls who "contribute to the dumbing-down of cinema", and calling them the "YouTube equivalent of the Seltzer and Friedberg movies".
- James Gunn hasn't seen the video on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, but when someone showed him a sin and called the channel a satire, Gunn responded with a polite retort and, based on the sin he was shown, observed that it "should still be accurate about what it's satirizing. Otherwise it's just shitty satire."
- Rian Johnson and Damon Lindelof have both posted angry tweets about the show, something Cinema Sins acknowledged in their sin video against themselves. They also pointed out that Kevin Smith and Dane Cook are on their side, and they called that a sin as well.
Brad Jones pulled an inversion with Jesus, Bro!: when the Dove Foundation actually asked permission to publish a negative review of the film, he happily gave it and he now includes their rating and an excerpt of their review on the DVD box.
Roberto Orci's general attitude to articles critical of Star Trek Into Darkness was to dismiss them on perceived stylistic grounds and make snide remarks about how there's a reason he gets paid to make movies and the critics don't. Part 2 of SF Debris' review of the film is indicative.
When Gotti was brutalized by critics, earning a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, MoviePass (which partly funded the film) ran an ad campaign that tried to invoke Critical Dissonance, claiming that audiences "loved" the film while critics "put out the hit", and asked viewers who they trusted more: themselves, or "a troll behind a keyboard"? The fact that MoviePass was accused of running an AstroTurf campaign by artificially inflating the audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes did them no favors.
Sia faced overwhelmingly negative backlash when the trailer for her film Music (2021) was released, for an apparent stereotyping of non-verbal autism — with said character played by neurotypical actress Maddie Ziegler. She attempted to fend off the backlash by announcing that people should see the film before judging it, and claiming Ziegler had replaced an autistic actress who backed out because it was "too much for her".
Uwe Boll, a German director notorious for making terrible film adaptations of video games, supplied one of the most violent examples of this trope when, in response to the extremely negative reviews his films received, he decided to challenge his critics to a fight. As in, a literal, very real boxing match sponsored by GoldenPalace.com. Five critics actually took up his offer: Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka of Something Awful, Jeff "MiraJeff" Sneider of Ain't It Cool News, Chris Alexander of Rue Morgue magazine, Carlos Palencia Jimenez-Arguello of the Spanish film website Cinecutre, and blogger Chance Minter. Boll, who had been an amateur boxer before he became a filmmaker, went 5-0, and footage of "Raging Boll" was included as a bonus feature on the DVD for Postal (2007). Seanbaby said that he was also challenged, but Boll backed out of fighting him upon finding out that he was trained in Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Boll: The lesson is: so bad prepared are the critics in the rings, they are also at writing. Fucking critics!
In the now-defunct IMDb boards, Leigh Scott would appear to lash out on those who labeled him as simply a mockbuster creator or putting all the blame on the ones he directed for The Asylum, saying the studio, which he had departed at some point, had more to do with it, and he was simply making a living. Scott had to, in particular, say that Transmorphers was both an old script of his that was retitled as a cash-in to Transformers (2007), while owning up to the awful technical aspects, as it was a No Budget endeavor after all.
Elizabeth Banks was notorious for this even before her film version of Charlie's Angels came out and bombed, both critically and commercially. Before it came out, she described it as a "female empowering film not for men", essentially alienating half her potential audience. Then, the film came out and was a box-office failure. She immediately said it was "proof that men don't want to see a kickass action movie about women". When it was pointed out to her that Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel (both huge box office hits) had men going to see them in droves, she dismissed both, saying they didn't count because they were part of a larger scope of films. Not surprisingly, this ended up angering not only comic book fans, but people involved in both films, causing her to apologize.
Elizabeth Olsen, who made a name for herself playing the Scarlet Witch in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has spoken out against filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola claiming Marvel movies are a "lesser" kind of art. In an interview with Variety magazine, she said that even if one personally doesn't like the films, bashing them on an artistic level is extremely disrespectful to the hundreds of crew members involved with their production: set designers, costume designers, CGI animators, camera operators, etc.
D. W. Griffith made the 1916 Epic Movie Intolerance as a response to criticism towards his previous film, The Birth of a Nation (1915), because he misinterpreted the backlash to its horrifically racist content as "political correctness" and "intolerance" towards him, and compares criticizing him with the Crucifixion of Christ. Ultimately he bungled this message so badly Intolerance is seen as a condemnation of racism and, well, intolerance in general, and Griffith as The Atoner when in truth he felt he had nothing to apologize for.

Game Shows

Played for Laughs on Taskmaster quite a bit, when the audience thinks they can push Greg around:
- When the task is to bring in one's most "boastful" item, i.e. something they would be the most proud to brag about. Joe Lycett brings in a selfie of himself with The Chuckle Brothers, which actually is fairly impressive at least compared to the other things^note. Greg Davies gives it only 2 measly points, however, and is booed and jeered by the entire audience for it:
  Greg: You shut your fucking mouths! I will put him last! I mean it!!!
- He also frequently pokes fun at people on social media for complaining about his judgments, like this spontaneous rant at the beginning of A Couple of Ethels:
  Greg: Welcome to Taskmaster! I know a lot of you out there in social media land think that sometimes when it comes to judgements, I don't always get it right. Well, you're wrong, and you'd better make sure those comments come from a server in Central Europe! It's not hard for a man with my connections to get a name, do you understand? You might be Dumbledore online, but I'll find you, and I'll disguise myself as a giant crow in a tree outside your house! You ever been jumped on by a six foot eight crow?! Then maybe keep your opinions to yourself! Right, let's meet the people brave enough to use their real names!

