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Social Media and Behind the Scenes: AKA Everything Else Not "News and Media"


Zalyn
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SA at HVFF-Atlanta on Nov. 20:

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-- On whether it's 'fair and genuine' to expect Olicity shippers, this really passionate fanbase that Arrow has built, to root for Oliver and Felicity dating other people, SA: "Sure. I mean, yeah. (Fan asked, 'Why?') Well, because it's a... TV show. (Audience laughs and claps)  And here's the thing. I love fandom and I love passionate fandom. And I think that Arrow has awesome, passionate fans. But here's the bottom line. You don't always get what you want. (Audience cheers and claps) I mean, look, sitting here, feeling unhappy about the state of their relationship, they're still functioning as a team. They're still serving a greater good. She could be dead. (Audience laughs) I mean, couldn't she? She could be dead. Oliver could be dead. The show could be off the air. There's a bunch of things. Arrow is so many things. And if you let it just become about one thing, then you forget about the bigger picture. Right? Does that make sense? (Audience cheers and claps) So I would say that Oliver & Felicity's relationship as it pertains to saving the city has always been more important than their relationship as it just pertains to just - you know, are they, aren't they, are they canoodling, are they not? So for me, them functioning as a team right now and being honest with each other is super important, and whatever happens with romance is whatever happens. Thank you." 

SA on facebook on Nov. 21:

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-- On the "perfectly reasonable question" asked by a fan at HVFF-Atlanta on Nov. 20, 2016, SA: "If I made one mistake, it was probably being slightly exasperated in my response. But I certainly stand by what I said. The question really stemmed around people that are supporters of Oliver & Felicity in a relationship, uh, feel disheartened, feel that the show isn't giving them, you know, what they want - or possibly what they deserve. Um, everyone is entitled to their opinion... So anyway, my response was very simple. It was, look, it's a TV show, things happen, um, and bottom line, you don't always get what you want - which is true, by the way... I stand by absolutely everything that I said. If possible, coulda been a little less, uh, uh, maybe - no, I stand by everything that I said. Some people took this to mean I was essentially putting down the fandom. As if to say that, if you support Oliver & Felicity as a couple, I consider you to be like less of a fan, or something like that. Here's the bottom line. I legitimately don't care - which doesn't mean I'm not interested - but I don't care why you like the show. Some people watch the show for romance. Some people watch it because they were fans of Smallville. Some people watch it for the action scenes. Some people watch it because they're dealing with something in their life and it's a method of escape. Some people watch it because their football team sucks and they don't want to spend a Wednesday night watching their team lose. The point is, is that it doesn't matter to me why you watch it. And to think for even a second that I would hold any faction of the fandom above any other faction of the fandom, that's lunacy. It's absolute lunacy. It's completely, utterly, totally untrue. Moreover, I am an employee of the show. I don't write it. Now, that's not a put-down to the writers. That's not me going, 'that's not my problem.' That's me literally saying, I'm not in the writers room, I don't write the scripts. It was not my decision to put Oliver & Felicity together, just like it wasn't my decision to pull them apart. Um, in addition, I said that Arrow is about more than one thing. And it is. And that's true. And I stand by that as well. So, I guess, what I would like to say is, um, I care deeply about the quality of the show and about everyone's experience within - uh, experience watching it. And if that makes you a part of the fandom, then fantastic and I'm happy you're here. Uh, I love all you guys. I really do. I'm so grateful that we have fans of this show. And I am so pleased that they're passionate. And occasionally, I am slightly dismayed that there seems to be almost an infighting amongst the fandom because one thing that we can all agree on is that the shared purpose behind us being a collective is the television show. And it is a television show. And to that end, I would say, take it with a grain of salt, do your best to enjoy it, certain episodes you're going to like, certain episodes you're not going to like... (Relates story of talking to WM about his concerns about an upcoming episode) That's the extent of my impact on the show. I read the script. I try to do the best possible job that I can. And I am constantly and consistently aware that if it weren't for our fans, if it weren't for people who watch the show, the show wouldn't be on the air. I mean, that's as simple - that's as easy to wrap your brain around as 'you don't always get what you want.' Right? Right." 

