Michael Gove has faced a barrage of online abuse as teenagers turned on the former education secretary after collecting their GCSE results.
To the shock of many pupils, the proportion getting at least grade C in English fell drastically on Thursday, as 500,000 students received their results for the first time since the now Tory chief whip overhauled GCSEs to make them more rigorous.
Overall, the results for England, Wales and Northern Ireland showed a tiny increase in the proportion of pupils getting at least grade C, up 0.7 percentage points to 68.8%.
But the overall A*-G pass rate has fallen for the second year running, and is down 0.3 percentage points to 98.5% from 98.8% in 2013 - leading teachers' representative to brand the outcome "a disgrace".
Leah Willis (left), 16, and Steph Bailey, 16, celebrate as they open their GCSE results
The proportion of entries awarded the highest grade has also fallen slightly, with 6.7% gaining an A*, down from 6.8% last year - it is the third year in a row that the percentage has dropped.
Within minutes of teenagers picking up with their exam results, many took to Twitter to blame Gove personally for their poorer than expected grades.
From vented rage, to misspelt insults, here's how disgruntled students responded to Gove’s GCSE revamp:
But others defended the former education secretary saying pupils should take responsibility for their own grades.
Brian Lightman, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), told The Times Educational Supplement some schools had experienced "nasty and demoralising surprises" and that "it seems to be schools with a larger number of disadvantaged students, who are working at the C/D border line, that have been hit the hardest".
"The arrogant refusal to listen to the justified warnings from school leaders about rushed reforms has once again affected the life chances of some young people. That is a disgrace," he wrote.