How Jeremy Renner's app got taken down by epic trolling

"The app has jumped the shark... 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." These are the words of actor Jeremy Renner after the failure of his app Jeremy Renner Official. "My sincere apologies for this to have not turned out the way it was intended."

On September 4, 2019, Jeremy Renner withdrew his app, 'Jeremy Renner Official' from all digital stores and asked the company that ran the app to refund anyone who had made purchases in the 90 days prior. It was a dismal failure.

Photo: Jeremy Renner Official

At one point in the lead-up to March 2017, the actor thought he had a brilliant idea: to launch an app that was all about him. And so, in March 2017, 'Jeremy Renner Official' was released to the world, after having been developed by the company Escapex.

Photo: Jeremy Renner Official

What could an app about Jeremy Renner possibly offer? The first thing users found was a video explaining the difference between fans and superfans. Care to wager a guess about the difference between the two groups? Basically, superfans were fans making micropayments to the app.

In the video introduction, Renner himself promised constant updates, exclusive videos, and raffles. Obviously, superfans would have more privileges than fans, but there was even a fan ranking. Nothing like a little competition to encourage fans to become fanatics.

Creating a digital app around a celebrity was a relatively novel idea. However, the cult of personality is as old as time. And as you may imagine, things started going south pretty fast.

Besides the promised raffles etc., the app gave users a space to share their creations, like drawings or photos in a forum that was also used for commenting. For the trolls, the content was too tempting to resist.

In the beginning, the trolls were the problem. However, users eventually began to complain on Twitter, saying they had been kicked out or banned for minimally criticizing some of Renner's work.

It seemed to become more and more of a pattern. Rumors started going around that any criticism of Jeremy Renner, no matter how mild, was immediately censored.

As mockery of the app increased, some users started accusing the actor of giving out misleading prizes and not fulfilling his promises. Particularly bizarre was the case of one fan who won a prize to go to the set of 'Avengers: Infinity War,' which was being filmed in Atlanta. Instead, she was taken to Renner's house. And it got even worse; she later said the house didn't even belong to the actor.

Photo: WritersSir / Twitter

Rennerland was falling apart on other fronts too. The superfans who were at the top of the rankings were accusing each other of cheating to climb the ladder or of being moderators who didn't actually spend money to move up.

The worst was still yet to come. In 2019, comedy writer Stefan Heck downloaded the app. He saw a post where Renner wished his fans a "rockin weekend" and asked if they had any plans. Heck replied by saying that he did indeed have plans: he was going to be watching some p*rn0 on his personal computer.

A disgruntled user responded to Heck, saying "Nasty!! Not cool" within seconds. However, the push notifications that showed up on Heck's phone made it look like the comment was coming directly from Renner himself, as the push notifications contain the word Jeremy Renner and a little picture of the actor (also the app icon). Heck shared it on Twitter and the tweet went viral.

After the tweet went viral, trolls saw the app was a goldmine. They started creating accounts where they pretended to be posting as Renner himself. Other profiles also emerged and began posting as the other Avengers actors like Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, and Scarlett Johansson.

The problem reached incomprehensible dimensions for the development company because every time they banned a fake profile, five new ones with names like 'RealChrisEvans' 'ChrisPrattOfficial' or 'RealBrieLarson' signed up. These were added to the trolls that were already on the app.

Photo: KrangTNelson / Twitter

Jeremy Renner only had one solution left: to close his personal universe and say goodbye to his community of fans and superfans. And so he did. He thanked his fans and said he would refund the purchase of any 'Stars' on the app made in the last 90 days.

Photo: Julian_Epp / Twitter

And that's how the 'Jeremy Renner Official' came to an end after two and a half years of weird adventures. What was intended to be the Rennerland fantasy ended up becoming a troll feeding frenzy. Was this Karma for Renner's vanity project... or was it an innocent project ruined by cynics?