Literature

Piers Anthony's author's notes are, by his own admission, mostly curmudgeonly rants, and many are directed at critics, but one long one was directed at a particular fan who not only wrote a nasty comment about him but went as far as to visit Anthony's house and trash the way it looked.
Ray Bradbury allegedly provided a brief but memorable example:
"A horrible little boy came up to me and said, 'You know in your book The Martian Chronicles? ' I said, 'Yes?' He said, 'You know where you talk about Deimos rising in the East?' I said, 'Yes?' He said 'No.' — So I hit him." ^note
In response to criticisms over the frequent usage of derogatory or offensive language in the earlier The House of Night books (including from characters intended to be heroic / sympathetic), P.C. Cast tweeted that when she began writing the books in 2005, she used language that reflected then-contemporary teenage vernacular and that if you were bothered by it you should stop reading. She later backtracked a bit, with both P.C. and Kristin Cast (the books' editor) assuring readers that the new e-book editions of House of Night would be revised to remove this language and that the more recent Other World series didn't include this. The printed editions of the books are apparently unchanged, though.
In response to the controversy surrounding the names for Black and White people in Save the Pearls ("Coals" for Blacks and "Pearls" for Whites), the author Victoria Foyt tried to justify the terminology by stating that in a dystopian society, coal would be far more highly prized than precious stones. This not only comes across as a weak justification but is debunked by the book itself, which calls the term "Coal" an "incendiary racial slur" early on. She also claimed that the intention of her novels was to talk about the danger of global warming, more so than racial issues. Given the duology's emphasis on racism as a plot point, most readers didn't buy this explanation.
Laurell K Hamilton wrote a long rant about people publicly hating her work which became so seminal as to become the Trope Namer.
Self-published author Jacqueline Howett had a spectacular meltdown on "Big Al's Books and Pals" after he criticized the numerous grammatical and spelling errors in his review of her e-book, The Greek Seaman (which he otherwise thought was good). Howett deleted most of her comments after her tantrum went viral, but she obviously never heard of the Wayback Machine. Observe in all its glory. She later posted an "apology" on her blog in which she rather unconvincingly argued that the whole farce was Big Al's fault for downloading her book in the wrong file format (seriously) and all her outraged comments that there was nothing wrong with her writing were somehow related to that.
N. K. Jemisin, author of the Inheritance Trilogy, posted Dear Fandom, Grow the Fuck Up, although it was aimed at all fandom in general, not just hers, on how to react to negativity against their favorite works.
George R. R. Martin gets a lot of criticism and tends to snarkily ignore it because he does what he wants and his fandom isn't going to change that:
- One came in response to a frenzy on LiveJournal about how his Schedule Slip was causing real fears of his death (as had happened to The Wheel of Time author Robert Jordan) and telling him to work on the book rather than blog about things other than his book. His response was an embed of the song "Garden Party", with the line "You see, ya can't please everyone, so ya gotta please yourself..."
- He doesn't like people complaining about the high body count in his books and begging him to save at least their favorite character, telling them not to get so attached to people and reminding them that technically, Hamlet has a higher body count. He once jokingly promised that the last book will have no characters killed off at all — because all of them will have died in previous books, and the entire book will be describing the weather.
- Neil Gaiman once defended Martin by proxy with his famous missive entitled "George R. R. Martin Is Not Your Bitch".
Yvonne Navarro responded to the negative reviews of her of Wicked Willow trilogy of Buffyverse novels that were on Amazon with an article titled "Rant!!!"
German writer Gudrun Pausewang gained a huge amount of popularity in Germany in the eighties for her books about atomic disasters. In those she described the possibilities of a fall-out in a Nuclear power plant, akin to Chernobyl, or what would happen in Germany, if an atomic bomb were to explode there, in novel form. Those novels were part of the curriculum in many German schools and are known to be quite graphic in their descriptions. So much that it terrified some children and tweens to the point of nightmares. Due to being on the curriculum many parents read those books too and criticized the writer, accusing her of fear-mongering and giving their kids nightmares. As the fear of atomic bombs and nuclear fall-outs was quite real when the books first came out, not only did the writer have a large backing by literary critics, who believed that, since she showed the possible dangers of nuclear energy in all its forms, she was right by default, the writer herself scolded the criticizing parents about the latter book by saying that it's them who can't handle that book due to them avoiding the problem of atomic bombs.
Terry Pratchett, posting on alt.fan.pratchett and other newsgroups back in the day, would mostly ignore fan criticism, but would occasionally get snarky about it (especially the "You nicked this bit from..." variety). He once responded to a fan going on at length at how he could have done it better with "Where were you when the paper was blank?" And he often preceded his responses with the message "<annericemode = OFF>" — until the day someone pissed him off enough to trigger an ""<annericemode = ON>" message", and it wasn't pretty.
Anne Rice has a reputation for this. Her missives against reviewers on Amazon are legendary in certain circles, including a single-paragraph screed packed to the gills with passive-aggressive rage, accusing reviewers of "interrogating the text from the wrong perspective". She went on to petition Amazon to completely disallow anonymous reviews, arguing that it's just a haven for bullies. It peaked when she became the poster girl for Protection from Editors — in a very literal sense — and everybody (except for her and her publishers) noticed an immediate and marked decline in the quality of her prose. She's also been known to mobilize her insane fanbase against reviewers, once posting a blogger's personal information on Facebook and letting her rabid fans take care of the rest — and then condescendingly claiming she was only helping a small blogger get more page views.
Candace Sams follows in the footsteps of Anne Rice with a passive-aggressive (and then just plain aggressive) snipe at the author of a one-star review on Amazon. She then deleted all her posts,^note leaving only a swathe of befuddled and snarky posts which actually makes it funnier, as it forces you to guess what she said that was so crazy. The affair is archived here.
The Kingkiller Chronicle: In The Name of the Wind, author Patrick Rothfuss subverted this trope nicely in this blog entry.
Charlotte Temple's author Susanna Rowson appears to have anticipated this in her own book. One chapter is actually entitled, "Which Those Devoid of Feeling Need Not Read," which is more accurately "And By This, We Mean Those Who Would Criticize It For the Sentimental and Predictable Melodrama That It Is."
Star Wars Legends author Karen Traviss is a little bit infamous for this in the Star Wars fandom, going so far as to call her critics sexists, Basement Dwellers, and "Talifans". She later backed up and claimed that she was only using those terms to refer to a particularly belligerent subgroup of critics who harassed and threatened her, doing or going on to do things like refer to her with denigrating nicknames such as "The Travissty", accuse her of only getting her job via nepotism/sexual bribery, and make self-insert machinima animations in which the critic depicted himself shooting up a book signing containing obvious stand-ins of her and her fans. Bizarrely, the whole thing seems to have come from a single instance of Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, when she claimed that there were only 3 million clone troopers in a Republic made up of a million star systems, a number by and large already established in the Attack of the Clones movie and junior novelizations^note — it's just that the fans are so obsessive about this sort of thing that they argued about it for months, and there are places even after almost two decades where you can find people complaining about "her" numbers. One of the mods on the old StarWars.com forums gave his account of the events here.
Terry Goodkind has nothing good or kind to say about people who don't like his books. When asked what he had to say to or about his readers who complained that he'd gotten too preachy, often sacrificing story and character just to hammer home his message, he said this:
