The Spider-Man spinoff Venom, starring Tom Hardy, comes out in theaters this week.
Critics and fans have begun sharing their reviews, which have been largely mixed.
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Also out this weekend is A Star Is Born, starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper.
In contrast, A Star Is Born has been getting overwhelmingly good reviews.
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The shared release date has become a bone of contention for fans of both films.
On Tuesday, a number of people accused fans of A Star Is Born and Lady Gaga of being bots and posting negative reviews of Venom.
For what it's worth, this behavior isn't exactly unusual for Gaga fans. The Little Monsters, as they're known, have been behind a number of online troll campaigns; they were part of a group that trolled Ed Sheeran off Twitter and regularly fight with other fandoms. The fandom were supportive of troll account Uma Kompton and have been accused on multiple occasions of spreading racist and sexist abuse. The singer has in the past asked her fans to change their behavior, but a lot of it is rooted in online stan culture.
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One of the users accused of being a bot, Juan Caniggia, a 20-year-old from Argentina, told BuzzFeed News that they were just bored.
"It was a joke between two of my mutuals," they said. "We steal each other's tweets."
They said they are a Lady Gaga fan, but this did not affect their decision to tweet about Venom — it was just trolling.
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However, another user, who identified themselves only as @LGMonster95, said that there had been a coordinated effort.
"It's us Gaga fans creating fake IDs to trash the Venom premiere," they said. "They both are getting released on the same day, so we want more audience for A Star Is Born."
@LGMonster95 shared a number of parody accounts that appear to be those of older American women who tweet about Lady Gaga.
Gaga stans have been known in the past to make Twitter accounts for fake stereotypical "Midwestern moms."
In 2016, Gaga fans used these accounts to ask radio stations to play her song "Perfect Illusion." And then they launched a harassment campaign against a BuzzFeed News reporter after they were exposed.
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The accounts tweeted similar statements, encouraging people to see A Star Is Born over Venom.
Other stan accounts appeared to have joined in on this.
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It all appears to essentially be a big troll. Although, it seems like they do actually kind of prefer A Star Is Born.
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This has actually angered some Venom fans, who are now directing sincere tweets back at the trolling stans.
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Some people have also started posting fake anti-A Star Is Born tweets to mock the Venom fans upset at their earlier tweets.
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And other people have got upset that some fans of Venom, a Marvel film, have blamed DC fans for the trolling.
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And now the troll tweets are leading some people to allege genuine reviews of the film to be fake and part of a conspiracy.
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It's a mess. And now the chaos has prompted some Gaga fans to ask for it to stop.
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