by Seth Rogen
If you’re thinking, That’s not that weird of a name, then you’re just exposing yourself as someone who’s never been face-to-face with a Sylvester. And by that I mean, you’re somebody who has never met Sylvester Stallone, because, again, there is only one Sylvester on the planet, and it’s him.
This isn’t a singular phenomenon. I always thought “Sigourney Weaver” was a pretty normal name, until I met her. The “Weaver” is doing a lot of heavy lifting with that one. It makes the whole name roll off the tongue. But when a tall, beautiful woman comes up to you backstage at Comic-Con and says, “Hi! I’m Sigourney!” it’s absolutely shocking.
Later that night, me, Lauren, and Jonah Hill found ourselves waiting for an elevator to go back to our rooms. Because Vegas is a horrible clusterfuck at all times, it was taking forever for an elevator to come, so we were psyched when the doors finally opened. But there was a giant security guard standing there, blocking the entrance.
“Sorry, this one’s private.”
Then a voice came from behind the guard. “No, wait!”
Eddie Griffin popped out. He eyed us. “Actually, let them in. I wanna ride with them.”
I’ll take this moment to say there is very little rhyme or reason to which celebrities have security and which ones don’t. I’ve seen some of the biggest stars navigate the world relatively easily with nobody helping or protecting them. I’ve also seen untalented comedians who nobody really gives a flying fuck about have huge security details, but I won’t name names.
Back to Eddie Griffin and his huge security detail.
They allowed us entrance to his elevator, and we hit the button.
Eddie: I’m glad I saw you guys! I saw your movie! The high school movie!
Jonah: Cool! That’s awesome.
Eddie: Yeah, I’ve been trying to make a movie for a while now, but nobody will make it. But they made yours, and you know why?
Me: No! Why?
Eddie: Because I’m Black and you’re Jewish motherfuckers!
We kind of all awkwardly laughed, thinking, praying, that this was some sort of terrible joke. You know, the kind Eddie Griffin is famous for. His guards laughed, too.
Me: Oh yeah? What do you mean by that?
Eddie: I mean, you Jewish motherfuckers run Hollywood and you only make movies with other Jewish motherfuckers!
Ohhhhh, I remember thinking, this isn’t a joke. This dude is just going on a wild anti-Semitic tirade to me, Jonah, and Lauren, while we’re trapped in a VERY long elevator ride with him. His security stopped laughing.
Jonah said, “Uh…sorry, I guess?” trying to make a joke.
Shockingly, Eddie was not as in tune with comedy as one might expect from a performer of his caliber, so he didn’t get that Jonah was just trying to let him off the hook and move on.
Eddie: Don’t be sorry! Tell your Jews to let other people make some movies!
Bing! We hit his floor and he got off.
We all tried to process how insane it was—not just insane that he would say that to us, but insane because he’s really ignoring the fact that if there’s one thing that Jewish people are NOT above, it’s making money producing things that are fronted by Black people. Anyone who’s ever seen a biopic of any Black musician knows the character I’m talking about, and he’s usually very appropriately played by my dear friend David Krumholtz.
David Krumholtz in Ray.
Anti-Semitic incidents were few and far between for a while after that, but that all changed when I joined Twitter. I was constantly getting attacked by these stupid white-supremacist assholes, which is annoying, but what really pissed me off was that a lot of them were verified by Twitter.
I realized that Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of Twitter, followed me, so I started DMing him to express my unhappiness that his platform was verifying accounts that spread this Nazi propaganda. I pointed out that sites like Gab and countless other assholes were using their verified status on Twitter to blatantly promote white supremacy and also intimidate and threaten people who disagreed with them.
They were doxxing enemies and spreading ideas that manifested actual violence. Over DM, Jack just kept saying, “We plan on reworking this….We plan on reworking this.” He didn’t seem that concerned or bothered, and as far as I could discern, he didn’t seem like he gave a fuck.
And then I tweeted that feeling.
Jack wasn’t thrilled with me (although the white supremacy itself didn’t seem to bug him) and he reached out to get on the phone. I can only assume he hoped I would feel better about the situation after our talk.
I felt catastrophically worse.
I asked him to explain how the verification process works. He said that it basically started as something he would give to his friends. A token he’d hand out to the cool kids, and by cool, I mean people who are friends with Jack Dorsey.
The next evolution of verification on Twitter came after a natural disaster, in an attempt to prevent the flow of false information and fraudulent charities. He actually did something good! Some government bodies started to be verified, as well. Then, through a series of events that Jack himself can’t explain with any certainty, verification is where it is—a place that makes no fucking sense.
One would probably assume that verification is just a way of making sure you are who you say you are. But one would be wrong, because Twitter has de-verified some people, not for being exposed as impostors but because their tweets have been deemed unsavory. So…it’s not really a verification; it’s an endorsement.
