Compared to many other music industry veterans, Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor just gets it when it comes to new media. He gave up (see what we did there?) on major labels, instead distributing his last album, The Slip, via the Internet. And the leadup to his studio album before that, Year Zero, was an elaborate series of Web sites and intentional leaks on zip drives. So it only made sense when he embraced Twitter, and his profile boasts over 645,000 followers. However, Trent’s interaction with his fans via the ‘net may be drawing to a close.

In a lengthy post on his site, Reznor states that he’s done, at least for the time being:

I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it’s now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.

The “idiots” Reznor is referring to are those that have criticized his directness via Twitter. Sure, he’s not the nihilistic, drug-addled force that he was 15 years ago when he wrote The Downward Spiral, and he’s fine with that. Now that he’s in love and cleaned up, it seems like he’s taking the anonymous haters have gotten to him. He directs most of his vitriol towards the once-hot site Metal Sludge, however:

Looks like the Metal Sludge contingency has discover Twitter! Finally! For those of you that don’t know what this is, please let me explain. Metal Sludge is the home of the absolutely worst people I’ve ever come across. It’s populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands. Kind of like a role-playing game where people NOBODY will fuck make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck. It would be kind of funny in a sad and pathetic way except the fun doesn’t stop there – hate and good old-fashioned outright blatant racism are also encouraged to spice things up and remind you how truly ugly these scourges are. TRULY ugly on the inside (the outside is obvious).

No offense to Metal Sludge, but we didn’t even know they still existed. We’re pretty bummed to see Reznor go away, since he’s been an innovator since the Pretty Hate Machine days, and always seems one step ahead of the curve. It’s a shame that a handful of immature, mouth-breathing douchebags hiding behind anonymous user names have the same voice as intelligent, inquisitive and civilized Internet users.