With respect, I believe there's a distinction to be made between social media reaction to a TV show and social media reaction to cutting off the head of a lion after killing it with an arrow. There's a nutjob on Twitter named Jon Ronson who is getting traction in the MSM after writing a book, the premise being it is wrong to publicly shame people (Marc Maron even interviewed him, and Maron and I butted heads on Twitter a while back when I was critical of Ronson). I think it is wrong to publicly shame people for making a TV series you don't like, but it is well within the bounds of civil society to hold people accountable for genuinely bad behavior. Any "crowd mania" that results isn't unexplained... there are ways to track how something becomes viral; it is how we learned Gangham Style's popularity was an overexaggeration of the media, if not an invention of the media.
I honestly haven't seen much if any reaction to True Detective on my social media. Instead it seems to be consumed lately with annoying "Straight Outta..." memes. I only recently watched the first episode of season one as it was a free iTunes download, and I was underwhelmed considering how many have raved about the series. I am not motivated to finish watching the first season, let alone dive into season two. I found nothing compelling about the story or the characters, and I found the much hyped acting to be nonexistent. On Sun, Aug 9, 2015 at 11:24 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > Why does the internet hate S2 so much? This is the kind of thing that > makes me really uneasy - there is a crowd mania that ripples through the > internet periodically that seems to have no real cause. Similar to the > hatred of the Lion-killing dentist (I am no hunter, and the dentist does > seem like a dick - but how did the entire internet decide to hate that one > guy more than almost anything else going on in the world that week?). > > I watched the finale tonight, and, without giving any spoilers, I thought > the season was pretty good. Maybe not as atmospherically mesmerizing as S1, > and I guess I could see a reaction of "I didn't like it as much as last > year". But so many people seem to enjoy ripping it. I have purposely not > read anything until tonight (I had to catch up on most of the season over > the last two weeks) but now I see people are calling it "overwrought" and > "confusing" and "dark". Well, yes, but S1 was all of those and more. At > least this year there was a plot to follow and that seemed to matter; In S1 > the plot seemed irrelevant, as the point of the show was character study > and atmosphere. > > I hope they continue with this - I have not watched that horror show on > AMC (?) with Jessica Lange because that is not my favorite genre, but in > general I approve of the idea of a series that tells different stories each > season within the same genre. I would like to see the same cast of TD in > different roles each season. > > -- > -- > TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "TV or Not TV" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "TVorNotTV" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
