Last night, I saw a column at Newsarama that infuriated me. It’s been taken offline, so I can’t quote it, but the basic premise was that Wesley Crusher was playing Ted Kord, so Ted Kord was a Redshirt, because Wesley was a Redshirt, so now you know how lame that episode is going to be ha ha ha.
I tried to post a comment on the article, but it wouldn’t let me. Here’s what I wanted to say. It applies not only to this article, but to all the articles that start from the same premise. I’m putting it here because it’s the most successful I’ve ever been in attempting to explain why I’m so fed up with this sort of thing:
Wow, this is so profoundly insulting and so profoundly wrong, I don’t even know where to begin. You know that Wesley Crusher is a fictional character and I’m a professional actor, right? And do you even know what a Redshirt is? They don’t survive more than one episode, and rarely have any dialog. So … yeah, you’re pretty much as wrong as you can be about that.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course, but this whole thing is based on a premise that couldn’t be more ignorant of my work, Star Trek history, and the work we’ve all done together on Batman: the Brave and the Bold. I am offended on behalf of all of us who worked on Fall of the Blue Beetle, but what I find so personally insulting is your belittling suggestion that any work that I do now – as a 36 year-old actor – should just be discarded and disparaged because of some badly-written episodes and a sometimes-badly-written character that I played two decades ago.
I am not Wesley Crusher, and when someone says, “Wesley Crusher is playing [Some Character], so, you know, go hate [That Character] without even watching him,” it is both unfair and profoundly insulting to me. Imagine having something you’ve worked so hard to create being dismissed out of hand, because of completely unrelated work you did when you were a teenager – work that you had no control over – and you may understand why this is so upsetting to me. This has happened to me for years, and when I read it tonight – especially related to something like Batman, that I’m so proud of, that I know has a big crossover audience – It infuriated me. I’ve been subjected to this same tired line for 15 years, and I’ve really had enough of it. Live in the now, man!
I think we can all agree that Wesley wasn’t always badly-written, but my whole point isn’t to defend Wesley anyway – as I said, people are entitled to their own opinions – but to point out that Wesley is pretend and I am real. Wesley is forever a nerdy teenager, and I am an adult. If you didn’t like Wesley, that’s fine, but just give me a chance to disappoint you on my own merits, now, instead of deciding that my current work is not even worth watching, because of something you didn’t like twenty years ago.
On Twitter, I said: Urge to kill … rising. Someone needs to tell this guy that his “joke” is about 15 years out of date.
Apparently, some very stupid people thought I was suggesting that someone should hurt the guy who wrote the lame post. People: are you serious? Ever watch The Simpsons? Check out Treehouse of Horror V, particularly The Shinning, which gave us such memorable lines as “No TV and no beer make Homer something something …” and “Urge to kill … rising.” A different segment also has one of my favorite moments in Simpsons history, where Homer keeps getting his hand stuck in the toaster, but that’s not really relevant to this post.
Anyway, a lot of people spoke up on my behalf before they yanked the article, which was very kind, and not something I was expecting, but I guess should have been. Not everyone was polite and civil, though, so I also learned something about unintended consequences last night: choose your words carefully, because someone in the 30000 people who follow you on Twitter may be missing a d6 or two in their mental dice bag.
To be absolutely clear about the whole thing, I also said: Final thought before sleepy-time, where I am a viking: “urge to kill…” is a Simpsons reference, not an actual threat. Sheesh.
While I obviously can’t control what people decide to do on their own, I wanted to publicly apologize to the guy who wrote the column, even though he insulted the hell out of me. I didn’t intend to do anything more than speak up on my own behalf, but that’s why they call it unintended consequences.
Now, let us all bask in television’s warm, glowing, warming glow…
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Jeez! What a douche! I certainly hope that you’ll shake this of though.
Hey! Wil! By the way! Since you’re a Mystery Science Theatre-fan, have you seen the guys on Unskippable? It might cheer you up…
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/unskippable/500-Dead-Rising
There the urge to kill is also rising.
It’s all good, as long as his rug was Scotchgarded.
