German celebrity star Til Schweiger learned the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished:
Schweiger, 51, best known to international audiences for his role as a Nazi hunter in Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds", had on Saturday posted on Facebook a Hamburg newspaper's appeal for donations to help new asylum seekers.
"My call to Hamburg: everybody take part!!!" he wrote, drawing more than 19,000 "likes" and over 1,000 "shares" on other Facebook pages.
But within minutes the post also drew dozens of viciously racist comments with several questioning why a wealthy celebrity should urge the less fortunate to give money to charity.
"There's room for 1-2 refugee families in your Swiss villa," a Facebook user named Milano Verde wrote in one of the milder entries.
The deluge of negative comments prompted a furious response from Schweiger: "Oh man, I was afraid this would happen!! You make me want to throw up! Get off my page you pitiless people! You make me sick!!!"
Hey welcome to the internet,Till.
Later, Til blamed the deluge of hateful comments on reality television shows:
"Wir haben eine Menge Leute, die nicht nachdenken, weil sie keine Fantasie haben. Weil sie den ganzen Tag vor dem Fernseher sitzen und in irgendwelchen Reality-Show sehen, wie sich irgendwelche Leute gegenseitig beleidigen, runtermachen, dissen, und das prallt nicht an einem ab. Also ich finde, das deutsche Fernsehen trägt dazu bei, dass die Leute so abgestumpft sind.“
I don't find that convincing. Rather, the trolls are spending day and night on the multitude of conspiracy Web sites - creating a giant echo chamber of hate.
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