The force is not with Fox News contributor Katherine Timpf. A short time after the National Review and Fox News personality made some inflammatory comments poking fun at Star Wars fans, she started to receive death threats as well as numerous obscene comments via social media platforms including Twitter and YouTube. Here’s the joke that got people hot and bothered:
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I have never had any interest in watching space nerds poke each other with their little space nerd sticks and I am not going to start now. You people are crazy. You Star Wars people are crazy. Yesterday I tweeted something and all I said is that I wasn’t familiar with Star Wars because I’ve been too busy liking ‘cool things’ and being attractive. People threatened my life.
Alright, it's really more aggressive than funny, and apparently, this isn’t the first time Timpf had made comments of that ilk. She also said something similar on Twitter before appearing on Red Eye, prompting a slew of death threats. But her later appearance on TV caused even more problems. Someone responded on Youtube. Commenters on the video said things like they wanted Star Wars fans to dress up as her boyfriend and rape her, or just wished horrible things on the young woman:
I hope she gets acid thrown on her pretty little face.
There are also the legit people who sent her death threats, like this:
I get that Katherine Timpf was not being particularly nice to Star Wars fans who are excited about The Force Awakens when she made her initial comments, but she wasn’t the only one on the panel who was making bad jokes, she was just the most aggressive about it. You can check out Timpf’s inflammatory statements that initially got some Star Wars fans hot and bothered, below.
Look, as brutal as all of the words coming out of this woman’s mouth are for Star Wars fans, she’s appearing on a satirical news show on Fox News network. She’s supposed to rile people up, and the reasonable response is to just brush her comments off and move on with your day. It’s completely unreasonable and scary to get all worked up over a movie—no matter how great the franchise—and send someone death threats, even if they are being unpleasant or making you feel like a lesser person. It’s not appropriate to tell women you want to rape or kill them. You’re cultivating a culture of violence, and over what? A movie? It’s potentially one of the most exciting films to be released in years, but it's still a movie. Try to keep that in mind.