Don’t let it get to you, Wil. There are plenty of us who are capable of discerning the difference between you and the characters you play/voice. I myself am only a Wesley Crusher fan because I am such a huge Wil Wheaton fan, so it works both ways. 🙂
Hey Wil. It was one guy trying to sound clever in a bad article. Don’t let it get you down, man.
As for the article itself, this articulate and helpful blogger provides the original text, as well as their opinion of it:
http://www.blogula-rasa.com/2009/01/15/bugger-all-javascript-and-cookies-hawk-spit/
I read that article when it was up yesterday, and it made no sense to me. I assumed that there was something I was missing and dismissed it as poor writing and required some sort of insider hollywood knowledge.
It had literally not occurred to me that he was talking about WIL WHEATON when he said ‘Wesley Crusher’. Wil is an dude who has a blog, two kids, a wife and a way with words. Wesley is a character in a tv series I watched once, and I consider them so separate that thinking someone could confuse the two was so weird it didn’t occur to me.
Thanks for pointing out what the douche had done.
I had thought that the reference about Ted Kord being a Redshirt, Wesley Crusher type was somewhat apt. After all, he’s dead in the comics.
Having said that…boy, is Blog@Newsarama incredibly annoying lately. I’ve seen them make up quotes that other people didn’t say, and then stand by them despite the evidence. The old B@N team was fantastic; this one is the pits. I never thought the big N would hire trolls, but it seems that’s what they’ve done…
People really thought you wanted the guy hurt?? Some people shouldn’t be allowed online without supervision.
I was taken aback by the article too, so much in fact that I rebutted it on my own blog which I believe Z above found and commented on.
http://www.theoddsock.com/2009/01/15/at-grave-personal-risk/
But Wil, don’t forget:
“There’s no justice like angry mob justice!”
Why is it that such things get blown out of the proportion on the interwebs? Say “God, I could just kill that guy” in person, and people laugh it off. Say it online, and somebody’s calling 911 on your ass. Why would you take ANYTHING without voice inflection, nonverbals, and context so seriously? Let alone something trying to be expressed in 140 characters or less, which forces gross simplification on the best of days.
(By the way, I have a talking Simpsons bottle opener that does the entire “No beer makes Homer something something” routine whenever you open a bottle. Something that entertaining totally leads to alcoholism.)
(Err, wait. To anyone reading this, I’M KIDDING. Don’t call the people from Intervention, please.)
Speaking on behalf of those missing d6 in their mental dice bags…
We’re not crazy. The voices in my head told us so. 😛
Seriously though, I understood what you meant when you tweeted that night, and I enjoyed the Simpson’s reference. Then upon reading the post you referred to, I was a little irritated at the tone of that guy’s “news item”, but shrugged it off as just another idiot who doesn’t follow your work. I did think about posting something akin to what you filled in quite nicely for us today. Sadly, I’m sure it would’ve only egged them on more.
However, I did rather enjoy seeing the fool’s editor charging into the fray after things started getting out of hand. 🙂
Two types of people in the world. Those of us who have a cultural dialogue expressed entirely in Simpsons quotes, and the people who look at us funny a lot.
The very definition of “redshirt” precludes your remark.
See the following references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(character)
“A redshirt is slang term for a stock character whose primary purpose in the plot of a story is to die soon after being introduced”
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=redshirt
“Expendable characters. Usually say one line or less before being killed in a plot-convenient manner.”
Some people seriously just can’t let go. This guy hated Wesley and he’ll always hate Wesley. He apparently can’t distinguish between real life & a sci-fi show of 20 years ago.
I hear that Wesley was annoying. He never annoyed me. Maybe because I was a dumb teenager and had a hopeless crush on the actor who played him (I am female). Maybe he wasn’t annoying and the people who found him annoying were intimidated because he was a kid and smarter than they could dream of being. Of course, none of it matters because he’s not real! Right?
Really, the only thing you’ve ever done to disappoint me was when I found out you were married (see above paragraph for reason for this disappointment). 🙂
btw, did Wesley ever wear a red shirt? I thought he was yellow. It’s been a long time. 🙂
Rambling now… bye!
