Happy Fandom Friday! Each week, I highlight an aspect of the various fan communities that have sprung around mostly movies and TV shows, but sometimes books, games, or even just memes, if the level of dedication is awesome enough.
Just take a look at our "Twitter" tags page, and you'll see how much movie stars, musicians, and reality whores have taken over the site to interact with fans. But how about TV writers? A fascinating piece from The Daily Beast talks to three showrunners--Hart Hanson (Bones), Dan Harmon (Community), and Shonda Rhimes (Grey's Anatomy)--about the vicious backlash they've gotten from Twitter fans who object to their characterization of beloved TV characters.
Hanson probably gets the most haterade for the "will-they-won't-they" romance between Booth and Brennan; the bedhopping at Seattle Grace doesn't sit well with viewers, either. And Community's humor comes under fire from Twitter users for being too meta and relying too much on pop culture references.
These aren't just disgruntled tweets: Fans have made personal attacks on the creators and even threatened their families, all because the age of the Internet has granted fans (in their eyes, at least) a sense of entitlement when it comes to their favorite television shows. Admiration becomes ownership.
Not so, say the creators. Rhimes stressed that she has never made a writing decision based on fans' whims. Though he's shied away from responding directly to fans' vitriol, saying it brings out the bully in him, Hanson has pared his follow list down to about 300 users. It's the "if you can't say anything nice..." mentality.
Harmon shot back at one Twitter user named Gwynnifer (who has called him a "fat bigot") by using her name on a recent episode of Community, as Jeff's failed date--a backhanded compliment if ever there were one.
The problem, of course, is the accessibility of Twitter--Hanson compared it to an open door--and the question of who TV is designed for. Obviously it's fans who push up the ratings, but they're not the be-all end-all. But you can't say that creators write solely for themselves, either. It's a happy medium between keeping audiences interested and staying true to the characters and situations created however many seasons ago.
So far, no studios have forbidden writers from tweeting with viewers. Because even negative interactions are good interactions, because it gets a dialogue (however troll-infested) going between fans and creators.
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