I don't think that the outrage is always intended to serve as marketing. In many cases, I think the outrage is fostered to have cover-fire for incompetent and

I don't think that the outrage is always intended to serve as marketing. In many cases, I think the outrage is fostered to have cover-fire for incompetent and talentless hacks. A few hateful tweets against an actor in an incompetently made movie is a dream-come true for the production team that made a bad movie. Incompetent hacks get to put the focus of their failure as belonging to bigots with hateful tweets rather than having everybody focusing on the bad story, poor cinematography, badly managed production, poor acting, etc. When the story becomes a few mean tweets and not the bad movie itself, the media that otherwise would have harped on the bad production ignores everything else to support "the message". Viola: much criticism against you disappears and you have an excuse to your bosses for your failures.