Last week, a patch hit Black Ops II that enraged some unreasonable Call of Duty fans so much, they started sending death threats to the game's design director, David Vonderhaar. While unfortunate, it's also not the only recent case of enraged fans spewing ridiculous threats at something.
Yesterday, men's fashion and style magazine GQ unveiled the covers for the September issue of their publication. Their plan aims to release five different covers, each one featuring a member of the hugely popular boy band, One Direction. Maybe you've heard of them, they're kind of a big deal with some teens. Harry Style's cover in particular features the words "He's up all night to get lucky"—a reference to Daft Punk's hit single, Get Lucky as well as One Direction's album, Up All Night.
As is the case with many young pop stars, one of the things the fandom might become overly concerned with is the star's pure image. The second that it seems as if the pop star isn't pure, the fan's relationship with their idealized image of the pop star becomes threatened. Unsurprisingly, then, some One Direction fans are not happy with GQ's magazine cover and its insinuation of Style's love life. They're so enraged, in fact, that they're sending the magazine all sorts of absurd threats on Twitter, or threatening to kill themselves. So there's one thing some Call of Duty fans and One Direction fans have in common: an overblown reaction to something small.
What struck me while reading the One Direction crazed messages is how easily one could mistake the messages for those sent to Call of Duty's design director. So here's a small game that puts together a number of threats from both fandoms alike. Your job is to guess which message is from which fandom. Small caveat: some of these messages have been slightly altered such that they don't specifically reference only Call of Duty, One Direction, Vonderhaar or the magazine. The Call of Duty threats come from the Gamer Fury Tumblr, and the One Direction threats come from either Twitter searches or GQ itself. Answers are provided at the end.
1. I hope your whole family gets cancer and dies.
2. DO YOU REALIZE HOW MANY PEOPLE WANT TO CASTRATE THE PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR THIS SHITTY [DEVELOPER/MAGAZINE]?
3. I'll fucking kill you
4. I will skin your wife alive and have sex with her fleshless body. I will then wear her flesh and make you pay.
5. THIS IS AN INDIRECT TO YOUR [DEVELOPER/EDITOR] IM GOING TO TAKE YOUR TESTICLES AND POUND THEM WITH A HAMMER
6. I HOPE YOU BURN IN HELL YOU FUCKING COCKSUCKER AND I HOPE YOU GET RAPED AND GET AIDS AND DIE IN THE BIGGEST PAIN IMAGINABLE
7. I'M GONNA BOMB YOUR HEADQUARTERS!
8. [TREYARCH/GQ] CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES WITH A CHAINSAW UP THEIR ASSHOLE TILL IT MUTILATES THEIR INSIDES
9. i hope you die in the gas chambers like your parents did
10. ONE DAY I’ll find you and slit your throat
NO CHEATING!
Are you good? Here are the answers:
Call of Duty threats: 1, 4, 6, 9, 10.
One Direction threats: 2, 3, 5, 7, 8
What's your score? Admittedly, despite writing this, while tallying the answers up I ended up forgetting a few.