A “fan” encounter between two pro-Trump trolls and Silicon Valley stars Kumail Nanjiani and Thomas Middleditch turned ugly last night, as detailed by the Pakistani-American Nanjiani in a series of tweets this morning. In his own tweet, Middleditch confirmed the incident and summed it up: “I hate this. Week 1.”
The trolls used the demeaning epithet “cuck” favored by the alt-right. Here’s how Nanjiani, who plays Dinesh on HBO’s Emmy-nominated series, recounted the story on Twitter:
“Was at a bar last night with @Middleditch. At the end of the night, 2 white dudes, 20’s, who’d been there for hours came up to us.
“We’re big fans of you guys. (To Thomas) I trolled you on twitter yesterday.” He goes on to say how we’re wrong about Trump.
I go “Hey we don’t wanna discuss politics right now.” His friends goes “oh they’re cucks.” Then starts yelling at us. “CUCKS CUCKS CUCKS!”
He starts getting in my face. Thomas puts his hand on the dude’s chest to stop him. “Don’t touch me you cuck. Wanna go outside?”
At this point, the bouncer runs over, grabs them, kicks them out. The bartender is awesome & apologetic. Thomas & I are stunned.
This happened at a bar in LA surrounded by ppl. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be someone who looks like me in other parts.
We can’t let hate/racism/bigotry/sexism be normalized. If something happens, be safe, but let it be known we won’t stand for this.
Many ppl are like “just cuz I voted for Trump doesn’t mean I’m racist/sexist.” Ok, but at best, you ignored it, you overlooked it.
We thought Internet would give us access to ppl w different points of view. Instead it gives us access to many ppl w the same point of view.”
In his own tweets, Middleditch said the encounter occurred in L.A.’s Silver Lake neighborhood, “Gentrification central.”
In addition to Silicon Valley, Nanjiani is the voice of Prismo on the animated Adventure Time, has co-starred on TNT’s Franklin & Bash and co-hosts Comedy Central’s The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail.
Elsewhere in L.A. last night, about 1,000 protestors marched through downtown Los Angeles, says the LAPD, when some demonstrators “began vandalizing property, blocking main roads, assaulting, and interfering with officers, and refusing to leave when conditions became unsafe.” Officers arrested 187 adults and 8 juveniles.