Wow- I didn’t always love Wesley, but I do always look forward to all the new stuff you do.
A friend of mine uses “Urge to kill rising…” so often that I can’t imagine not understanding that reference.
I sure did, Alice! Thanks for reposting it. =]
Read that post when you tweeted it last night… And it disgusted me.
But hey – some people are immature, and some people hold grudges.
I figure that as mature, smart people, we can dismiss them and ignore them, and that hurts more than words.
I’m so sorry, Wil, that you still have to deal with this kind of rubbish. Rest assured that anyone with two braincells to bang together accepts you as a hardworking and mature actor / writer / other.
To be fair, I did say “somewhat”. And I hadn’t realized there was an actual “dictionary” definition of redshirt! 🙂
And of course, in this situation, Kord is probably integral to the plot. I hope so- I miss ol’ Ted Kord…
I cherish those Giffen-DeMatteis JLAs with him, Oreo-eating J’onn, Booster, Guy, and the rest of the troublemakers. Everyone has their version of the JLA- that’s mine.
You know, I thought “”urge to kill…” was a Dilbert reference, but I was mistaken. (That’s “must control fist of death!” by Tina the tech writer.)
Hang in there Wil. There are (and always will be unfortunately) people out there like that who either can’t separate the real from the fictional or who simply like to be mean and act the bully.
That’s what a lot of these are, when it comes right down to it, bullies. And unfortunately, there’s a lot of us who can relate in some way to your being bullied like this, even in our professional lives. And yeah, _we_ know you didn’t mean it (“urge to kill”) literally, and we feel your pain.
You have a right to be proud of the body of work you’ve created by now, both as an actor and a writer. I’m sure you’ve already seen Felcia Day’s list of authors who Twitter? Actor and author, not celeb. There are those of us who get it. Keep up the good work and don’t let the haters get you down.
(Whoa! What’s with the weird Google accounts sign-in thing for me? Sorry about that. – Fazia Rizvi)
Ah, the old Internet snowball. I remember the days when something you said only got misconstrued by a handful of people instead of thousands.
You would think anyone interested in an animated Batman would be conversant in his or her Simpsons quotes, wouldn’t you?
I never did understand the Wesley-hating. All the characters were unevenly written in the first few seasons. Sure, the writers had him come up with the answer more quickly than the adult characters sometimes, but that made THEM the more poorly-written in my book.
I can’t believe anyone can still say things like that about you. Yes, I was a huge Wesley fan. But as I followed your life and career, I’ve become a much bigger fan of Wil Wheaton than I ever was of Wesley. It’s been amazing to see you grow as an actor, writer, blogger and person. There is so much more Awesome now! 🙂
It’s very coincidental that you are blogging about this now as I am a high school teacher, and today’s lesson was on netiquette and how one should act and perceive others online.
Basically, that guy was a prick.
On another note, I just found your blog, and told my best friend the other day about it. She said (and I quote):
“Oh my God, Wil Wheaton?!? I LOVE him! I had such a crush on Wesley Crusher!”
The article is up there with a certain EX of mine who dislikes Mr Patrick Stewart because of how he delivered ONE line in TNG. I can’t say it was high on the list of why he’s not around now, but trust me, the constant disparaging commentary on the one line was on the list.
This kind of attitude is sad. It is blinkered and narrow minded. I work in the entertainment industry, and frankly.. talent are real people. They fart and swear, want their coffee first thing in the morning and have good days and bad days. Sometimes the crew want to strangle them, sometimes we fall all over ourselves to make it easier.
They are also not their freakin’ characters.
I got mad on your behalf when I read this. I was really glad to see the immediate replies that happened when it was posted, and I am even more glad that it’s gone. You’re one of the ones we fall over to help.
“Oh look, it’s raining.” I adore that Simpsons episode.
What happened with Wesley is symbolic of what happened with the entire franchise…..
