Oh Jeremy Renner, you only have thousands of versions of yourself to blame for your app’s failure
September 10, 2019The Hollywood stars attempt to become an online player has had to be brought to a halt after trolls broke his app
I have spent more of my life than I would like to admit imagining who a Jeremy Renner fan would be. In my mind, they have dogs and a gleaming pickup truck, but they dont live on farmland; instead, they live in a grey-fronted new-build on an uphill cul-de-sac in a generic American town. They have a number of sweated-in caps that they wear every day, even to formal events. At least one pump-action shotgun and possibly a long-range weapon, too.
I dream that Renner fans literally all air guitar along to Dont Stop Believin, even when the song is not actually playing. The males still somehow have early-00s goatees and jeans that pool over their boots like curtains. When they walk into a gas station which Renner fans do up to seven times a day, always making a creaking, groaning noise when they pay at the register in damp, crumpled wads of cash they walk sideways and stiff-legged, like Liam Gallagher after bruising his tailbone, so that other people cannot easily navigate past. My imaginary female Renner fans, meanwhile, self-describe as mom in their Instagram bios, have one eye that cannot look directly at a camera lens and are always making some sort of vile American casserole that is mainly pork lumps and garlic powder.
Night after night, these Renner fans sit in a cuddle puddle with their dozens of large rescue dogs. As the lights dim against the night, truck engine tinkling cool outside, they watch The Hurt Locker, then all the Marvel films, that Bourne one Renner did, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. Renner fans are fundamentally happier and more at peace than you and me, yes, but will history remember them when they are dead? It will not.
What history will remember, though, is Renners attempt at becoming an app billionaire, which came crashing down this week. In case you have somehow not downloaded the Jeremy Renner app called, simply, Jeremy Renner it was a bit like Instagram, but only for pictures of Jeremy Renner, posted by Jeremy Renner, with Jeremy Renneresque captions such as: Have a rockin weekend everyone!!! You could communicate with other Jeremy Renner fans, and every time someone commented back to you on the app you got a push notification that, due to an incredibly thoughtless quirk of design, made it seem as if Jeremy Renner himself was whispering it directly into your phone. So you could type, say, I dont know: I literally dont know how my movie career happened. I am entirely charmless and a completely forgettable actor. My go-to facial expression is midway through a polite conversation with an unfamiliar neighbour, I realise my dog has rolled in a dog turd. They should have left me in the makeup truck where they found me and it would appear as if Jeremy Renner was saying that, about himself. So you can see how this instantly and spectacularly fell apart.
As Stefan Heck wrote on Deadspin, I Broke the Official Jeremy Renner App by Posting the Word Porno On It. After a screenshot of someone responding to the word porno with Nasty!! Not Cool went viral, the Jeremy Renner app was inundated by Renner impersonators all saying how much they loved porno and pornography-aligned things. And lo: Renner had to shutter the app he primarily used as a way of wishing people a rockin weekend.
The app has jumped the shark. Literally, Renner said in a statement, literally. Due to clever individuals that were able to manipulate ways to impersonate me and others within the app I have asked ESCAPEX, the company that runs this app, to shut it down immediately.
Ah yes, those galactic-brained hackers who were able to manipulate the iron-clad security of the Jeremy Renner app by simply signing up with Renners name and photograph. How on earth could we have seen this happening?
The thing is this is not even the first time the Jeremy Renner app has been shut down because of trolling. In 2017, around the time of the apps initial launch, the Renner community (Rennerheads? Renoids? Jerryboys? God knows) was tearing itself apart in the comments section under Jeremy Renners updates. This was due to a multipronged controversy involving a Hurricane Harvey giveaway experience (fans were mad that a Renner-promised visit to the set of the Avengers film turned out to just be a visit to his house), comment moderation described as totalitarian, a wonky app update and accusations of bullying. I simply cannot believe that Renner somehow attracts this much online drama. But see you in 2021 for the inevitable Biannual Jeremy Renner App Catastrophe.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us