This is a tale as old as time.
True as it can be
Barely even friends...
"Beauty and the Beast" - lyrics Howard Ashman, composer Alan Menken
Ah, the strange lives of Internet trolls. Where would OTP fans be without them, after all? Probably, happily crooning in the trees; ♪ Singing about what we have observed. Serenading about what we have concluded ♪. Which, of course, is why these trolls exist in the first place - can't be having any of that truth 'n stuff breaking through the atmosphere, after all!
Let's take a stroll down memory lane for just a moment to provide some historical context. Narnia Dispatches came into existence because of an internet stalker, one(s) which had consistently dogged and pestered the original Waiting for Toothy site, then moved on to Oh My Godot, a blog dedicated to all things Jake/Austin. And. let there be no mistake, this particular internet troll(s) attached itself to OMG like a tick.
When Jake Gyllenhaal left CAA to sign with Endeavor (originally, the William Morris Agency) back in January 2012, the beginning of a whole new image remake was on the horizon. Not surprisingly, the first step taken in this career reset was to do away with the saga of "Toothy Tile". To achieve this end, the creator of the Blind Item had to be targeted in a way that would seem plausible (maybe like a self-inflicted wound), but still allow for some degree of deniability from the industry at large. Within six months of Jake's WME signing, the plot had been set into motion and executed. A final Toothy blind appeared on March 23, 2012, called "Toothy Gets Slutty with Room Service" which definitively stated (after seven years) that there would be no happy ending for Grey Goose and Tooth. The breakup was suddenly inevitable, the final line emphatic: "Grey, stop pretending you're Saint Suck-Up and completely move on, already." Summarily, a mysterious rumor began to circulate that Ted Casablanca had been "fired" from E! based on some shady rumor that he had accidentally "outed" Jeremy Renner in one of his columns. Mission accomplished.
Even before 2012, the WFT2 blog already had devolved into a hotbed of Austin Nichols dislike, often led by trolls whose shared goal was to distract and refocus attention on the "what might have beens" between Jake and Heath Ledger, much safer territory than what was actually happening between Jake and Austin in real life. By 2012, particularly after the iconic "The Sushi Lunch" , when it became rapidly apparent that not only were Jake and Austin still together, but they were also not anywhere close to going public with their relationship, most of the remaining anons/commenters lost interest on both blogs and left. It was really the beginning of the end. With Ted's elimination, the die was cast. Bearding, mearding and stunts became the norm and Jake's team continued to pursue their scorched earth goals of 1) Eliminating Toothy Tile chatter and 2) Doing away with Jake's gay friendly fandom.
Despite, the "progress", there was still one remaining obstacle standing in WME's way: Oh My Godot, the ONLY Jake and Austin community of its kind, and the only blog that hit close to home regarding what was really going on behind the scenes. For one, the moderation of Waiting for Toothy 2 had been taken over by an industry troll and the blog as a whole by Jake's Team. Just one example of many anons' observations of the change in the blog:
Secondly, Ted had been eradicated. But, what was Jake's team going to do about OMG, a veritable archive of Jake and Austin's history, chocked full of real-time sightings & reactions, links, pictures, articles and chatter? Despite losing many posters, there were still a small handful of faithful, well-informed members. An active blog still very much opened for business, so to speak.
Not so coincidentally, trolling became more intense. Spamming began non-stop, with blocks of repeated tauntings and screeds about Austin and his beard, Chloe Bennet, including the posting of hyperlinks from bizarre Brazilian sites, where pictures of the "happy couple" would appear from out of nowhere to advance their stunts. Often the same repeated "comments", but posted repeatedly, one after the other. Over and over again. Relentless, online harassment. On April 10, 2016, Special K (Oh My Godot's Blog Administrator) emailed M&M and myself and told us that there had been almost 12,000 spam messages caught by Blogger and herself. Below, is just one example of Austin and Chloe spam, which had to be be deleted.
Although one can't see the words now, it was just obscenity-filled, schoolyard prattle. But what the troll did was copy/paste the comment, and then repeatedly post it over and over. Here is an actual textual example of one of those screeds (with editing of the profanity):
[Austin
and Chloe are in L❤VE !!! They live together, spend
all holidays and birthdays together, attend business events and weddings
together, travel together, Austin visits her family in Chicago, Chloe visits
his family in Texas, they have two fur babies …
HAPPY FAMILY !!! HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM
AUSTIN & CHLOE !!! Austin in Chicago with his girlfriend and her family -
sweet kisses :) HAPPY CHRISTMAS FROM AUSTIN & CHLOE !!! Austin & Chloe
in love and in Chicago again HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM AUSTIN & CHLOE !!!
Austin:
Happy New Year from me and @chloebennet4 Austin sending special F**K OFF
message to lying OMGers! :) Austin & Sarah sending F**K OFF message to
lying OMGers! :) Austin posted photo of Chloe's ass from their Mexico trip -
Sh**ty K must be so proud! Austin & Chloe in Mexico - zero f**ks given
about husband and 5-6 kids :) Austin Nichols: Me and pretty bird flying away Chloe
Bennet: Two years and I'm still blushing. @austinnichols Austin Nichols: The
view from my on Happy Birthday Austin!! ]
As one can imagine, the repetitive posts disrupted conversations and required constant monitoring by the Blog Administrator, who had to delete the comments. For the benefit of the Powers That Be Google's Blogger continued to be unable to prevent the spamming, no matter how many times the online harassment was reported. The first course of action was to place the blog on moderation whenever the attacks occurred, which meant all comments posted had to be screened first and then the Administrator would release them upon review. However, whenever the blog would be opened for comments/discussion, the troll would suddenly appear and begin the copy/paste spamming all over again, usually forcing the blog back into moderation.
Requiring commenters to register with Blogger did not help either. The Troll registered with a name and began the spamming all over again. Eventually, Oh My Godot became a blog held hostage. Combined with fans' disinterest and dissatisfaction with the direction of Jake and Austin's public lives and careers, a crossroads was reached and a decision was made by M&M and myself to create Narnia Dispatches. The new blog would be a closed community, open only to familiar "faces" and was designed to be basically a platform from which to merely be able to speak, free of disruptions.
After much collaborative preparations and graphic design ponderings, Narnia Dispatches officially opened for "business" on May 15, 2016. The launch came off without a hitch and the future looked like smoooooooth sailing ahead, right?
Wellllll, not quite. Stay tuned for Part 2 when we will see how a management Troll found other ways to try and stop online discussions and observations about Jake Gyllenhaal and Austin Nichols' relationship.
pic sources: Giphy
our playlist: Telephone Line - Electric Light Orchestra
Wherever You Will Go - The Calling
Eye on You - Billy Squier
Telephone - Sheena Easton
Wherever You Will Go - The Calling
Eye on You - Billy Squier
Telephone - Sheena Easton
