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When Social Media Meets TV, Are the Results Worth Watching?
blackbearnh writes "Forums and chat groups are letting fans organize and discuss their favorite shows with increasing ease, but what happens when the writers and producers of TV shows start paying attention? An article in today's Christian Science Monitor takes a look at how the production staff of recent shows has interacted with their fan base, and how the fans are having an increasing influence on not only the popularity, but also the plot and characters."
Wasn't that a proof of concept?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
A lot of producers and show-runners will avoid fan boards and social media sites for their shows not because they don't value the fans, but because of legal issues. If some fan posts a story idea and a similar story shows up later on the show (whether by coincidence or not) without crediting the fan, you're looking at a lawsuit. Most such "They took yur ideas!" suits are laughable and end up going nowhere (unless you're Harlan Ellison, who seemed to make a career out of claiming everyone stole everything from him). But if the plaintiff can show that show execs and writers were active participants in the same fan board where he posted the idea, you've got a real problem.
I know this may go against the grain but, with a few exceptions, I really do think it's best to keep the fans and show-runners in their own separate cages, for the most part. A lot of fans will feel weird posting honestly if they know the people they're criticizing are right there. And show execs are setting themselves up for legal and PR headaches if they start getting accused of stealing story ideas from the fans.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I mentioned how I'd like to see a couple of guest stars in a post on their official discussion forum and they showed both of them on the show afterwards.
This could be a coincidence, but I think they actually pay attention to their fans and forum.
When Lost was about to end, the various forums were abuzz with lots of ending ideas that all were about a hundred times better than the actual ending. Kinda wish they'd listened to fans in that case.
Nothing is more dangerous than a programmer with a screwdriver.
We already had facebook the movie. Why do we need facebook the TV show?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Among other things, I hope network execs can better guage the pulse of the viewers and don't inexplicably cancel seriously popular shows like "Outnumbered" (though it did ultimately return for the next season).
Somehow I read this as "Facebook meets American Idol"...
Sorry, I just threw up a bit in my mouth.
Possibly. I'm sure someone'll come up with a bullshit argument about ownership of ideas, but all fiction is just a rehash of ten thousand other storylines before it. This isn't a criticism beyond noting that human nature isn't very varied so there's not much of a range of plausible plots. If you write something which doesn't either accord with the fantasies of the majority or depict how bad something would be if it doesn't fit in with their viewpoint then people tend not to read it. Especially thanks to "social media" creating a huge Brave New Echo Chamber.
As a News Corp rep once said to me, "We write what people want to hear. That is how we sell papers."
Hell yeah! Always worth watching.
I don't give a crap if they are demonstrating an am/fm radio,
The best part is when they bend over to pick up the cables.
The closeup of breasts and breadboard are wonderful too.
It's a great time for video geek shows.
According to the article, while a fanbase can help extend the lifetime of a show, they have no influence on plot or characters.
And yet another article that's basically all about My Little Pony.
Six years ago, ponies on Slashdot were a joke. We were all grizzled men with grizzled beards. We made systems run through sweat and tears, we coded heroic late night fixes, congregating here to share war stories of pride in ourselves and defiance of users.
Now we're grizzled men with grizzled beards and a Fluttershy desktop.
How the times have changed.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
I would love to see something like this happen, just too see the end result when 4chan gets wind of it.
Just run a separate forum that requires a login and terms of service that give the producers the rights to any ideas you post.
I think EA and Bioware are finding out what can happen when you start letting fans believe they have an influence on what happens in a story.
Didn't the creator of Babylon 5 lurk on usenet to check up on what those of us who watched the show thought of it? /yes, my lawn, get off of it.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
Letting fans take control of tv shows is a bad idea, and will make tv scripts be written like so much bad fan fiction. The key issue for me is that the crowdsourcing of fans tends to favour the familiar and desirable. This discourages creativity, as you can't introduce new characters and situations without removing the familiar first, and fans will always agitate to maintain the familiar. What you get in the end is a melow saccharinne version of the show, with no unexpected twists that might shake the diehard fan's loyalty, but that ends up alienating those very same fans
I understand editors, but once you have multiple writers the idea of violating the individual creativity of a writer is moot since they already start by making creativite compromises and brainstorming and what not. I'm pretty enamoured with the idea of single author works. Other people can contribute advice and corrections but should never be on a level field with the writer to the point when they just become cowriters.