Goodkind: Don't be fooled. The assertion made by these detractors is a note wrapped around a brick thrown through the window. These people are not fans. There are hundreds if not thousands of fantasy books that fulfill their professed taste in books. Why would they continue to read books they claim are bad? Because they hate that my novels exist. Values arouse hatred in these people. Their goal is not to enjoy life, but to destroy that which is good — much like a school child who does not wish to study for a test and instead beats up a classmate who does well. These people hate what is good because it is good. Their lives are limited to loathing and indifference. It isn't that they want to read a good book, what they want is to make sure that you do not. Ignore them.
Fern Michaels, through her personal website, lets you email her your opinions. However, if you send her an email pointing out flaws and questionable values in the Sisterhood series, then you will most likely get the following response, word for word:
To answer your questions>>>>> I write what I do because I can. This is fiction. If you don't like my writing why did you continue to read the series? Oh, that's right, because they were entertaining. I rest my case. Characters are human just like the rest of us mortals. Again, this is fiction. I make it a point to never defend my writing because ... I write fiction. Fiction is make believe, in other words, it's whatever the author wants to make it. Thank you for taking the time to write and offer your opinions and your insight. FM
K. A. Applegate infamously gave one to the Animorphs fanbase who criticized the ending as "too sad", saying that they'd missed the themes of the series. That does happen when you seemingly kill off most of the cast horribly in the end. With her "open letter" coming out shortly before 9/11 it's made much Harsher in Hindsight - she was right that one war often leads seamlessly into another and wrecks the lives of many people involved. The fanbase is divided on this response, with quite a few fans appreciating the statement that Applegate has always respected the ability of her audience to handle difficult topics, while others hoped that the characters would Earn Your Happy Ending. Applegate had a similar, gentler response to claims that The One and Only Ivan's Bittersweet Ending was too sad. Her belief is that children already know about sorrow in the world and have to learn how to handle it.
Masterfully deployed by J. R. R. Tolkien in his introduction to the second edition of The Lord of the Rings:
"Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer."
Nobly averted by John Ringo, who responded to a fairly scathing dissection of his Paladin of Shadows series with a plug for the review and a note that "I agree totally and unashamedly". He then endorsed the sale of T-shirts with the slogan "OH JOHN RINGO NO", raising $700 for the Helen Bamber Foundation.
Older Than Radio example: When Mark Twain published Huckleberry Finn, this was the preface he attached to it:
NOTICE
PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted;
persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons
attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.
19th-century poet Julia A. Moore (an American Distaff Counterpart to the famously Giftedly Bad William Topaz McGonagall), some of whose critics suggested that she was "semi-literate", responded thus: "The Editors that has spoken in a scandalous manner, have went beyond reason." She particularly held disdain for The Rochester Democrat's review, which noted "Shakespeare, could he read it, would be glad that he was dead."
It's been argued that the habits of Norman Boutin, author of the widely-panned novel Empress Theresa, is precisely the reason the book has been so harshly slammed; he unintentionally became famous for his willingness to track down and slam every single piece of negative critical review ever written about his professed "masterpiece". Almost a perfect poster child of what NOT to do as an author, good ol' Norman thinks winning an argument (often in his own mind only) is far more important than letting Empress Theresa, for all its worth, have the chance to speak for itself.
Aurel Socol's 2022 autobiography From Darkness to Light and From Glory to Glory opens with an unusual, religiously-flavored critique of critics, and - before taking off with an elaborately emphatic string of unedited words - the book tells readers to unreservedly accept what it says... just because it can.
"Now it is ESSENTIAL to decide if you want to be GOOD or BAD... [i]f you now put the book down without reading it, or if you read it and think it's stupid, it's the same thing, and you made the wrong choice. But if you read it with an honest heart, then you have done a very good thing for yourself, and for your eternal future."
Indie author Dylan Saccoccio, author of The Boy and the Peddler of Death, faced with a one-star review on Goodreads calling it "unnecessarily wordy and pretentious", took umbrage and replied with a series of comments that became increasingly, well, wordy and pretentious, claiming that negative reviews only come from horrible psychopaths who are out to destroy his career. The ensuing meltdown led to Saccoccio getting banned from Goodreads. Worse, thanks to the Streisand Effect, trolls promptly swamped his books (which had been rather well-reviewed overall before) with even more one-star reviews.
Richard Brittain, when given a one-star review from an 18-year-old reader, tracked her down, travelled 500 miles to the reviewer's place of work, and attacked her with a wine bottle.
Valhalla author Ari Bach is not afraid to respond to hate mail. In fact, he readily uses haters' comments to promote the books.
The Crippled God, the last book in Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series, contains a poem ostensibly written In-Universe by the poet Fisher kel Tath, which is actually in response to readers' complaints before the book came out questioning whether Erikson was capable of delivering a good ending to the series. He clearly didn't appreciate being doubted like that, or being expected to deliver exactly what the fans were asking for:
[...] Take what you're given
and turn away the screwed face.
I do not deserve it,
no matter how narrow the strand
of your private shore.
If you will do your best
I'll meet your eye. [...]
Stephan J. Harper responded to a gently critical review of his book Venice Under Glass (a mystery about animate teddy bears in Venice) by replying to the review over 180 times (often to himself as he thought of a new thing to rant about), calling the reviewer an idiot, describing his book as a "lyrical prose poem", and sharing lines that really don't help his case, such as "Roses grew from metal floor stands and stood in cut-crystal on side-tables and window-ledges and overflowed into the dining room, stopping only when the bouquets had covered her kitchen counters, scenting the air throughout like crazy. Some bear had sent her bright yellow and orange dozens, poised next to red, white and pink dozens."
Older Than Steam: In response to complaints about the blank (non-rhyming) verse in Paradise Lost, John Milton prefaced a later edition with a rant condemning rhyming poetry as "no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem... but the invention of a barbarous age."
YA author Kathleen Hale, upon reading a negative review of her book No One Else Can Have You, responded by asking to be paired with the reviewer for a book event (thus getting the reviewer's address), called the reviewer's place of work, drove to her house, and left a self-help book on the doorstep. Then she wrote an essay about the events, which went viral and sparked a lot of controversy, as well as driving the reviewer out of the book blogging community.
The protagonist of Caitlin Kiernan's The Red Tree shares a number of biographical details with Kiernan, has written books with the same titles as Kiernan's books, and gets in some snarky comments about critics who have found her books too verbose and too weird.
There was some controversy in 2012 over Kiera Cass and her agent reacting badly to a one-star review of The Selection on Goodreads; in a Twitter conversation they insulted the reviewer and discussed ways to get the negative review buried. Cass later apologized to the reviewer after receiving backlash over this.
Viking Britain by Thomas Williams starts with this. Williams is a museum curator, and had previously done an exhibition on the subject at the British Museum. This received a review in "a major national newspaper" which said that Vikings are for kids, and that the exhibition could only have had a more kid-friendly title if it had been called "Vikings and Dinosaurs," so why didn't it start with an exciting recreation of the sack of Lindisfarne Abbey? Williams took issue with the reviewer's belief that something for children needed more brutal violence. He also found the review emblematic of wider attitudes to Vikings: that they are somehow not a serious subject. People fetishise Viking rape and pillage while ignoring Roman rape and pillage, because they see the Romans as being their cultural ancestors. Well, says Williams, the Vikings are your cultural ancestors too, like it or not.
S. M. Stirling doesn't appreciate when people try to analyze his opinions through his writing. His standalone novel Conquistador contains a response to criticism of The Draka that reads, "There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot."

