Steve Martin liked to say, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” Well, I think the opposite is true, too, and we’ve gotten to a point where a lot people who were in the middle, (politically and ideologically) who may have been very vocal and supportive of progressive ideals a few years ago have now started walking it back a bit because the body count is finally in and too bad to ignore.
Interestingly enough, I don’t think Hollywood and the primary media are entirely wrong when they say, “the shows fail because of toxic fanbases.” But that’s a half-truth that deflects a new reality of how Social Media has finally created a platform where TV show and Film influence has actual competition and for the first time since TV and Film were made, an actual antagonist pushing back!
Hollywood (and what I’m really saying here is the very liberal/progressive professionals who have moved to LA and work in the industry and use the programs of this industry to influence culture directly) has an amazing track record for changing culture. If you were some disgruntled person from a town you were discriminated against, (perceived or real) you can bet your butt that if you become a writer in Hollywood, you either demonized the people who tormented you or wrote yourself into your work as a heroic figure, or both. This is why Hollywood tropes were formed: how many times have you seen on screen a female vice president or in charge at a male dominated field? How many times does a “Christian” get painted as a zealous weirdo? How often are gay couples painted out as more loving and even better parents than straight ones? Now look at these reverse: how often do you see bad gay parents or extraordinarily toxic gay relationships on screen? What about a purposefully incompetent female leader? How about some liberal ideal about our borders be shown to be wrong? This is part of training and re-education, especially if it can be slipped into kids’ shows. It’s almost like propaganda… “This is how the world works.” Can gay people bad parents, women make terrible leaders, and conservatives be right? Absolutely, but you’re not going to see that depicted much in Tinsel Town because that’s not really how you change culture to be the way you want it to be. Hollywood, (through the mediums of television and film) have transformed the world in more radical ways than any other informational medium in the history of the world. Some of it was very good, but not all of it, and the point I’m making is that ‘Hollywood’ got really comfortable being a monopoly as the voice of culture and they’re only now realizing that all the voices that shut out found a way to be heard, and in a BIG way: they have a fight on their hands now and they really don’t like it!
This is why “Hollywood” and the primary media that reports and makes a living off their work have started villainizing Social Media, (namely YouTubers). It’s because of how successful this new arena of entertainment has become as an alternate platform and a launching pad for dissenting views. And thanks to a few years of COVID lockdowns and a LOT of pushback from centrist liberals and conservatives on Social Media, the secondary media is actually becoming more popular than Hollywood and the primary media. For a lot of people, it’s easier and more ‘fun’ to watch someone on YouTube shred a TV show or film than actually watching the original program… AND it’s FREE.
There is now an actual competition for your online attention for entertainment that can compete with TV and film; there is no “captive audience” anymore. This is new: Hollywood truly does have an antagonist and these antagonists don’t have to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make their money, they just have to crank out an entertaining video about something Hollywood made or rebut/comment on an article someone wrote about that show or film. And people in charge of TV and Film HATE how countless algorithms keep pushing more of this content into people’s faces. If I click on a video from someone who didn’t like “The Acolyte”, YouTube will show me 40 videos of other people saying the same things. I could easily end up watching hours of content on YouTube and never watch the show… my mind could already have been influenced and made up!
Hollywood is at a tipping point where they HAVE to start changing. And how much they need to change is still up in the air. But there does come a point where you can’t deny that some movies/shows are failing miserably and others are still successful and not admit why. YouTubers would have no ammunition and no sustainability unless there was something to pick at. This also makes TV and film creators huffy, and understandably so. We’ve sacrificed a lot in our lives to be in this town, in this industry, and a lot of people out here think that because they are making this product, they should be the one-and-only authority. But what YouTubers have reminded them of is that there’s a relationship between someone making a product and someone consuming that product, and if you don’t invest into your consumers, eventually they walk. It was fine to ignore them when they had no other options and you couldn’t hear them rejecting you or the product. That is not the case anymore!
You’re seeing the industry paint these people out to be villains because… well, that’s how they see them. If you’ve been in an untouchable industry where no one truly has a platform to compete or disagree with you, and internally, you’ve kicked out anyone with the ‘wrong’ ideology, then having any real form of competition or antagonism is a huge shock and BIG threat!
Personally, I think it’s undeniable at this point that YouTubers and people on Social Media have a MASSIVE impact on the success or failure of a TV show or Film. I know for a fact I’ve watched a lot YouTubers opinions on shows, movies, and video games before even considering just making that purchase myself, where even just a few years ago, (pre-COVID) I was pretty much always trying to see it myself. But being on sets where I saw the ideology at play, my 20 years off and on in the industry, and then a lack of time, lack of money, (and lack of faith in my own industry), definitely pushed me more towards YouTube.
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