Also, you might be very logically thinking, What’s the big deal about being verified? It’s just a blue check, which is what I thought—before I found out that being verified DOES prioritize and push your tweets across the platform. If you’re verified, Twitter will amplify your message.
I tried desperately to understand Jack’s take on the situation.
I started with the elephant in the room.
Me (trying to sound smart): You’re aware that, almost weekly, the president is in blatant violation of your terms of service with regard to abusive behavior, threats, and harassment, and that kinda tells everyone that you don’t care about your own terms of service. It seems like you’re choosing what to enforce and not enforce, and right now you’re not enforcing very much regarding white supremacy.
Jack: Yeah. I really hear that. We have to rework the verification process from the ground up.
Me: When do you plan on doing that?
Jack: Umm…yeah…We don’t know right now. First and foremost, I think our communication is failing us.
Me: I kinda think what you’re communicating is failing you.
Jack: Well, first and foremost, we’re dedicated to promoting healthy conversation.
Me: Huh? What?
Jack: Healthy conversation. A healthy dialogue. Conversation…
Me: How do you promote healthy conversation?
Jack: We’re working on that.
Me: Okay…well, in the meantime, do you plan on de-verifying some white supremacists? Just so their message isn’t amplified? I’d imagine it’s easy to monitor their tweets to see if they’re abusive or harmful.
Jack: We don’t have the resources to do this.
Me: Huh?
Jack: We really just don’t have the resources to do that at this time.
Me (trying not to condescend to a guy who created a billion-dollar company): Uh…well, I run a small company, and even I know that “I don’t have enough employees to make sure my highly profitable platform is operating in a way that won’t get people murdered and Nazis won’t come into power” is not a great excuse. I mean…how about you hire more people? Like a “No Nazis” group?
Jack: We’re looking into that.
Me: I mean, this isn’t some neb
ulous, abstract problem. Honestly, in less time than it’s taking for you to talk to me, you could just ban or at least de-verify, like, fifteen dangerous white-supremacist accounts. That could save people’s lives. I’ll tell you who they are right now while we’re on the phone!
Jack: But remember, Seth…
I awaited his amazing founder wisdom.
Jack: Twitter is merely a mirror of society.
This drove me nuts. Like Twitter is some beautiful child that Jack had birthed into the world, squozen from his loins, an autonomous creature whose will is to be respected and revered, wherever it should take us.
Me: You might want to think that, but, like any creation, Twitter is an expression and representation of its creator. There’s a reason that people don’t hate Instagram. I’ve met the guy who created it. He’s lovely. So, Twitter is a mirror of you. When people are saying Twitter is a cesspool—that’s you.
The call ended badly.
About a month later, I noticed yet another barrage of anti-Semitic tweets from some verified accounts.
Ron Paul tweeted a violently anti-Semitic cartoon, and a verified user named “Roosh” was spreading the idea that all mass shootings were perpetrated by Jews. Another user was offering to pay the legal fees of anyone who assaulted me, which I can only assume he got from Trump, who’s said the same shit about people who assault his protesters. Jack got back to me and said he’d “look into it.” For some crazy reason, I actually believed him.
A few weeks later, in October 2018, I found myself living in downtown Pittsburgh. I had just moved there for a few months to film An American Pickle. I woke up one Saturday morning and checked my phone, learning about the Tree of Life terrorist attack minutes after it started, about three miles from where I was sitting. It would go on to be the worst act of anti-Jewish violence in the history of the United States of America. I felt sick to my stomach. I spent the day walking around the city. Everywhere I went, I saw the same shocked look on people’s faces.
People were asking, “How could this happen?” And unfortunately, the answer is obvious. First, it’s real easy to get your hands on a high-powered assault rifle in America. Combine that with a president who de-stigmatized outward hatred and social-media platforms that allow people to stoke flames of hatred to the point of combustion.
Because of Twitter, the shooter didn’t see himself as a villain. He saw himself as a hero. This guy thought Jews were facilitating the entrance of terrorists into the country—an idea that’s perpetuated by countless verified Twitter accounts, right-wing news outlets, and GOP politicians. And without Jack doing anything to stop the spread of these lies, all he was telling people was that they were NOT lies. If they were, he wouldn’t be endorsing and amplifying them, right? Wouldn’t he take the verification away from the people who spread these lies if they were in fact lies? No action, no infraction. It all must be true.
One of the first times the militant and anti-Semitic right wing started to target me online was after I told off Ben Carson for saying that Jews could have protected themselves better during the Holocaust if they’d had easier access to guns. A crazy idea that not only blames Jews for being victims but uses the deaths of the Holocaust to bolster America’s ridiculous gun laws.
These victim-blaming talking points were being repeated just hours after the shooting, not only by the media but by the president himself. The idea that it’s up to the threatened classes to protect themselves from bigots rather than up to the bigots not to spread hatred and act on their terrible instincts is as stupid as, well, Trump.
“Everyone knows people hate Jews! Lock the doors next time!”
So comforting.