The fan at HVFF-Atlanta asked a very specific question. SA's answer made no sense ("it's a TV show"), but he could've stopped there. Instead, he went off on this rant that misrepresented Olicity shippers as wanting Arrow to become about only one thing. (The fan never said that.) He was really condescending and dismissive. And the audience response just seemed to amp him up. At one point, I expected SA to say "Felicity" and have the crowd chant, "Lock her up!"

I don't think that SA's comments in his facebook video helped. He was still condescending. (FYI, I think I can wrap my brain around plenty.) And again, he ascribed motives to Olicity fans and described them in unflattering terms (threw shade and implied that they felt entitled). He considers Olicity fans as being only interested in one thing and nothing else on the show. He doesn't seem to think that people can watch the show for more than one reason - Oliver and action and romance and escape and other things. So he thinks that if you like Olicity, you're only watching Arrow for that one thing. (That's what I get from his comments.) I watched the video of his panel at HVFF-Atlanta and I thought he was belittling that fan. Now he's just spinning. 

I also find his dismay over the "infighting" a bit disingenuous, considering that he and the EPs (especially MG) have certainly done their part to stir up controversy and antagonize fans over the years.  Honestly, the more I listen to SA talk in interviews and at comic cons, the less I like him.  All his comments about loving all the fans? Spin, spin, spin. 

Edited by tv echo
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1 hour ago, Cleanqueen said:

I don't think this is the first time, he's said the same thing last year too and made a specific video regarding it. He said this is a place of positivity and negativity should be avoided.

You're right, he did. Except I feel the same way now as I did back then-- he can claim that his page is a place of positivity (and I do think he does his best to post things that make it so)  but all it takes is a peek at the comments (and we know he does read the comments) to see that it really hasn't been. So IMO there's some disingenuousness on his part.

53 minutes ago, dtissagirl said:

I really love the part about him not understanding what's happening, because I totally believe he truly cannot grasp what is it like to be a woman in a 50-50 split gendered fandom in an age of no-consequences in social media spaces.

How shitty of him. I'm sorry. That's such BAD advice. The only way to make any online forum into a safe space is through moderation. If he doesn't wanna do the work to keep his space safe, that is on him, not on you.

Thanks. I think he naively believes that people will moderate themselves, and he thinks because he's thick-skinned enough to put up with whatever crap directed at him, others on his page should do so as well. The problem is that's an unfair expectation of others, and if he's honest, he really isn't as immune to hurtful comments as he pretends to be. His stance of letting everyone post their opinions and hoping for the best is not realistic at this point, with more than 5 million followers. I was grossed out by the constant negativity directed at him on his page last season, and I don't think he deserves the nastier comments now either. But he ignores the very practical solution of enforcing some bare minimum rules to make it a positive space for everyone including himself (deleting personal attacks and namecalling) and chooses to lecture instead.  Pay Zaco or whoever to skim the page once in a while, for heaven's sake.

Edited by lemotomato
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22 minutes ago, tv echo said:

he went off on this rant that misrepresented Olicity shippers as wanting Arrow to become about only one thing. (The fan never said that.)

I don't think he's ever said that either. From his comments, what I'm gathering is that  he is trying to say, I know you are disappointed that a part of the show you enjoy isn't going as you want to, but there are other parts as well. Basically he is saying to enjoy the show as a whole instead of focusing on just the part that one doesn't like. 

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See quotes above. I guess we can agree to disagree.

If I had a twitter account, I would tweet the following:
"Congrats @stephenamell for making Olicity fans feel unwelcome @heroesfanfest (sarcasm) #HVFF-Atlanta #BullyForYou."

Edited by tv echo
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9 minutes ago, looptab said:

I don't think he's ever said that either. From his comments, what I'm gathering is that  he is trying to say, I know you are disappointed that a part of the show you enjoy isn't going as you want to, but there are other parts as well. Basically he is saying to enjoy the show as a whole instead of focusing on just the part that one doesn't like. 

I think that is the problem in a nutshell. I'm not saying it's his responsibility but that the argument that there's more to the show than Oliver and Felicity has been used over and over again to dismiss people that enjoy that relationship and their concerns. It's obvious that there are a lot of elements in the show and most people like more than one usually but there's a different response if you say for example that you don't like the flashbacks than if you say you don't like Oliver and Felicity with different people.