Live-Action TV

The Chosen: The fleshed out characterization and expanded story arcs are a point of contention for Christians who criticize the show for "changing scripture". Producer Dallas Jenkins responded to the criticism by arguing that if The Chosen were written without taking any creative liberty to fill out details in the lives of the characters, it would be a montage of events in Jesus's life instead of a cohesive narrative. Jenkins also pointed out that The Chosen is a TV show, not scripture.
Ian Levine, Doctor Who Fandom VIP and organizer/songwriter of the notorious "Doctor in Distress" charity single, found himself and the song mentioned on the "TARDIS Eruditorum" blog, and was intrigued by what it said — so much so that he personally told the author, Elizabeth Sadifer, to go fuck herself. This became a sort of publicity blurb for the blog.
Lost season 6 was criticized for filler, especially in the episode "What Kate Does", prompting Damon Lindelof to tell his Twitter followers that anybody who didn't like it should go watch NCIS. He later apologized for it, claiming he went too far with that one — or perhaps also realizing that the ratings for Lost were declining while those for NCIS were increasing, so apparently his fans took his advice. They did mostly return for the highly anticipated finale.
Upon its release Robyn Hood (2023) was met with scathing reviews from numerous online sources and was generally unfavourably received^note. The shows creator, Director X took to social media and accused online critics of having rating-bombed the series due to racism and misogyny, this attitude did not win many people over and he was generally mocked for acting like giving his show a bad review was something to be ashamed of.
Cowboy Bebop (2021) got this before, and after, its inevitable cancellation:
- In response to fan complaints about the redesign of Faye Valentine, her actress Daniella Pineda uploaded what was essentially a "The Reason You Suck" Speech aimed at critics on Youtube. It was so poorly done that it devastated the show's prospects by pretty much killing any interest in seeing it — fans in general became so hostile toward the show and felt so vindicated in their pre-emptive criticisms that very few people even bothered to watch it. It ended up cancelled after only one season, despite actually being seen as decent by casual viewers.
- In the wake of its abrupt end, it became clear that the deluge of negative comments and videos that came ahead of the series' launch and the crowing celebrations over its cancellation wore down many of those involved in the production. Naomi Markman, the series' script coordinator, took to Twitter to criticise such people, saying that their actions led to the sudden unemployment of hundreds of people who were prepared to produce a second season. Steve Blum, meanwhile voiced his support for the adaptation and said that "haters" should just "make their own" if they think they know better.
Season 1 of True Detective, while praised in general, was also the subject of criticism regarding the relative lack of female characters in the first season. Creator Nic Pizzolatto responded in a profile by saying, "When Callie [Khouri], who wrote Thelma & Louise, thinks that that's stupid criticism, I'm inclined to take her opinion over someone with a Wi-Fi connection." Season 2 was then accused of Seasonal Rot, and Pizzolatto suggested that critics wait to the end of the series before passing judgment — but when they did, they noticed the show only seemed to get worse from that point on.
Danwarp, a.k.a. Dan Schneider, the creator of iCarly, has done this while wading into the fandom's shipping wars. He clearly prefers Carly/Freddie, and he's been known to troll Sam/Freddie shippers about how he "loved to hear about how he should write his show." It culminated in his excitement about the impending airing of an extended version of the heavily Carly/Freddie ship-centric episode "iSaved Your Life", when in response to rude posts from Sam/Freddie shippers, told them they could watch Wizards of Waverly Place instead.
In 2000, Aaron Sorkin spent some time on the Internet debating with the forum posters at Television Without Pity. It started with disagreements on how much of a given episode of The West Wing should be credited to Sorkin as opposed to other writers but snowballed into Sorkin telling the posters that he basically considered their opinions worthless. He then inserted strawmen into the "U.S. Poet Laureate" episode, casting TWoP and its posters as the "chain-smoking, mumu-wearing" denizens of "lemonlyman.com," where iron-fisted mods steer the conversations. The episode ends with the eponymous U.S. Poet Laureate saying that art isn't about expressing truth, just saying things in a captivating way (an idea with which the recapper at TWoP was not too enamored). For the entire history, including timeline, quotes, and postmortem, go read this.
While Babylon 5 was on the air, J. Michael Straczynski would regularly post on the show's Usenet group. 98% of these interactions were positive, with JMS responding to feedback, answering questions, and generally engaging with fans in a way that wasn't possible before the advent of the Internet. Even negative posts were riposted with snarky wit rather than vitriol. Sometimes, however, someone would say something that would make him get downright nasty. One big example was when a fan unintentionally pushed one of his Berserk Buttons, by claiming that a line in an episode was a reference to another work. JMS's response started "Y'know, if I were to read this group as an outsider, I'd think that this jms person was incapable of coming up with a single line on his own." And it went downhill from there. The full text can be found here, in the "jms speaks" section.
Game of Thrones:
- The final season was so critically panned that viewers launched a petition that the season be remade without writers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Several cast and crew members lashed back at the fans, mostly feeling insulted that the fans were dismissing their hard work just because they didn't like the ending. Sophie Turner told the New York Times that the petition was "disrespectful", Isaac Hempstead-Wright called the fans' demands "ridiculous", and Jacob Anderson called it "rude" and said that it "trivialise[s] [the crew's] work". But Kit Harington outdid them all by airing his criticisms as soon as the seasons started:
  Harrington: Whatever critic spends half an hour writing about this season and makes their [negative] judgement on it... they can go fuck themselves. 'Cause I know how much work was put into this.
- Cinematographer Fabian Wagner responded to criticism of the dim lighting in "The Long Night" by claiming that the episode was just fine, and that the viewers who thought it was too dark must have set their televisions up incorrectly. In an amusing twist actor John Bradley who plays Sam Tarly contradicted him and suggested that the episode was supposed to be that dark to reflect the difficult conditions and intensity of the battle.
During the Television Critics Association screening of his new show Stalker (2014), creator Kevin Williamson got into a Twitter war with critic Emily St. James over what the latter saw as an Unfortunate Implications-filled pilot. Some highlights can be seen here.
The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion recounts an anecdote where a production assistant took a call complaining about the lesbian kiss between Jadzia Dax and Lenara Kahn in "Rejoined", saying that "you're ruining my kids by making them watch two women kiss like that." The PA asked if he'd be fine with seeing them shoot each other, and the caller said they would. To that, the PA snidely remarked that the caller "should reconsider who's messing up your kids."

Music

Cody Matthew Johnson had this reaction during the lead-up to the release of Devil May Cry 5, in which Capcom released the individual themes for the individual characters. Nero’s theme, "Devil Trigger", was received very well, becoming the #1 rock song in the UK iTunes store upon release. Dante’s theme "Subhuman", which Johnson composed, was instead received with hostile vitriol — it was considered poorly mixed and unfitting for Dante's character, and its lead singer Eddie Hermida was criticised as impossible to understand (and was later discovered to have been sexually grooming minors). Johnson nevertheless took to Twitter, mocked everyone who criticised the song, and even took pride in the response he got◊. That just made the situation significantly worse. In the end, Hermida was replaced for the final release, and the original music video and Johnson's tweets were all deleted.

Poetry

One of Catullus's best-known poems, Catulli Carmen 16, is made of this trope. He particularly reacts to accusations from his friends that he was effeminate because he wrote sentimental poems about kisses.
T. S. Eliot had the sense not to publish his version of this in his lifetime, but it got out after his death, and is quite stunning to read. It's a poem entitled The Triumph of Bullshit, and every stanza ends, "For Christ's sake stick it up your ass."
In 1841, Norwegian poet Henrik Wergeland responded to criticism from the newspaper Morgenbladet, particularly their claims that he was a grouchy and unpleasant person, with the poem Mig Selv ("Myself"). In this poem, using a lot of flowery language, he goes from denying being grouchy or unpleasant, to explaining why getting angry with such a pitiful excuse for a newspaper isn't worth his valuable time, to stating that it's their fault he's grouchy in the first place, and finally to claim he's totally above their cruel and unfair mockery of him anyway.
After his short story collection Men Without Women received negative reviews, Ernest Hemingway wrote an anti-critic poem called Valentine (published in the literary magazine The Little Review). Hemingway accused the critics of hoping that the artist will eventually fail so they can "be the first to hail / any happy weakening or sign of quick decay." He finished it thus:
(All very much alike, weariness too great,
sordid small catastrophes, stack the cards on fate,
very vulgar people, annals of the callous,
dope fiends, soldiers, prostitutes,
men without a gallus.)^noteLatin for "cock".

Professional Wrestling

Mick Foley did this on 411Mania's Wrestling section, which can be read here, about his then-upcoming fourth book. In general, Foley claims that the idea he didn't talk about wrestling enough means he thought about "adding a helpful 'wrestleometer' at the start of every chapter, just in case [people who complained] want to take a pass on one of [his] non-wrestling chapters" in the book, while defending that his favorite stories weren't about wrestling.
This was largely the concept behind the Right to Censor group, a humongous Take That! against the Parents Television Council that had been hounding the then-WWF about their use of language, sexuality, and over-the-top violence. Ironically, it actually afforded an in-road for the WWF to tone down some of its more outrageous characters by "forcing" them to join through complicated schemes, and it was one of the early starts towards the current "PG Era".
Crosses over with Lying Creator at WCW's World War 3, where Hulk Hogan burns a copy of the Wrestling Observer's "Rag Sheet" before mocking it for supposedly false information that it did not actually contain (and in fact would probably just inspire more copies printed to prove Hogan wrong).
Dixie Carter responded negatively on Twitter to a negative review of TNA Impact after a fan of the "Spoony One" sent a link to an episode of Wrestle Wrestle, getting him some traffic he otherwise likely never would have had.
Shine 12 was a bizarre show. It got its share of criticism, but Ringbelles Online's Lee Burton went further than what the wrestlers were doing, dragging down the commentary of Amber Gertner and Lenny Leonard too. So Leonard, who until then had been lurking as "Lee Thomas", responded to say that he agreed with Burton but defended the wrestlers, who were working in a damaged ring and promised it was just a one-time slump.