Jack’s “too little, too late” approach to monitoring his own website really kicked into high gear around the 2020 presidential election.
After losing the election, Trump did something nobody, except those with eyes and a brain, saw coming. He refused to admit he lost. And the spineless fuckheads in the GOP decided to support this lie, even though they knew it was complete bullshit. Lucky for them, their supporters don’t care about reality, so it was ultimately an easy lie to sell.
In the days following the election, Jack took action that he probably thought was super-helpful: Every time Trump tweeted a lie about election fraud, he put a little notice under the tweet saying that some news sources disputed the information in the tweet. Keep in mind, at this same time, verified “news” sites like One America News Network (OANN) and Newsmax were also supporting Trump’s Twitter lies, effectively negating whatever these little notices were supposed to be doing in the first place.
Twitter allowed Trump and other verified feeds to spread the lie that the election was stolen until there was a violent and deadly insurrection on January 6, 2021, the day the electoral college votes were being officially counted.
After that, I guess Jack scrounged up some more resources, because he finally banned Trump from Twitter, and the following week, misinformation about the election dropped 75 percent.
As of the writing of this, OANN, Newsmax, and dozens of politicians and “journalists” are still verified by Twitter despite pushing the dangerous lie that there was mass voter fraud in the 2020 election and that Trump actually won, even though there’s absolutely no evidence to support this.
Gab, the white-supremacist social-media site, is still verified and having its message amplified by Twitter. Roosh, the verified user I pointed out to Jack years ago, is still verified, and as of this writing, Twitter is amplifying his messages that the Jews committed the Tree of Life shooting themselves to curry political favor.
Acts of anti-Semitism went up 57 percent in 2019.
(You can follow me on Twitter @sethrogen.)
I get as awkward and uncomfortable around famous people as any person who is not famous. If anything, I might get more awkward, because I’m a HUGE movie fan. I love them so much I dedicated my entire life to them, so I get starstruck.
What being famous affords you is a high level of access. And not only are you meeting these famous people, which again, is strange in the first place, but you’re meeting them in incredibly odd situations.
I’ve been in a ton of elevators with famous people, which, as I’ve illustrated, can be terrible. You generally acknowledge that you are, indeed, both famous people, and some level of conversation is expected. I felt so bad for Bono the time he desperately tried to converse with me in a long freight-elevator ride at 30 Rock.
The most awkward elevator ride I ever went on was at the Oscars. I was about to present an award and found myself in an elevator with Heath Ledger’s parents, about thirty seconds after they had just accepted his posthumous Oscar for The Dark Knight. I stared at them silently and awkwardly as they stood there, holding the statue. I felt like I had to say something, and to this day I regret my choice:
“Congratulations!”
But short interactions are manageable. It’s the long exposure that becomes tricky. Trying to relate to megastars for substantial amounts of time is grueling, if not impossible. And never was that more clear than the time we were beckoned to Tom Cruise’s house.
It was 2006, and we were in the middle of filming the movie Knocked Up, and Tom Cruise was in the middle of having what seemed like a manic episode in the most public way imaginable. He was dating Katie Holmes, leaping off furniture at the mere thought of his feelings for her. They had just had a baby, Suri, but no image of the child had been published, leading to genuine speculation as to whether or not she even existed. The fact that the thought, Hey, I wonder if he is just pretending to have a baby, was even on the table speaks to how strangely the public viewed him at that time.
And in the midst of all that, Judd comes up to me on set one day.
Judd: Tom Cruise wants to meet us!
Me: What? Why?
Judd: He’s thinking of doing a come
dy and wants to brainstorm.
Me: And we want to take this meeting?
Judd: Of course! We’re going as soon as we wrap filming for the day.
When we finished shooting, I drove across town toward Tom’s house, which was right above Sunset Boulevard. I was nervous for a lot of reasons.
I wasn’t sure we should be meeting with him at all. He seemed to be in a strange place, and the idea of becoming the outlet for a manic movie star’s desire to publicly restore his image was a service I wanted to reserve for myself. I also just generally didn’t like meeting really famous people, because it gave me anxiety and I almost always felt worse after I met them.
I was running late, and I had to pee very, very badly. As I drove up Sunset, I couldn’t find anywhere to go, and I started to get worried that the first words I’d speak to Tom Cruise would be, “I’m about to pee in my pants. Can I please use your restroom?!”
I pulled up to the gate and hit the buzzer. “I’m here to see Tom!”
The gate SLOWLY opened. I was actually going to pee in my pants, which would be the worst impression one could make. I started to snake up his long, wooded driveway, when I noticed a Snapple bottle on the floor of my car. I had no choice. I stopped halfway up the driveway and peed into the Snapple bottle. It came dangerously close to overflowing. I sealed the lid, put the bottle in my back seat, and continued up the driveway. After a turn around a bend, I arrived at a huge house with Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, and little baby Suri waiting to greet me.
I gave him a hearty handshake, which I still feel guilty about given the circumstances.