Bandersnatch star Will Poulter has taken leave of Twitter due to the reactions following the release of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Poulter, 25, starred in the Netflix movie as Colin Ritman. The movie was Black Mirror's first "choose-your-own-adventure" movie, and it was met with lukewarm reviews.
"In light of my recent experiences I am choosing to take a step back, of sorts, from Twitter," Poulter wrote in a Notes app statement.
He later added, "I don't want to appear unappreciative of all the amazing support I have received online for which I am so genuinely grateful." Poulter also said that he would be posting occasionally on behalf of several anti-bullying Twitter accounts, including @AntiBullyingPro and @leap_cc @MayMeasure and @bptcompany among others."
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With love... pic.twitter.com/JSm7oNLTsV
— Will Poulter (@PoulterWill) January 2, 2019
Bandersnatch involved a twisted, split narrative with five alternate endings. The twists apparently added up to one trillion permutations within the story. In the experimental film, Poulter's character, Colin, was a rockstar video game programmer who, in some versions of the game, died at the hands of Stefan (Fionn Whitehead). Following the release of the movie, a number of tweets argued that Poulter bore a resemblance to Sid, the bully from Toy Story who was originally voiced by Erik von Detten, while others blatantly mocked Poulter's appearance.
Poulter is far from the only star to leave social media. Daisy Ridley departed Instagram in 2016 after her rapid rise to fame via Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In 2018, Ridley's Star Wars co-star Kelly Marie Tran did the same. Ed Sheeran left — and then came back — to Twitter after his Game of Thrones cameo. Fifth Harmony alum Normani Kordei left Twitter in 2017 but has since returned. Demi Lovato has quit Twitter a number of times. Chrissy Teigen once quit, too. Twitter is a perilous place, especially for celebrity supernovas. But, if we're lucky, they all come back eventually.