One of of writers (Oscar I think?) recently answered to a fan that wrote a long post addressing different concerns about a variety of aspects saying that it seemed to him the problem for that fan was that Oliver and Felicity weren't together because one of the things she said was that they were acting like last year never happened. It's the mindset that sets people off IMO.

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It's funny how most of the people I know who were there didn't really take as much offense to what he said (other than maybe a couple of people who... I have thoughts on) as the people who weren't there but heard everything second hand. 

Edited by wonderwall
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3 minutes ago, Midnight Lullaby said:

Since there's a video I think it doesn't make a difference if you were or weren't there. We all have the same information to form an independent opinion.

Even so. How is it that people at the con had a wildly different viewpoint than the people who weren't there and just watched the video? That part, IMO is interesting.

It happens at every con. Twitter makes everything seem 100000x worse than what actually happened even if we had video of the panel...

Edited by wonderwall
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16 minutes ago, tv echo said:

See quotes above. I guess we can agree to disagree.

If I had a twitter account, I would tweet the following:
"Congrats @stephenamell for making Olicity fans feel unwelcome @heroesfanfest (sarcasm) #HVFF-Atlanta #BullyForYou."

I just don't see how he did this AT ALL. As an olicity fan I didn't feel unwelcome by his comments, and it's true that I might not always get what I want with a TV show that is why I change the Channel. And if I'm going to cons funding his pockets and felt unwelcome, I have the right to stop going. I don't think he cares either way.

And like @wonderwall said, I find most of the uproar coming from those WHO WEREN'T at the con. That girl wrote a message to stephen after being bothered by his answer, and at this point she can make the decision to accept his response or not. 

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4 minutes ago, Midnight Lullaby said:

the argument that there's more to the show than Oliver and Felicity has been used over and over again to dismiss people that enjoy that relationship and their concerns.

Oh, this is true, and I'm not denying it. But I don't think Stephen meant it that way, at least to me it didn't seem like it. 

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5 minutes ago, Midnight Lullaby said:

Since there's a video I think it doesn't make a difference if you were or weren't there. We all have the same informations to form an independent opinion.

Yeah if it was just something people were tweeting then a misunderstanding of tone could be acknowledged. But people saw the video footage and saw Stephen follow up facebook video so there is no misunderstanding of tone.

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Just now, wonderwall said:

Even so. How is it that people at the con had a wildly different viewpoint than the people who weren't there and just watched the video? That part, IMO is interesting.

I imagine it's more likely that people that spend money to meet an actor view him more favorably than people who wouldn't. Just a guess. But to see if it's a valid conjecture we should take the opinions of a big sample of people that were at the panel and people that watched the video at home so I can't really tell, knowing the opinions of a limited amount of people that were there and weren't, if there's any truth to it.

1 minute ago, looptab said:

Oh, this is true, and I'm not denying it. But I don't think Stephen meant it that way, at least to me it didn't seem like it. 

I have no idea honestly, but I was saying if people took it badly I think that could be the reason..

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1 minute ago, Midnight Lullaby said:

I imagine it's more likely that people that spend money to meet an actor view him more favorably than people who wouldn't. Just a guess. But to see if it's a valid conjecture we should take the opinions of a big sample of people that were at the panel and people that watched the video at home so I can't really tell, knowing the opinions of a limited amount of people that were there and weren't, if there's any truth to it.

I'd imagine anyone who spent money to meet an actor would be more sensitive to what they say BECAUSE they spent said money - they have more to lose. I can't imagine anyone going to HVFF just for Stephen. So not everyone in that audience would be favorable towards him. 

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6 minutes ago, wonderwall said:

I'd imagine anyone who spent money to meet an actor would be more sensitive to what they say BECAUSE they spent said money - they have more to lose. I can't imagine anyone going to HVFF just for Stephen. So not everyone in that audience would be favorable towards him. 

I disagree. I think it's more likely that a person that makes an effort to go to a panel is a fan than someone at home. Obviously it isn't a science. Big fans of his were at home and probably less big fans of his were at the panel. But I don't even think we can imply there's a difference reaction if you were or weren't at the panel knowing the opinions of a limited number of people. It depends on who you know that was there, who you know on twitter. It's all relative.