Instead of “… may be missing a d6 or two in their mental dice bag,” I prefer “… may be missing the crayon in their Basic Set.”
g
My dad once told me “opinions are like a$$holes, everyone’s got one’. I later learned that the relationship is very high when considering:
– the times you have to invoke said manta, and
– the amount of a$$hole the opinion giver is
I for one enjoyed ST:TNG for what it was: an hour’s worth of entertainment. I was too young during the run of the show to really pay attention to both how innovative and thought provoking it could be, as well as how cheesy it could be.
having said that, until I stumbled across your blog (from a link from a 100% completely unrelated blogger), you were a guy who was on a famous TV show and a movie I liked (Toy Soldiers).. not one character.. but a guy. and prolly one that “regular” guys like me would never know.
Learnign about you as, well…. as you present yourself here, BIGtime eye opener. A regular guy who “happened” to be on TV and in some movies. One who is as geeky as I am… no WAY!
Guess what i am saying is, whatever people who dont know you may think, the people who do “know” you know the truth. And its a good thing. take some solace that MOST people who have an opinion of you are not needing the mantra…
Wil, I didn’t get to read the article, but the guy who wrote it must have been a real jerk. For the record, I became aware of you through ST:TNG, which is my fave ST series. I was never a Wesley-hater- in fact, along with many other females your age (maybe males too, who knows) I had quite the crush on you. I liked Wesley-the-character & I like Wil-the-actor-author-stepdad-guy-with-whom-I-have-a-lot-in-common. (Don’t run scared, I’m happily married too.) I just wanna say I think you’re pretty groovy, and while people are entitled to think you’re not, they should really just keep their mouths shut, or at least give a good reason for your perceived lack of grooviness. So there!
-Alicia
[email protected]
http://www.thewagband.com
Obviously it’s time for a little “Re-Neducation!”
Urge to kill falling…falling…RISING…falling…falling…gone.:)
“While I obviously can’t control what people decide to do on their own, I wanted to publicly apologize to the guy who wrote the column, even though he insulted the hell out of me.”
That right there? That’s why you’re a class act and whoever wrote the article isn’t.
Not that I don’t absolutely agree with you, Wil, but surely shitty writing at Newsarama can’t be that much of a surprise.
I loved Wesley on TNG! My whole family did – so it’s not (only) the Teen Idol thing 😉
Think about how much you’ve done since/despite all the haters – be proud!
The world is full of stupid people and for some reason they never have any problems with confidence or verbal vomiting…such as guess who’s on tv right now? 🙂
“i’m one of those undead fellows and i was wondering if i couldn’t quite possibly feast upon your brains?”
I was one of the many folks who saw that come across on Twitter. I considered a nasty response, but chose not to make one.
That said, my misplaced rage was pretty much equal parts righteous indignation on your behalf and on Ted Kord’s. Given that I’ve been a Blue Beetle fangirl for nigh unto twenty years now, I guess that’s a testament to just how much I enjoy reading your work.
At any rate, I’m pretty sure you can guess that I’m really looking forward to next week’s episode. I’m sure it will be excellent and that you will more than do Ted Kord justice.
When people say **** like that about you around me, I’ve taken to responding with “Right. And Magneto was in Lord of the Rings.”
I seem to recall seeing an interview with the actor who played Joxor on Xena where he was talking about how he’d gotten death threats because people hated the character so much. I just can’t fathom having that big a reality problem.
…bask in television’s warm, glowing, warming glow….babybush is giving his farewell speech so no warming glow present 🙁 but the simpsons’ reference made me smile. seriously, sounds like the ‘author’ of said article has been failing to work on his envy-issues for 20+ years. that is truly pathetic.
Wow, major douchebag alert….besides, this is totally unfair to Ted Kord as well! 😉 (Redshirt, bah!)
I never particularly liked Wesley, but that was possibly just because I was exactly the same age and kept thinking I would love to be in his place! 🙂 But I have always enjoyed Wil the actor and for the last years obviously also Wil the author!
And beware the power of the interwebz mobz!
Some folks seriously just need to get a life. The Internets ain’t real, folks. Wil Wheaton ain’t a REAL teenage genius starfleet guy, he just played one on tv.