Roleplay

NoPixel server owner Koil, who also plays Kael Soze and Francis J. Francer on the server, frequently spends time on his Twitch stream reading and mocking negative viewer comments about NoPixel from the r/RPClipsGTA subreddit.

Tabletop Games

Gary Gygax sometimes did this in his From the Sorcerer's Scroll articles in Dragon magazine, but a really obvious example occurred in Dragon #16 (June 1978). Some fans complained about elements of the Dungeons & Dragons game, and he tried to refute them in an overblown manner, making a number of silly and insulting statements while doing so. His rather dismissive analysis of how much The Lord of the Rings influenced Dungeons & Dragons was a classic of this genre.
Res Arcana: Board game YouTuber Rahdo gave a glowing review of the game, but didn't like the attack mechanic. This led to designer Tom Lehmann writing a long response arguing that Rahdo was unfair on the mechanic, and he turned hostile during the argument that ensued after Rahdo showed up to defend his review. Tom later apologized for how the conversation went.

Theatre

Andrew Lloyd Webber, upon finding out that people did not like his The Phantom of the Opera sequel Love Never Dies, lashed out at his fans. He essentially accused the fans of being so devoted to his first work that they just would not give his sequel a chance. Ironically, the fan devotion to the original is what made the existence of the sequel possible in the first place!

Theme Parks

Famous Disney Imagineer Marty Sklar wrote a response to the fan backlash that came with the decision to add Disney and Pixar characters to "it's a small world" at Disneyland, a change that was one of the last projects he worked on for the company before retiring. In the response, he defends the decision and claims that it was being done to make the attraction more relevant for the current generation, and not as a way of commercializing the ride. The way he phrased his response (by seemingly implying that the people against the additions "don't like change") only caused more controversy among the Disney fandom, with many believing that his response was just him toeing the company line.

Video Games

David Gaider, the lead writer for the Dragon Age series, is known for his snarky counterattacks to complaints about his games. His two best-known examples are his response to someone complaining about "straight male gamers" being ignored based on the inclusion of homosexual romances and a list of "definitions" for words that are frequently misused by "fans" on the BioWare Social Network.
Masahiro Sakurai started to exhibit this with regards to the particularly vocal Super Smash Bros. fanbase who like to blame him for everything they perceive wrong with their beloved franchise, ranging from legitimate-if-overblown grievances to petty complaints that their favorite character(s) were not included. He expressed this in an interview regarding the Moveset Clone characters in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
Hudson Soft infamously had a huge meltdown in response to the equally infamous Bomberman Act:Zero's negative reception and posted an article on their website primarily dedicated to attacking fans and defending Act Zero. As it repeatedly insulted the older Bomberman games by insinuating they were meant for children, undermined fan favorite Saturn Bomberman's ten-player mode, heavily implied that the only people who played the single-player modes in Bomberman games were losers,^note and told fans who were upset to play with Hello Kitty toys... yeah, it didn't go over well. It didn't help that the series was already going through an Audience-Alienating Era. While Hudson eventually apologized for the piece, the damage was done—several gaming sites lambasted them for the public tantrum and the controversy ultimately played a hand in their 2012 bankruptcy and merger with Konami.
YandereDev, the developer of Yandere Simulator, has written an extensive 11,000 word debunk page in response to fan backlash, and has called those who spread allegations of virtual misconduct "gremlins". In response, the game's hatedom reappropriated the term for themselves.
2013's DmC: Devil May Cry is infamous for this. Upon its reveal, fans of Devil May Cry criticised the direction Ninja Theory was taking the series, fundamentally changing aspects of the series and rebooting it in such a way that it was unrecognisable as a Devil May Cry game. In response, Ninja Theory lashed out at fans by dismissing their criticism as fans simply being upset that Dante's hair wasn't white, despite that being little more than a footnote compared to the other points, and ignoring the fact that their new interpretation was a vulgar smoker, despite Dante being initially designed as a character that was "too cool" to smoke, drink or swear. Ninja Theory went as far as to create a PowerPoint outlining what "Dante is", drawing connections with their new interpretation to the likes of Fight Club, while classic Dante was compared to Batman & Robin and photoshopped into a scene from Brokeback Mountain, the connotations being clear, while also stating that the old Dante "would be laughed out of any bar outside of Tokyo." This even extended to journalists that supported Ninja Theory, calling the old Devil May Cry games outdated and shilling the new game as much as possible while downplaying any criticisms. Needless to say, this didn't go over well, as while it reviewed well when it came out, fans of the series wanted nothing to do with the game and the people that did play it found the story and characters unlikeable and the gameplay a major step down from Devil May Cry 4, causing the game to massively underperform, taking 5 years to meet its original goal. In contrast, 2019's Devil May Cry 5 managed to match its numbers in a couple of weeks.
PAYDAY 2 had a mechanic where flashbangs would spawn out of nowhere and blind and deafen the player if they were caught by the blast. Players criticized the flashbangs, citing that the randomness on when and where they appear does nothing but annoy and hinder the player with no way for the player to counter it. The then CEO of Starbreeze (which was merged with Overkill, the studio that made the game), Bo Andersson stated that the flashbangs only appear if players were camping in one spot, but players proved that it wasn't true since said flashbangs could spawn randomly even if the group was separated. Bo then proceeded to mock the player base by saying that maybe he should include a "baby mode" difficulty in the game since people couldn't handle the flashbangs while also saying "your opinion, my choice" as a final fuck you to the players. Naturally, the fans didn't take this well.
The Brazilian dub of Battlefield Hardline had rock singer Roger Moreira as Det. Mendonza. Reviewers and gamers alike didn't like it, and Roger, known for not taking too kindly to any sort of criticism, took on Twitter to give short and rough responses to those who complained while tagging him. This included saying something that downright demeaned his own work - "This is why I prefer in English. Too bad you're stupid" - and an argument with famed dubber Guilherme Briggs once he declared that Roger should've been more polite and learn something from being criticized.
Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog is rather vocal on Twitter towards detractors of their games, particularly those from NeoGAF or its successor forum ResetEra. He's also lashed out at articles that he thinks are criticizing him even if they don't actually mention any of his games, such as Ian Bogost's (in)famous article about whether video games are an ideal storytelling medium.
Saints Row (2022) became rather infamous for this. The game was announced as a reboot of the Saints Row series that was Revisiting the Roots, and fans were initially hyped with the graffiti wall art that updated itself leading up to the announcement trailer's release. However, when said trailer dropped, fan reactions to it were quite negative. In response, series developer Volition started badmouthing people who were unhappy with the reboot's direction, including making tweets like "Haters gonna hate", deleting negative comments that criticized Volition from the reboot's videos, and allegedly referring to fans of the first two Saints Row games (which the reboot is trying to hark back to) as "terrorists". Although Volition apologized and removed the offending tweet, the damage was done. Many people were turned off by the game's direction and Volition's hostility towards their own fanbase and swore off playing the Saints Row reboot, while those who stuck around and played the game found it to be an Obvious Beta, despite being delayed from its intended February 2022 release date to August for quality assurance purposes. This caused the reboot to underperform critically and financially, which resulted in Embracer Group, the parent company of publisher Deep Silver, transferring Volition's staff to Gearbox Software and then subsequently shutting down the company in August of 2023, just a year after the reboot's launch.