Edited by Midnight Lullaby
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7 minutes ago, Midnight Lullaby said:

I have no idea honestly, but I was saying if people took it badly I think that could be the reason..

Honestly me neither, I don't think he did, but maybe he did mean it that way. We have no way of knowing. But yeah, I agree that could be what irked people so much. I actually meant to write it in my previous post, haha.

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1 hour ago, Midnight Lullaby said:

One of of writers (Oscar I think?) recently answered to a fan that wrote a long post addressing different concerns about a variety of aspects saying that it seemed to him the problem for that fan was that Oliver and Felicity weren't together because one of the things she said was that they were acting like last year never happened. It's the mindset that sets people off IMO.

To me, that is the actual bigger problem. Sometimes people can be correct and they can point out things that they really consider to be worth noting. I mean, whatever happens, you should do it in a respectful way but it isn't rude if you point out that maybe some storylines are weird. Or that they make no emotional sense. Doesn't mean that you want to show to give you exactly what you want. It just means that you might enjoy hearing a reason for the things you have a hard time dealing with. Maybe not dismissing them altogether would work in their favor.

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5 minutes ago, Belinea said:

To me, that is the actual bigger problem. Sometimes people can be correct and they can point out things that they really consider to be worth noting. I mean, whatever happens, you should do it in a respectful way but it isn't rude if you point out that maybe some storylines are weird. Or that they make no emotional sense. Doesn't mean that you want to show to give you exactly what you want. It just means that you might enjoy hearing a reason for the things you have a hard time dealing with. Maybe not dismissing them altogether would work in their favor.

As I saw someone say somewhere else. No one was asking Stephen or the show to give them what they want. All their asking for is a little story/show consistency and an explanation as to why core parts of the show are being sidelined or ignored or in the absence of consistency in the show a reason for why.

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Maybe they are trying extra hard to surprise us when they get back together. 

Still doesn't explain why they have to reduce Diggle and Felicity'a storylines and screen time for a bunch of newbs with no to little backstory. We've had 4 seasons of OTA. Of course people are going to be pissed when others come on to the show with no story and there for just a bunch of action.

Edited by EmilyBettFan
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Late to con-gate. Thanks @tv echo for posting the actual quotes. All I can say is perhaps SA & TPTB won't get everything they want as well when large groups of fans walk away. After all, it is only a TV show and people can walk away at any time. Lastly, the show could be off the air.... well sorry to tell you SA, but I'm not sure that would be a disappointment for me anymore. I'm a few episodes behind and not really missing it much. I do really wish they were less dismissive of fans. That does hurt after being passionate about the show for a few years, to just be shucked aside because I just don't get it (which is bullshit). I'm intelligent and can wrap my head around a lot which means I can see right through your PR spinning that still misses the mark. 

I think this is the point in the break-up where the Arrow PTB want me to say "its me". But I'm sorry... Arrow its you. Con-gate is just another symptom in this growing illness. And I've watched enough TV & movies to know that there are very few endings to this story that are beneficial for anyone. I'm hoping for a Hallmark ending, but I have a feeling this is going down the Lifetime path.

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I finally watched the con video and it's worse than just reading his response. He's so flippant! Saying it's just a TV show immediately implies that fans can't distinguish between fiction and reality.  Not cool, especially since he's addressing a roomful of people who passionately support said show and spent hundreds to be there. And then to throw in "you can't always get what you want"? Uh, when it comes to TV, you kinda can. We're in the era of peak TV -- I've never been more brutal when it comes to cutting shows because there is so much other good stuff out there to watch. If a show isn't consistently entertaining me, I drop it. I'm sticking with Arrow until the winter finale to see if it turns things around, but that's just out of a weird sense of loyalty. I'd never usually give a series this much rope...

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I only took a quick glance at the article (I feel like I'm watching a different show than the writer), but it looks like the same quotes we've already gotten, so maybe just trying to frame them in a different context so it's not just coming across as the same thing we've already read even though it is?

