Reznor Explains Twitter Breakup

07/31/09 11:58am

by Kate Harper (CHARTattack)

Trent Reznor has broken his silence on deleting his Twitter.

Reznor's reasons are basically the same as last time, when he said he had stopped using social networking tools because Metal Sludge people had found him and were making him miserable.

"Yes, I deleted my account and I'll explain why since somehow someone apparently thinks this is newsworthy," Reznor wrote on the Nine Inch Nails message boards. "Around the time news broke of my engagement, a faction of troublemakers showed up whose sole intent was to disrupt, harrass, insult and incite."

Reznor announced he was to marry West Indian Girl singer Mariqueen Mandaag earlier this year.

Presumably, he could just block these people, right? Wrong, he says.

"If you are interested in someone on Twitter, you can follow their updates," he continues. "I've noticed however many people want to see the replies that user gets to have a sense of a thread of information / thoughts. You do this by searching the user's name you're interested in.

"When I started getting relentlessly reply spammed by these few individuals with harassment ranging from hoping I overdose to calling my fiancee racist slurs hundreds of times a day, YES — I could (and did) block them, but everyone else reading my replies sees ALL of that nonsense.

"So, I am providing a platform for this rubbish to be broadcast to my fanbase, which I am not going to participate in.

"I discussed this with some friends at Twitter who acknowledged the problem with a 'yeah, um, we're thinking about doing something about that — people are complaining' response. Not good enough. As I've said, Twitter's interests lie in getting the most users and hype possible, then cash in for the big sale - and fair enough, they've come up with an interesting product."

But the worst thing came when he had to explain a message in which a user harassed him about Eric De La Cruz. Reznor recently helped raise over $850,000 to fund a heart transplant for De La Cruz, who unfortunately died before he could get it. Reznor had to explain to Veronica De La Cruz, De La Cruz's sister, that he has crazy fans who obsess over him, he says.

"In a reasonably moderated community, these people can be made to vanish - on Twitter, it's a free-for-all — hence they flock there," he wrote. "It depresses me to think my art and life's work can attract this kind of scum, and trying to explain to Veronica why someone would stoop to that level of ignorance for attention — and it's someone that because of me is in her world causing her pain... well, it sucks. If that was your intention you trolling, cowardly pigs — you've succeeded."

Reznor is playing his final dates with Nine Inch Nails and you can see him here:

July 31 Paredes De Coura, Portugal @ Paredes De Coura Festival
Aug. 2 Stevenage, England @ Knebworth House (Sonisphere)
Aug. 5 Manila, Philippines @ Araneta Coliseum
Aug. 7 Tokyo, Japan @ Summer Sonic Festival
Aug. 8 Osaka, Japan @ Summer Sonic Festival
Aug. 10 Singapore, Singapore @ Fort Canning Park
Aug. 12 Taipei, Taiwan @ Nan-Kang 101
Aug. 15 Seoul, South Korea @ ETP Festival
Aug. 22 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom w/The Horrors
Aug. 23 New York, NY @ Webster Hall w/The Horrors
Aug. 25 New York, NY @ Terminal 5 w/The Horrors
Aug. 26 New York, NY @ Terminal 5 w/Mew
Aug. 28-29 Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom w/Mew
Aug. 30 Oro-Medonte, ON @ Burl's Creek Park (Virgin Festival Ontario)
Sept. 2 Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium w/Mew
Sept. 3 Los Angeles, CA @ Henry Fonda Theatre w/Mew
Sept. 5 Los Angeles, CA @ Wiltern Theatre w/HEALTH
Sept. 5 Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex w/HEALTH