'Ghostbusters' Hate Continues with New Trailer

When the first trailer for the new Ghostbusters remake debuted on YouTube a couple of months ago, it touched off an unprecedented campaign among internet trolls to overwhelm the video with dislikes, with the result that the trailer quickly became, officially, the most disliked movie trailer in YouTube history.

To combat an ongoing smear campaign, Sony at first released the movie's second trailer on Facebook rather than YouTube, providing the haters with less opportunity to easily rack up hundreds of thousands of dislikes. When the studio did finally put the new trailer on its YouTube channel this week, the trolls began showing up; as of the end of the week, the trailer had roughly an enqual number of likes and dislikes.

The knee-jerk hate continued, however, amid speculation that the negative reaction to the trailers is spurred by a sexist reaction to the movie's all-female central cast. Many commenters on Sony's YouTube channel refuted that explanation, however, insisting that they'd dislike the trailer even if the cast were male, and that their dislike stems from the general unimpressiveness of the trailers.

Other commenters admit that their input has little do with the content of the trailer and has more to do with their desire to be part of a buzz-worthy internet phenomenon.

"I just come to dislike," one commenter wrote. "Everyone hit dislike!" encouraged another.

Regardless of the reason, the negative headlines keeps piling up for Sony, and the studio finds itself having to explain away the negativity swirling around the movie instead of being able to crank up the excitement before the film's July 15 release.