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For me, the article came across less as PR for Susan or Susan/Oliver, and more like "I have to post an article about Arrow today but I've got nothing so I'm going to repurpose parts of this group interview with Amell and come up with something controversial to bait fans into responding like I did with my article about Detective Mayo and the one where I blamed Felicity for keeping the Baby Sara/Baby John secret."

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Chris Hayner, who wrote that ScreenerTV article, lost me with this sentence:

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First and foremost, Susan is the best example of a journalist the "Arrow"-verse has seen yet. While we love characters like "The Flash's" Iris West (Candice Patton) and Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist) on "Supergirl," both seemed to have somehow stumbled into the job of journalist.

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1 hour ago, dtissagirl said:

I track the artsy tags on Tumblr pretty closely, because I like looking at the pretties. Arrow has had two very busy fanart tags, #arrowedit and #olicityedit. I don't have real stats, but the amount of posts has declined something HUGE in both this season [O/F tag more than, obviously].

Does anybody at the CW or WB get information like this? Track similar data? It seems to be a pretty good indicator of fan engagement. I keep expecting something to change in the way Arrow is presenting/selling itself but it feels like nothing has changed (Marc still seems to be saying the same damn things) and it makes me wonder if they're staying the course or tweaking anything in response to the lower-than-usual fan engagement as well as ratings. 

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24 minutes ago, SmallScreenDiva said:

Does anybody at the CW or WB get information like this? Track similar data? It seems to be a pretty good indicator of fan engagement. I keep expecting something to change in the way Arrow is presenting/selling itself but it feels like nothing has changed (Marc still seems to be saying the same damn things) and it makes me wonder if they're staying the course or tweaking anything in response to the lower-than-usual fan engagement as well as ratings. 


Transformative fandom is so overwhelmingly female, they probably don't care if the volume of content has gone down on those parts.

The biggest transformative fan is a dude [LordMesa] anyway, so I don't even know if the CW/Chico understands how fandom [all of them] is gender-divided in a very specific way: women/queer/PoC tend to go transformative -- creating and/or consuming fic, fanart, fanvids, RPG -- while straight white men tend to go with canon/trivia/memorizing information. i.e. "curative", they're curators of the existing canon*. And I bet they have NO IDEA that the female engagement through transformative works has gone down significantly. Hollywood tends to ignore transformative works not just because it's so women-centric, but also because it's turvy re: copyright.

But otoh, I have no idea if curative fandom has upped their content creation volume, because I don't track the places they frequent.

The intersect between transformative and curative fandom is social media. I don't have a good Twitter tracker anymore, so I have no idea how content volume is doing there, but the lack of making the social media ratings is telling.

* This particular forum is actually funny because it's overwhelmingly female while at the same time being overwhelmingly curative. Although I tend to think most of the men left because it became too female/'shippy. LOL.

Edited by dtissagirl
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* This particular forum is actually funny because it's overwhelmingly female while at the same time being overwhelmingly curative. Although I tend to think most of the men left because it became too female/'shippy. LOL.

When I frequented TV WIthout Pity, there was more of a mix but still I'd have said it was higher female to male on the forums I visited.  That's not surprising on a show like Gilmore Girls but more so for Arrow and before that, Smallville.   I do think the chat being more focused on relationships (of all kinds) might skew the demographic.  I'm not really sure what there is to talk about if one isn't talking about relationships, lol.  

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2 minutes ago, BkWurm1 said:

When I frequented TV WIthout Pity, there was more of a mix but still I'd have said it was higher female to male on the forums I visited.  That's not surprising on a show like Gilmore Girls but more so for Arrow and before that, Smallville.   I do think the chat being more focused on relationships (of all kinds) might skew the demographic.  I'm not really sure what there is to talk about if one isn't talking about relationships, lol.  

 

Seriously. EVERYTHING is related to relationships of some sort. That's why comic books are soap operas for boys. I don't care how much action, fights, stunts, intrigue, convoluted plots exist in books, movies or TV  relationships are WHY things happen aside from trying to gain a physical resource to survive as humanity, like water, for example. Hell, even a single human being in a story becomes about that human being's relationship to the earth, the sky, the universe, a higher power. IMO, literally anything that happens in a story of any kind is born of relationships be they friends, lovers, co-workers, frienemies and enemies. YMMV

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