Solo4114
Master Member
Actors were known to get public abuse for their characters' bad deeds 50 years ago. This isn't new.
But Star Wars is SO BIG and the earth is SO POPULATED with viewers now. If your show has hundreds of millions of fans then that's going to encompass every kind of weird reaction (and person) imaginable. Even the statistically-rare reactions will be happening a lot. And now the internet gives every idiot a platform to scream at others.
It's this last part that, I think, really changed things.
Before the internet, it was all word-of-mouth. An actor might get some flak at a convention, or randomly on the street, but it wasn't relentless or omnipresent. Partially that's due to the internet touching so many aspects of our lives and basically living in the smartphones we keep on us almost constantly, but partially I think it's due to the internet magnifying what would otherwise feel like a weak signal to the people who agree with it. Basically, the internet conditions you to believe that you either aren't in the minority, or that your minority is so big that it must be valid.
Ask yourself if you ever heard of flat-earthers prior to about, oh, 2005 as anything other than a punchline.