Diane Kristine has a fascinating article up at Blogcritics that explores the ins and outs and whys of the problem. Based on sessions and interviews conducted while covering this year's Banff TV festival, the article shows the struggle that many top writers have with their online fans:
Essentially, the problem (and the thing that these vocal, frontline fans never understand) is that it all comes down to math. The online fans are definitely the core -- and they peruse and react far more strongly than the rest of the fanbase. And like any self-reflecting echo chamber, they come to believe that their opinions are the opinions of the majority. They tend to think they are the fans. But the truth is that on a successful show, the fans writing and snarking and dissecting each episode or "misstep" is, at most, about half a percent to one percent of the total audience. And that one percent is often out of step with the tastes of the bigger group -- who actually keep the series on the air.Martin Wood, currently executive producing and directing the upcoming science fiction show Sanctuary, reflected on the number of fansites and social networks his previous series, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate: Atlantis, spawned. "You learn that the majority of your audience is not responding on those things," he warned in our interview. "So a relatively small number of people are being very loud about what they want. If you respond to it the way you think you should, it's not necessarily the best thing for the show."
House writer David Hoselton echoed those comments during his festival session on the craft of writing in response to an audience member question. "(House creator) David Shore doesn't care about what people say on the Internet. He doesn't want to hear it; he doesn't want to know about it. He doesn't want to pander to that audience, whatever it is. The idea is that out of an audience of 20 million, I don't know what that represents, half a million or something like that? He wants nothing to do with it."
However, Hoselton confessed he has to browse forum comments the day after his own episodes air, sifting through the "three pages on Chase's pants" to find the insightful ones... until he has to back away when they turn into online fights. Still, "there are these incredibly intelligent, observant people who catch every mistake you could possibly make," he laughed.
This can set up an impossible dynamic of disappointment and a potential minefield for writers and creators to thread. On the one hand, anyone who thinks that much about your show is someone you want to venerate and respect. You have to appreciate them.
The problem is that in the fans' minds, the way to "appreciate" them is often expressed as, "why don't they listen to what we want?" And that can quickly metasticize into "they don't respect their true fans."
It's a no win. Which is why so many writers feel that the only way to deal with it -- is not to deal with it - to not engage at all. If you can resist, that is.
Hart Hanson puts the contrast in sharp relief:
Diane's full ariticle (with more quotes from Hanson, Alan Poul from Six Feet Under and Entourage's Doug Ellin, can be read here.)"Do we listen to the fans? Oh, no," Hanson said adamantly during the audience Q&A portion of his Master Class. Besides, given the outcry over the finale, "Right now, if we listened to them, I'd have to quit."
He even tells his actors not to look at message boards. "They're really mean about every one of our actors. The ones who have an axe to grind will write and the ones who love them won't. Our Internet presence is fairly negative. But we don't care about that, because they're all watching."
"No, we don't listen to them," Hanson reiterated. "And they're really vociferous and passionate and we are very, very glad they're there."
4 comments:
The math is all but immaterial for one simple reason: When has it ever, EVER been a good idea to give an audience what they think they want? (And that's not even getting into the fact that what "the fans" want is never, EVER one thing. Ye gods, never mind percentages. I challenge you to put any five fans of a given show together in a forum and find a consensus on anything except "This show is awesome!")
We signed on for YOUR story. YOU know how to tell it. If you decide to do something that happens to be popular among certain vocal fans because you believe in it, aces. It'll show. If not? Those very same fans will be the first to smell it. And I guarantee you the kindest response will be "That isn't what I meant!!" Because it can never, ever be what they have in their heads for how things "should" be, even if it seems to be the same thing they were saying. So not only would the story be compromised, nothing would even be gained by it!
Fannish passion is earned by creative passion. It's true across the board. People don't go apeshit over shows made by people who don't care. They just don't.
Some creatives can observe or even participate in the dialogue without losing sight of the story we all fell in love with in the first place. Some seem to have a harder time. I would imagine it's the same way you know if you're someone who can read reviews or not.
On the fannish end, some people's wishful thinking can become entitlement issues in a scary split second. When it's just among us, that's messy enough. When it has any influence on canon? No no no no NO.
Okay, shutting up now.
I once worked on a series where the "Official Fan Club" sent us a beautifully bound Yearbook at the end of each season.
It included a voluminous episode guide, every interview and review that had been published and show photos most of us had never seen in the network press kit.
Since the series was made up of stand-alone hours, it also included speculation on what happened after the closing credits, where the guest characters went from there and how the events in the episode had impacted on the continuing characters.
And of course there were endless essays on what we were doing wrong or should be doing instead.
It was all interesting stuff and represented a dedication to the series that was very flattering, but mostly it made you wonder if any of the yearbook's authors actually had a life.
I believe it's very important for showrunners, writing staff and all of a series' creative participants to be aware of what's being said or fantasized about their work.
But you can't cede your creative life to them and following the fans' lead falls into a category of pandering that I've never seen make a show better. It's not much different from implementing network notes just to get them off your back.
Both of those options remove the ability of the series creatives to surprise an audience or lead them somewhere unexpected but perhaps more rewarding.
To some degree, though, it depends on the show. Listed in this post were some very mainstream series, but in the niches, fans can be passionately supportive of highly creator-driven programming. Think for example of Adult Swim/Teletoon's The Venture Bros., whose creators I would argue can do little to no wrong by their fans. Even the cosplayer types among such crowds are perhaps LESS likely than mainstream TV fans to try to tell the showrunners what to do.
mostly it made you wonder if any of the yearbook's authors actually had a life.
Jim -- If you want something done, ask a busy person. In other words, the answer is mostly "yes."
Or, as I've phrased it for many years now, "I have a life. Usually several at a time, thanks. This is what I do for fun." :-)
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