Web Animation

Jonathan Ian Mathers does this frequently with his Foamy Fan Mail segments.
In DEATH BATTLE!, it's pretty clear that Wiz and Boomstick were tired of the backlash that "Goku vs. Superman" generated. On the Sidescrollers episode "Reactionary Reaction", the two spend at least ten minutes commenting on comments and emails sent to them from angry fans. They spend it justifying the research used to come to the result, reminding fans of the rules of Death Battle, explaining that the fight scene at the end of the episode is simply a dramatization to show how they think the fight would go down based on the research, and saying that, no, they are not biased fanboys and that in the past they have killed off their personal favorite characters because the research indicates they would lose. Chad then tells them to just chill out and stop taking the show so seriously.
During the show's second season, Helluva Boss creator Vivienne Medrano wrote a Twitter thread addressing the rising criticism of the show's writing, specifically those targeting the character of Millie, as some fans had begun accusing her and the writers of failing to give someone who is stated to be a main character any significant depth outside being Moxxie's wife. Medrano argued that fans were overlooking what characterization had already been given, and that the complaints stem from people wishing that Millie had a Dark and Troubled Past like the rest of the cast. However, she did concede that the character hadn't gotten too much focus up to that point, and assured fans that she would in future episodes.
- Occurred again with the sister show from which Helluva Boss span off from, Hazbin Hotel. When a short, out-of-context clip of Angel being raped during the Poison music number leaked a week before the premiere and its storyboard artist, Raphielle II, was accused of having a rape fetish, along with allegations of elements from his fan works being put into the show, there was backlash with alleged claims that the show was fetishizing a serious subject matter, especially among SA survivors. Vivienne made a series of tweets defending the artist, pointing out that the show was made by a team, and that the episode in question wasn't officially released yet. It got bad enough that the backlash extended to Threads, where she continued to defend herself and the artist. She said she would become less active on Twitter as a result.
Red vs. Blue:
- When Zero was released among mixed genuine criticism and wild harassment, that season's lead Fiona Nova became very defensive, most notably shooting down people who claimed it was just a spinoff, or saying "it's not for you" regarding those who didn't like the new direction.
- Showrunner Torrian Crawford had a moment too: he had left Rooster Teeth, and when one of his fellow animators who was still there said Twitter was making her sad he lashed out on the fanbase, culminating in "Just stop watching the fuckin show." Some fans felt it was a blithe attempt to dismiss all criticism, though everyone agreed that those who didn't like the season had no business in delivering personal attacks and harassment to the crew.
While he'd announced Dr. Crafty's cancellation in late 2022, Alex Tansley did so exclusively on his soon-to-be-deleted first Discord server—nowhere else. During the subsequent months, he did not adequately communicate the show's fate in a way that reached his audiences on each of his platforms. This led to a lot of people—especially his YouTube subscribers—asking why all content related to the show randomly stopped in favor of his VTubing career. Eventually, he was provoked into making a new announcement, the most accessible mention of the show's fate of any kind, and the first time in years he opted to use YouTube's community posts feature. He is bitter, accusatory, and condescending towards those still curious, and he ends things off with an ultimatum: if people continue asking, they'll be blocked from seeing any of his content.

Webcomics

Aaron Neathery, creator of Endtown, releases monthly messages to those of his fans who support him on Patreon. His December 2016 Patreon letter reeks of this trope, being largely a loud and strenuous defense of his recent storytelling decisions after apparently getting some amount of negative feedback.
Tim Buckley, the author of Ctrl+Alt+Del, does this routinely. Several such stunts have become so infamous that he would subsequently ban anyone who mentions them on his forum. One such stunt was an attack on a fan who was defending him — the fan happened to include a piece of fanart, and Buckley (ignoring the I Do Not Own disclaimer) attacked the fan for plagiarism and implicitly threatened legal action. Ironically, the webcomic's most criticized storyline (involving a Convenient Miscarriage) actually led to one of Buckley's more restrained responses.
The writers of Penny Arcade engaged in an extended bout of this during the "dickwolves" saga, where this strip (referencing being "raped by dickwolves" as shock-value comedy) led to accusations of Gabe and Tycho being rape apologists. Gabe made an angry post in which he claimed not to understand why that crossed the line, and he and Tycho released a strip mocking the controversy. This only served to enrage the offended parties further, which further provoked Gabe, all feeding into a vicious cycle of both parties talking past each other and not listening to what the other side was saying. Relevant links here.
Ellipsis Stephens (formerly known as Tarol Hunt), author of Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes, occasionally goes on The Rant to discuss some of the house-ruled Dungeons & Dragons mechanics used in the webcomic. This one concludes with the classic line, "Hello, my name is Tarol Hunt and I have 24 years of near-constant practice arguing the physics of magic with hundreds of D&D players."
Homestuck creator Andrew Hussie does this in a heavy-handed way with his character Caliborn, a personification of his Hatedom who is not only the Big Bad but also responsible for killing his Author Avatar.
Scott Kurtz of PvP is infamous for posting these on his blog. Indeed, a book he co-authored about how to publish your own web-comic basically said that you should ignore all criticism of your work. When one book critic noted this in her review of the book and said that she couldn't believe any professional artist would deny the value of even constructive criticism, Kurtz wrote a blistering response where he expressed the belief that critics should be like The Federation in Star Trek and not interfere.
Howard Tayler of Schlock Mercenary produced a fairly mild version — in response to complaints about how long the story was "dragging on", he wrote, "If you're bored, leave. PLEASE. I'm telling the story I want to tell, and I'm telling it the way I want to tell it."
Krazy Krow wrote one for Spinnerette which can be seen here, in response to negative feedback on chapter seven. However, he seemed to think it was about him using a recurring villain when most of the complaints were about how predictable and cliched the story ended up being.
Chris Hazelton of Misfile wrote one after receiving hundreds of emails caused by the backlash of Emily's confession to Ash being unceremoniously swept under the rug.
The authors of Teahouse released a statement after they received a few complaints about how long they were taking to release pages. They also respond to a fair few of the comments with questionable amounts of maturity, both of which can be seen here. When "Faps" did a parody/riff of the comic, they complained to Live Journal and Photobucket (where the pages were hosted) to have the parodies removed due to "copyright" (while the sites did comply, the parodies continue elsewhere because they're Fair Use). The whole story is up here.
Tom Preston, a.k.a. Andrew Dobson, the creator of So... You're A Cartoonist? and the artists behind the Brentalfloss comics, does this routinely, refusing to accept criticism, resorting to insults and bans, frequent use of Straw Critics, blaming his flaws on anime and college, and outright stating that he will never improve. It's earned him a pretty bad reputation on the Internet, to say the least.
Rain has a lot of LGBTQ characters. Whenever one is revealed to be such, readers complain that it is unrealistic to have so many queer/trans characters. The writer, Jocelyn Samara, now writes a statement with every reveal asking readers to keep it to themselves, because it is not true and she does not appreciate it.
Particularly inane or stupid letters to Something*Positive will sometimes get highlighted in a Fourth-Wall Mail Slot strip, so other fans can laugh at the stupidity.
Adam Ellis — former gag-a-day cartoonist for Buzzfeed between 2016 and 2018 — made an extensive retort towards his former haters on Tumblr^note. His reply wasn't made necessarily because of negative feedback (the original post in question was overall commending him for having "improved" since he went independent), but rather the undermining of just how much hostility he experienced while working at BuzzFeed — from death threats, to smear campaigns trying to paint him as a pedophile, to doxxing attempts — and he was especially incensed by the attempt to recontextualize his recent uptick as him "listening to criticism".
"Now that I’ve left BuzzFeed and don’t have deadlines anymore, I can spend more time on comics and only draw things I’m passionate about (like my dick). But make no mistake—if you like my stuff now, it’s because I pushed myself so hard [at] BuzzFeed. I’m not better now because of the “criticism” I got from trolls on the internet. Don’t fucking take credit for that."

