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The Sketchy Economics Behind the Jeremy Renner App
The Marvel actor and musician’s official fan app was shut down last week after it spun out of control. This is the inside story, in all its skeevy glory.
The catastrophic downfall of the Jeremy Renner app, Jeremy Renner Official, can be distilled into a single post on the platform in which a woman shared a selfie — writing “Wishing everyone a good day, yeah I know I need to dye my hair” — and immediately received death threats from an anonymous user named “dippy fresh.”
“I cannot report or block this person […] making threats against my life,” said the woman.
“You make my prenis tingle,” another person told her.
“Hang tight and we will sort this out for you,” exclaimed a community moderator with the username “JRHasTonedArmsButANormalBody.”
Throughout the bizarre exchange, Jeremy Renner was nowhere to be found.
The 48-year-old actor, best known for the hit song “Heaven (Don’t Have A Name) [feat. Jeremy Renner],” and also some movies, dramatically announced on September 4 that the app would be shutting down “due to clever individuals that were able to manipulate ways to impersonate me and others.” Over the previous week, the platform had exploded into surrealist levels of shitposting (intentionally low-quality posts). The fireworks attracted an obsessive amount of attention, all of which belied the fact that it had been around for years, and caused everyone to ask: “Wait, Jeremy Renner has an app? That Jeremy Renner?”
“What was supposed to be a place for fans to connect with each other has turned into a place that is everything I detest and can’t or won’t condone,” wrote Renner in a message on the app before it was shut down.
There exists a fine line between monetizing your fan base and swindling them, which Renner appears to have toed with impunity.
Many people are as confused about the app’s sudden death as they were about its existence. Others are enjoying the schadenfreude. I am personally sad for the genuine Renner fans who are now marooned in a sea…
