Jeremy Renner's App Was Such a Disaster That It's Shutting Down

It's a little known fact that when Joni Mitchell first sang this line from "Big Yellow Taxi:" "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?" in 1970, she was talking about the Jeremy Renner app, which has, apparently, been around since 2017. But I learned about it just now, just as it was being whisked away from us forever. 

If you're like me — confused and had to Google Jeremy Renner to make sure you were thinking of the right person — and you also had no idea that the Jeremy Renner app existed, here's a little background. The actor, who plays Hawkeye in The Avengers, released an app in March of 2017 that he creatively called "Jeremy Renner." 

He described it as "the main place I interact with my fan and share a deep look into my life." Right away, it seemed to be a bit of a disaster. But there were enough "Rennies" or "Renner heads" out there to keep the app going. There was a fan board and you could climb to the top of it by earning (ahem, buying) stars and gaining access to top-tier Jeremy Renner content, whatever that is. Soon, though, things began to derail. 

Trolls got ahold of the app, started impersonating Jeremy Renner — the very person the app was about, Hawkeye himself, Jeremy Renner — and harassing his fans. Only seven months after the launch of the Jeremy Renner app, it was overrun with insane amounts of drama. 

It seemed at the time that most people on the app were genuine Rennerstans. Somehow, there were hundreds of people who just wanted to share their love for the least cool Avenger on a platform completely dedicated to him. 

According to The Ringer, the drama began when people criticized the app for supposedly censoring negative comments and rigging contests. Instances of bullying went ignored by EscapeX, the company that developed the app. Then, the app abruptly shut down and was relaunched. Some believed it was a covert effort to purge the app of criticism. 

That all happened in late 2017. It's been over a year since then, but it seems that Jeremy Renner has finally had enough of the Jeremy Renner app. 

"The app jumped the shark. Literally," Jeremy Renner wrote on the Jeremy Renner app in the font that I used for the cover of every book report I wrote in middle school. Seriously, I didn't even know that font still existed. "What was supposed to be a place for fans to connect with each other has turned into a place that is everything I detest and can't or won't condone," Jeremy Renner continued.

In September 2019, Jeremy Renner decided to finally put an end to the weird, vitriolic mess that has become of the Jeremy Renner app. 

That was bad news for Nicole Boyce, who had just accidentally purchased $100 worth of useless stars as part of a bit. 

Don't worry; she got her money back. So now we can move on to eulogizing this beautiful mess. *Sigh* The Jeremy Renner app. We hardly knew you. And now, you're leaving us. I want to take this moment to memorialize a truly bonkers corner of the internet that I wish I was aware of from the beginning.

Twitter user @JackKennedy wrote, "The last account I made on the Jeremy Renner app was 'Jeremy Renner's Swedish Dog' and I spent $8 to boost my comment “Bjärk” to the top of his post." RIP Jeremy Renner's Swedish dog. 

Also RIP to the Divorce Announcements section of the Jeremy Renner app. I truly, truly, truly, truly, truly wish I knew about you sooner. 

I wasn't the only one who was sadly in the dark about the Jeremy Renner app for too long. Upon learning of the whole controversy surrounding the Jeremy Renner app, writer Louis Peitzman offered up the simple question that has been in the back of all our minds this whole time: "Is Jeremy Renner satire." I don't know. I don't. Know. 

"Remake The Social Network about the Jeremy Renner app," one Twitter user suggested. "The Jeremy Renner app is over, bring on the Jeremy Renner main course," another wrote. I agree! I agree with all of it!

Look, the world is different now. Yesterday, you didn't even know that Jeremy Renner had an app called "Jeremy Renner." Today, Jeremy Renner is gone. The app, yes, but also, maybe, the man. 

We're living in a post-Jeremy Renner app world, now. The trolls won. They have beat an Avenger at his own app game. And while that's sad for the Rennerites who relied on that community to announce that they no longer loved their wives, I'm just so glad that the Jeremy Renner app for Jeremy Renner fans had its time in the sun.