Of course cowriten works have a right to exist, but in that case who cares if the fans are writing it or not? It's not like they are interfering with someone's artistic process.
But... the future refused to change.
There are situations where viewer input could be fun, within very specific niches and informed audiences. Unfortunately, I think what we'll end up seeing is exemplified quite well with The Office. It's dragged on far too long; the storyline meandering, the writers grasping at straws and it long having since missed the original point of the series. The love interests have become far too dominant and the sharp edges have all been filed down making the whole thing a bit too easy-going. Whatever content made the series relatable to actual office workers has long since disappeared. Although that last point I tend to attribute more to writers too intrenched in Hollywood, not really having a grasp on how the rest of the world actually works.
Ironically, the consuming masses will almost certainly produce a more homogenized product than the most focus group obsessed producer in Hollywood could ever dream up. A big part of the problem is that the masses have been educated by Hollywood for a long time. So their decisions will inevitably lead them to the same place a Hollywood writer would go.
I think the problem with having fans write the shows is best summed up by a comment from a City Of Heroes developer on pleasing the players: "If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough."
I would love for the Dickheads who ruined the end of "Deadwood" to know how I felt about it...
My wife watches Korean dramas on the internet. One of the sites had some type of feature where they embedded fan comments, possibly from Twitter, into a subtitle-like track. I only caught a glimpse, but this seemed like one of the worst ideas ever. It really caught my attention because suddenly, the word "BITCH" was scrolling across the screen.
While I could see some benefit to "sharing" like this with other viewers, the content would need so much moderation to filter out all of the garbage, trolls, and "me too"-like comments to make it worthwhile, but maybe this is a generational thing.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
How many people does it take to produce American Idol? I mean this is about the only crap that's programmed these days, reality tv. Here's a thought, how about getting decent writers and not churning out something cookie cutter that is crap, or something that isn't rehashed from 20 years ago. Sanford and Son 2012.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Manga unlike mainstream Comics in the US are published in chapters in magazines together with other manga's. It is a method shared with strips from the European mainland with a few differences. First of all, manga magazines are much thicker, they have a LOT of content and this makes it easier for new talent to get a chance BUT the manga industry is far more commercial in Japan with far more magazines then even at the high-time of strips in France.
So, you get a few weeks and then the magazine tests the popularity and you either go, or stay. That is why even such old hats in the industry as Rumiko Takahashi include a few nude bits in the first chapters for their manga's aimed at boys, just to help the initial poll score better. Her works are hardly pornographic or even erotic in nature but for the ones published in young men/boys magazines, the lead has a nude scene. Compare it to the lesbian kiss durings sweeps week.
Other polls are done to ask readers for their favorite character and it is not unusual for the story to change to give more prominance to a winner.
Does it work? Some high quality manga is published this way and some some very low key fan dribble where every thing is designed to be instantly appealing.
Forget light nudity, think of characters with every popular design bolted on resulting in parodies that are supposed to be taken serious.
Imagine all your content designed by book cover designers. It is one thing to have a teaser to pull the audience in and get them to give you a chance to tell them your story, and another thing when everything is constantly designed to pull you in and nothing else.
Wait a minute, why am I trying to explain this when there is a movie director out there who does this all the time? That ........ who made Transformer. That is what you get if you cater solely to fans and to nobody else.
It wouldn't even that bad, if he catered to just one type of fan. Pity he tries to cater both to lovers of Megan Fox acting ability and big explosions, jarring both fans constantly by intruding either big bangs or big explosions.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Most inventors and engineers I've met are like me--they're shy and they live in their heads. They're almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone--best outside of corporate environments, best where they can control an invention's design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee. I don't believe anything really revolutionary has ever been invented by committee. Because the committee would never agree on it! -- Steve Wozniak, "iWoz"
This is why we have "director's cuts" and "theatrical versions" of many films... a single person's vision vs a product toned down for the masses.