My mom once told me that sometimes when others put you down, it is to elevate themselves. Perhaps the author of that article is extremely jeolous of your writing accomplishments and is attacking you in the only way he can get some possible support from “Wesley haters”. But he only managed to make himself look petty and stupid.
You have ooodles of respect from your fans and the industry. He could only hope to be a household name anytime in the future. I was not a regular Simpsons watcher (don’t throw things at me – I’m old…), but the phrase was completely identifiable from that show, even by me. Perhaps it was intentionally misunderstood so they could transfer the heat from them to you……
Disregard the negative people and take strength from the supporters. I am sure we will outnumber them tremendously.
My first thought at the “Urge to kill… rising” was of Ben Stiller as Mr Furious in the superb film Mystery Men.
Unfortunately it’s the dichotomy of t’internet:
For every great or interesting voice it allows us to hear, it also allows utter douches to also be heard.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of websites that love to get plenty of hits by being ignorant and snarky. I’m sick to death of that kind of negativity – I suppose it’s why I visit your website so often.
Don’t let that kind of stupidity get to you, Wil. As you’ve hopefully noticed by now, there are plenty of us out there that love the work you do.
*sighs*
You know, you’re right, Wesley Crusher was not always a great character. What some people need to understand I suppose is that actors…well, GooD aCToRS, make the best of the character that they are given and are able to play that character off other actors around them. And anyone that has seen your whole body of work can see that you are a good actor that even as young actor did the best with the character that you were playing.
That being said. If that tool wants to spew some crap out just because he wants to cause more a stir by using your name than his article would have otherwise… then he needs to understand that you sir have people that are willing to take up for you when you are not around because as you yourself have stated geeks tend to get REALLY pissed off when someone messes with something they like and defend it. So as its really big of you to apologize to the dude that wrote the article regarding Batman let me just be another one to give that gentleman the big one finger FU salute.
*holds hand to screen flipping someone off through cyberspace because I can* Oh yeah… the intertubes work that way…he totally saw it.
Sorry that this incident happened. I think the amount of support you’ve been shown here validates your point that Wil is a real guy who connects with real people. Thank you for sharing all your moments whether they be good, bad, frustrating or mildly murderous…kidding of course!
Some people just have to reference Star Trek in any way they can because they think it gives them “Geek Cred”. They need to learn when you reference it incorrectly, it destroys any Geek Cred you may have built up.
I saw that Tweet, and the first thing that popped into my head was, for some reason, “There’s nary an animal alive can outrun a greased-up Scotsman.” Granted, that’s probably a poorly-done paraphrase, but still, I know a Simpsons quote when I see it.
That poster makes me wish that one aspect of Pink Flamingos could be real: trying and convicting someone of assholeism. This jagoff seems like an open-and-shut case of it.
Dude, you can’t let the ignorami get on your nerves! No amount of rage at their stupidity will make them less moronic.
Aw, Z, you make me feel all embiggened. And I blame Wil for my expanded vocabulary. I’ll probably have to call my sister later to translate all the geekery.
The funny thing is, I though there was something wrong with my Firefox settings.
Gotta go. CSI on TiVo. Hope you get another gig there as someone completely different, Wil.
I’m glad that you got to speak up for yourself here, since you were denied that opportunity at Newsarama.
I would like to respectfully suggest that not everyone that likes you is necessarily a Simpsons’ viewer and should not be derided for said lack of animation viewage. You probably have some much older and much younger fans, comparatively, who don’t know all your work, and don’t know all your likes and dislikes.
Also, ever so respectfully, I would hope that some of the folks that made comments about “urge to kill” that you felt were inappropriate, were perhaps making a joke, or in their own particular way, offering their support. Perhaps it was a heightened state of sensitivity, due to the circumstances, that made some comments seem more nefarious than they were meant. I didn’t read them all, and I could never be in your shoes, so I really couldn’t say. But you seem like a smart, sensible young man, and I hope this is all ancient history very soon!
Yeah, you definitely have to be careful what you say…LOL. You’ll recall the story of Henry II of England and Thomas Becket?