Web Original

Seanbaby's 10 Species of Angry Commenter You Encounter on the Web is a list specifically based on the Fan Dumb responses he got from readers of a previous article (on World of Warcraft) — one example from each category is quoted directly, even. If you're wondering what made the hate mail he got from that particular article so special, he just decided against "ignoring it this time." A later article tackled criticism in a broader sense.
JesuOtaku at one point released a full-length screed over his Twitter in response to complaints about his Attention Deficit Creator Disorder.
Noah Antwiler has made a few blog posts along these lines:
- "An Appeal to Manners" is addressed not to people who hate his videos, but rather to the Trolls who did things like calling his then-girlfriend a "fat cow" when she appeared in a thank-you video.
- His commentary for the Mazes and Monsters review starts with one about the negative reaction the fans had to that review's title sequence, which replaced his normal theme song by The Irresponsibles with a cover by the band Living Illusion. It's actually quite mature and even somewhat apologetic — he explains why he made the change and defends Living Illusion's cover, and speculates as to why people were so bothered. It helps that you're hearing his thoughts, rather than reading them, so the tone is much easier to interpret. (And, for the record, he went back to a more traditional version of the theme song not too long after.)
- A straighter example came from his review of the Deadliest Warrior Fighting Game. After a five-minute review where Noah railed against every part of the game, the producers themselves issued this kind of response, including saying things like "It's a $10 DLC game by a small publisher, it's not our fault you bought instant ramen and expected it to taste like filet mignon", and straight-up instructing their fans to troll Noah. Noah laid into Spike for this, as well as some of the dumber responses on his comments section, like one person claiming that "You don't auto-turn in a real-life fight".
The Spoony Experiment had a brief online rivalry with TNA President Dixie Carter after one of his fans jokingly posted a link to the first Wrestle! Wrestle! vlog on Dixie's Facebook wall. Dixie, who has demonstrated that she cares a lot more about her personal social media than TNA itself, tried to pick a fight with Spoony on Twitter. Noah Antwiler briefly ran with it, although he did note how petty and stupid it was for a grown woman who is supposed to be running a company to decide that arguing with a single Internet reviewer was the best use of her time.
Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation has had to do this a few times:
- After panning Super Smash Bros. Brawl and receiving an unusually large amount of hate mail, he devoted a whole video to snarkily responding to some of the negative comments. This earned him a roundly negative reaction, as many took it as a sign the Brawl video was only made as a bait so that he could trash Nintendo fans in the follow-up.
- He remained just as unapologetic after his review of The Last of Us, casually reminding viewers that the game was not a beached whale that would die if it wasn't constantly moistened by everybody's tongues. This time around, however, he decided a bonding exercise/hunting expedition was in order, and chose a universally hated game they could make fun of together:
  Yahtzee: So please, load up your shotguns, join me around this barrel, and let's take it out on some motherfucking fish.
Jimquisition:
- Jim Sterling, released the video "Weapon Durability, Fanbase Fragility" in response to the vitriol they received in response to their lukewarm (though still positive) review of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The video starts with their explaining why they dislike Breakable Weapons mechanics in games (their main complaint about BotW) before tearing into those who posted hateful comments in response to the review, as well as those who launched a DDOS attack on their website and attempted to hijack their social media accounts.
  Jim Sterling: I mean, follow me on this, my little Digital Homicides: if I'd rather harass a writer and [their] audience on Twitter, if I'd rather DDOS a website, if I'd rather hammer that "dislike" button in fevered outrage... well, it sounds like your game is shit. Certainly, too mediocre to hold your attention more than utterly trivial opinions on the Internet! It sucks that you think Breath of the Wild is so boring and crap, I mean, I liked it!
- In a somewhat sarcastic tone, Jim also made this video Nintendo Fans Love to Troll Themselves where they frequently point out their negative run-ins with hardcore Nintendo fans and frequently points out how ridiculous these kinds of people are to them.
- Jim also did this during their video on how the Digital Homicide lawsuit ended titled When Jim Sterling Was Sued For $10 Million By Digital Homicide. At one point they point out that they have read the occasional think piece or article written by games journalists or commenters questioning if Jim is a hero for attacking Digital Homicide (and other such studios with Steam Greenlight), or a bully for doing so, and countered with how the situation has affected them including being doxxed amongst other things in an effort to point out that this wasn't just some stroll in the park for them.
- Jim admitted that the entire point of their Jimquisition on No Man's Sky titled Sky Hype was done as a result of the horrific behavior of the fans of said game. They do make sure to repeatedly point out that they are only speaking about the people who actually performed the actions they are mentioning, not the fandom of NMS at large. They told about having their site being DDoS'ed and proceeded to explode on the fanboys (whom they called "No Man's Boys"), and also provided screenshots to people losing it over their score of the game (5/10). The video wasn't entirely focused on their situation either, showing developers and journalists being attacked and threatened with violence over minor questions or slight delays in ways that just stunned Jim, and also used it to call out the hype culture that creates these kinds of zealots who essentially worship the games they want or own as if they can never be talked about in any way other than positive. Jim also heavily insults the people who behaved this way and said this quote:
  Jim Sterling: And before anyone points out, I realize this isn't helping, but we're way past the point of fucking compromise now. Y'all need to be told! You're fuckin' pitiful!
In a case happening to the reviewer, once The Cinema Snob did a review of the incomplete Grizzly II, the film's producer sent him an e-mail to take the video off his website. His fans still made sure it survived by uploading it to YouTube. He even implied in a con-exclusive DVD that he was the one who initially uploaded it to YouTube.
Popular Lets Player Chuggaaconroy made a video in which he chewed out some of his fans for his massive backdraft against an artwork of Kumatora in an intro of one of his Mother 3 videos.
The infamous Encyclopedia Dramatica has this in the form of the "Offended"-page. The less said about it, the better.
Youtuber Dark Lord Jadow 1 did a review of No Man's Sky which he was not a fan of, seeing the game as boring, unintuitive, and lacking in features. He also did another video of his top ten worst games played part 2, and in it he brings up No Man's Sky as number ten and summarizes his points, then proceeds to explode on the NMS fans who tried to hack his Twitter and swarmed his comments section, attacking everything he said and enraging him (although he did show a screenshot of someone who disagreed with his opinion but wasn't toxic about it and says that he doesn't have a problem with those people in particular, pointing out his anger is just with the ones who attacked him personally or delusionally defended the game by refuting arguments he never made).
In the early days of Diva Dirt, Melanie was frequently called on her blatant dislike of Candice Michelle - which reached petty levels such as mocking her short haircut when she'd donated it to Locks of Love, and calling her "out of shape" and "tubby" when she was recovering from two back-to-back injuries. She also viewed the Ashley Massaro escort scandal as a Point-and-Laugh Show, and would resist no opportunity to criticise Ashley's appearance and wrestling. Whenever fans complained that she was going too far, she would respond with variants of "it's my opinion and I'm entitled to it". She did however appear to realise her mistakes once the website's popularity grew, and the writing became significantly more professional.
In Lewis Lovhaug's History of Power Rangers series, has had him run in with this trope.
- Although it has since been edited out upon re-release, Linkara once started an episode of HOPR talking about the fans who constantly berate him for a schedule or ask him "when's the next History of Power Rangers", going as far as to criticize Linkara's other works (like Atop the Fourth Wall) and trying to force him to only work on HOPR. He says that while he is honored that so many people are excited about this side project, it's just that, a side project, and all nagging him to get it done faster will do is make him not really want to do it at all. However, in his Megaforce review he does harken back to these fans and says while they did irritate him at the time, he really is thankful to them and all of his fans for supporting him to much and showing so much love to what is basically a grown man looking for deeper meaning in a children's television show.
- In the RPM examination he quotes a critic/troll on the forums who mocks him for spending so much time looking for deeper meaning in a lighthearted kids' show, and he points out the truly dark and deep elements this season has while still being a fun, overall lighthearted kids' show.
Half in the Bag: On a few occasions, Mike and Jay have referenced or read aloud negative comments on their previous videos. One such occasion was Mike reading demands that he focus on new Mr. Plinkett Reviews instead of Half in the Bag.
In The Critical Drinker's review of Arcane, he tells off people accusing him of sexism and misogyny, pointing out that he likes the series despite having everything he supposedly hates;
"Oh, and as a little side-quote for all the fucking brainlets out there, who like to chime in with insightful commentary 'The Drinker is just a hateful toxic misogynist, who can't stand anything with strong female characters, diverse casting or non-heterosexual representation', well, you can go ahead and suck my big hairy Scottish balls, because first up, you're clearly missing the entire point of my channel, which is hardly surprising, considering most of you have an IQ roughly equivalent to a soft-boiled egg. And secondly, according to whatever ridiculous mental gymnastics passes for logic in your case, Arcane should be the epitome of everything I hate most in life, and yet here I am, fucking love it."

