The Washington Post is getting slammed over its claim that death threats directed towards Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker director J.J. Abrams by “Reylos”, a segment of the Star Wars fanbase that supports a romantic relationship between the characters Rey and Kylo Ren, were simply a “hoax.”
The Washington Post, made the claim in an article titled “The latest Star Wars film satisfies the right-wing. Will the left start trolling?” which contains the line: “A Fandom Menace account manufactured a hoax claiming “Reylos” were sending death threats to the TROS [The Rise of Skywalker] director.”
The line is referring to the Dataracer Twitter account, which posted screenshots of what it described as Reylo fans “sending death threats & harassment to JJ Abrams, cast members, & Lucasfilm employees” in response to the on-screen death of the Kylo Ren character in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
After Dataracer posted the screenshots and they were referenced in a BuzzFeed article, a Twitter user responded and suggested that some of these death threats didn’t come from Reylos.
https://twitter.com/ao3animal/status/1214992590287900678
However, as Dataracer points out, a handful of these tweets not coming from Reylos isn’t evidence of the entire thing being a hoax.
“The Washington Post is defending Reylo’s saying their harassment of JJ Abrams was a “Hoax created by the alt-right Fandom Menace.”
Woke SW fandom was telling the Reylos to stop sending threats & harassment to JJ after TROS premiered.
This is a 100% lie from The Washington Post.”
Dataracer showed that many other Star Wars fans, including Daniel José Older, author of the Star Wars novel Last Shot, have called out Reylos for harassment.
Additionally, some Star Wars fans have documented what appear to be admissions of Reylos tweeting death threats to the actors in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
https://twitter.com/saltandrockets/status/1211675534452654080
Star Wars actor John Boyega was also recently harassed by Reylos after he made a joke about his character being the one “who eventually lays the pipe” with Rey.
Twitter users are shocked that the Washington Post article was actually published and see it as another sign of the eroding credibility of the legacy mainstream media, and a continued attempt to sew division within the community.
This article is the latest of several recent controversies that have plagued Star Wars: The Rise of The Skywalker and the most recent Star Wars trilogy.
The Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker has been stuck at 86% since passing 6,231 reviews which has raised suspicion among many fans. And Wikipedia’s article on this latest Star Wars trilogy shows that the site is using questionable sources to present this divisive series of movies as being “the best of the franchise.”