Western Animation

Avatar: The Last Airbender:
- Creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino were always befuddled by the show's Ship-to-Ship Combat, one of the most infamous in the Western animation fandom, and they aren't shy about how much they dislike the Fan-Preferred Couple Zuko/Katara, viewing it as particularly nonsensical. It reached its height after the series ended, by which time Aang/Katara were very clearly the Official Couple, and they showed a video at SDCC 2008 called Book 4: Air, which was a collection of Zutara fanart — dubbed over with a story of what would have happened had Zuko and Katara been a couple (a very short relationship, as it turns out). It ended with Sokka's voice actor declaring to the audience that "all women who ship Zutara will have doomed relationships".
- Sequel series The Legend of Korra had similar shipping wars, and Konietzko and DiMartino were even less understanding this time around. They blamed all criticism of the first-season finale on "rabid shippers" (whether or not their criticism even addressed shipping), and Konietzko went on to claim that shippers were simply too stupid to understand their writing.
The late Dwayne McDuffie was known for rather hostile reactions toward any fans who criticized him on his work on Ben 10: Alien Force and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, the controversial sequels to Ben 10, on his forum. Though to his credit, he never made any personal attacks on these fans and frowned upon any of his supporters who did. The late Derrick Wyatt, the art designer and co-showrunner on Ben 10: Omniverse, was much the same, although with a more sardonic quality than outright hostile.
Thomas Astruc, the creator and one of the main writers of Miraculous Ladybug, has become infamous for blocking and insulting anyone who criticizes the show on Twitter. While the fandom does have some notoriously toxic members, he doesn't seem to be able to separate them from people offering genuine criticism in his mind, blocking both groups in equal numbers. It got to the point where, after a scene from the show received flack for using the controversial Rising Sun flag, he outright blocked a now-former close friend of his (one whom a character was physically based on, no less) after they tried to talk to him about the ensuing controversy.
After being hassled on social media for about three days by an aggressive fan of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic who believed Fluttershy's Poison Joke afflicted deep voice in "Filli Vanilli" was an attack against transgender people, and after trying and failing to be civil about it, writer Amy Keating Rogers (with a bit of help from M.A. Larson) fired a couple◊ of shots◊ back.
During a Reddit AMA held a few weeks after the finale of Star vs. the Forces of Evil, numerous creative team members answered questions fans had about the show's conclusion. When asked about the fanbase's feelings that the ending was rushed, creator Daron Nefcy said she wrote an ending she was happy with, and that the fans feeling it was "rushed" was just them unhappy it was ending and wanting more.

In-Universe Examples:

A hilarious in-universe example happened in a skit that you can find in the special features of the Black Books DVD. When Bernard receives a rejection letter for his novel, he sends back a rejection letter for the rejection letter:
Bernard: And yes, I am aware that it is traditionally bad form to respond to any kind of criticism or rejection, but in this as all else I am an innovator, therefore I may freely address you as "piss-midget".
Parodied in a chapter of the original Lupin III manga. A sex scene is interrupted by a fan's letter (complaining about the "bleeps" censoring the dialogue), followed by the author telling them to "Bleep off".
In Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jay does this upon seeing Internet commenters on Movie Poop Shoot (a thinly-veiled parody of Ain't It Cool News) giving negative feedback on the upcoming Bluntman and Chronic movie. Of course, Jay's Internet Jerk act is unknowingly feeding the trolls — at least until he and Silent Bob actually make good on their threats, heading to Hollywood to sabotage production of the movie. And then, in The Stinger, they personally go to the homes and workplaces of every one of the trolls on Movie Poop Shoot and give each of them a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
All you motherfuckers are gonna pay. You are the ones who are the ball-lickers. We're gonna fuck your mothers while you watch and cry like little whiny bitches. Once we get to Hollywood and find those Miramax fucks who are making Bluntman and Chronic, we're gonna make 'em eat our shit, then shit out our shit, and then eat their shit that's made up of our shit that we made 'em eat. And then all you motherfuckers are next. Love, Jay and Silent Bob.
In Something About Kirby and the Amazing Mirror, Dark Mind attempts to weaponize a comment expressing disdain for the Christian Kirbo jokes that had littered the other Kirby videos. Kirbo's response was to recite Psalm 59 (in perfect English, no less, despite otherwise being The Unintelligible) then join forces with the other Kirbies to invoke God and exorcise Dark Mind, essentially quadrupling down on the Christian Kirbo joke.
The Frasier episode "I Hate Frasier Crane" has a listener of Frasier's show, Derek Mann, criticize him in his newspaper column. Frasier, of course, can't let it go, and it escalates back and forth with ad hominem attacks to the point that they arrange a fistfight in public. Hilarity Ensues.
In The Unpopular Mangaka and the Helpful Onryo-san, Senai gets a negative review of his work online. Onryo-san rushes to the computer, and he's worried she'll send a cursed email, but it turns out to be a normal, calm response. He still doesn't let her send it from his IP address.
In The Simpsons episode, "Itchy, Scratchy and Marge", after Marge believes The Itchy and Scratchy Show is being a bad influence on the kids, she makes a Strongly Worded Letter to the studios. Unimpressed, the chairman, Roger Meyers Jr, makes a sarcastically cordial letter thanking the "valued viewer" for their concerns about the show and noting that "our research shows that one person cannot make a difference, no matter how big a screwball she is, so let me close by saying..."
Marge: *reading letter* And the horse I rode in on?!?
"Bloody Rotten Audience", a song performed by Scottish-Australian folkie Eric Bogle, is presented as the complaint of an embittered folk singer who's failed to win over his crowd, listing the different ways in which he's brilliant and how stupid the audience must be not to appreciate him. Performed live, this is both a Funny Moment and Awesome Music.
You're a bloody rotten audience whilst I am very good
If brains were made of oak and ash then you'd have balsa wood
I'm ethnic and authentic and I'm really full of class
While you're ignorant, you're cultureless, you're philistines en masse.

Dear Negative Reader

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