Saturday

[nightdog_barks]

Very warm, windy. Started reading Born Yesterday -- so far, very good.

In other news:

deekayw Diane Kristine Wild
Comments on my @HartHanson twitter article are either sympathetic, willfully misunderstand, or prove his point. http://bit.ly/mxccWT

Which ... pretty much rules out anyone who might have an honest disagreement with the piece. The article is here, for those who want to read, and concerns Hart Hanson's (the creator of Bones) less-than-positive encounter with the world of Twitter followers.

Comments

[silverjackal]

... Or they're nuts.

Someone does not understand social media, and can't get over the butthurt. Oh certainly the internet is full of crazies, but they're not all out to get Hart Hanson. And if he didn't want a dialogue, then he shouldn't have attempted the matter (but maybe he didn't understand going in that the nature of the beast would be to get more disagreement and/or discussion than gushing).

[nightdog_barks]

This. At one time I followed Hanson on Twitter, and it was interesting to watch as he grew progressively more cranky with the fans. GRANTED, some of those "fans" were batshit crazy and were saying wildly inappropriate things -- and he should have (and probably did) block some of those people. But there are also people who are going to honestly disagree with the way the show is going, and will tell you straight-up they think you're wrong (in sometimes less than complimentary terms), and it gradually became clear that Hanson just didn't want to hear that. He may have wanted a dialogue, but he wanted it on his terms, and he wanted to talk about what he wanted to talk about. And that's not a dialogue.

It's no wonder that Hanson and David Shore feel the need to commiserate with each other.

[silverjackal]

Do I have the show right? It's about a physical anthropologist working with some FBI fellow? A friend tried to get me to watch that, thinking I'd like it. Heh. No offense, if you were following the creator you probably like the show, but I found it ridiculous (I studied some physical anthropology as an undergraduate because I was taking archaeology courses as part of a paleozoology minor). Never mind that the FBI angle was also... Pfft. There's a reason I don't watch television, yes? :D

It doesn't surprise me that this fellow doesn't get it -- because his show is successful he expects nothing but accolades. He forgets that everyone is going to disagree with something, even if they're fans. And he also has never experienced fandom directly. There's a lot of very intelligent, very knowledgeable people in fandom who do excellent media criticism (often because they are themselves creators). He didn't realize or can't accept that sprinkled amongst the nuts are people who are his *peers* (whether or not they work in the industry). That "average fan" he cites in the article doesn't exist. Either people are interested in the show and engaged with it (saying "I liked X but not Y" to their friends who also watch), or they aren't engaged and don't give a fig.

[nightdog_barks]

I think she's a forensic anthropologist (unless they're the same thing?) and yes, that's the show. I used to enjoy it, but as time went on I thought it got progressively sillier, and I stopped watching when the season opener last year had one of the female characters taking her clothes off in order to distract a group of armed (South American?) men who might have been terrorists. It was one of the very few times I've actually been offended by a television show.

[silverjackal]

Forensic anthropology is a branch of physical anthropology, and I didn't remember the forensic part because to me it wasn't there. So we are thinking of the same program! The one episode I saw (I don't know where it falls in terms of show timeline) was ridiculous to me, even though I'm prepared to cut the "science" in such shows slack. (I watched and enjoyed the original StarGate series, for example, and abuse of science doesn't get much more egregious.) There was no way I could believe that either of the main characters were supposedly professionals in their given fields, and the story premise was... I don't even remember because it was so absurd. Heh. Different tastes, yes? I imagine if they tried to make television which pleased me exclusively it wouldn't be popular since I like documentaries and reasonably accurate (because in some cases a best guess is all there is, yes?) historical fiction.

[taiga13]

The weather is miserable here, which matches my mood. I'm not sure if it's correlation or causation. So far it's been a cold and wet summer.

[nightdog_barks]

If it's any comfort, I am envious.

*hugs* ♥

[pwcorgigirl]

You didn't miss a thing by giving up watching it. The season got dumber from there on out.

The guys have gone to the movies and I have accidentally broken one of our porch chairs. Corgiguy has been saying, "This thing sounds like it's breaking" when he sat on it (it's a really old chair that was cheap to begin with), but it seemed sturdy so I dismissed that alarming creaking sound as the chair legs moving on the wood floor. Then me, Miss Pegleg, sat on it after they left today and found myself half-trapped in a ruined chair with my butt on the floor and braced, unbendable leg up in the air.

[nightdog_barks]

HA! That's happened to me with one of our kitchen table chairs. Apparently the manufacturer didn't use enough glue in one spot, and down it came when I was least expecting it. *g*

The thing that really amuses me more than Hanson's interview is the writer's insistence that commenters who are less than sympathetic to Hanson are either willfully misunderstanding or are "crazy." Oy.

[pwcorgigirl]

You think nobody ever taught showrunners that the number one rule of creative expression is "If you have to explain it afterward, then it wasn't right the first time?" Oy indeed.

It was quite a trick getting out of that chair! :D

[nightdog_barks]

You think nobody ever taught showrunners that the number one rule of creative expression is "If you have to explain it afterward, then it wasn't right the first time?"

Apparently, and as I said upstream, it didn't surprise me at all that Hanson would mention David Shore in light of the critical reception the season finale of House received from many corners.*


*I know there are folks out there who enjoyed it, liked it, loved it. I did too, up to a point.

[felis]

it didn't surprise me at all that Hanson would mention David Shore in light of the critical reception the season finale of House received from many corners.

Well. He didn't. He mentioned Shore in light of the problems both House and Bones had with their renewal negotiations this year, it had nothing to do with twitter or the finale. DKW included it so she could end her article with a rather bad analogy as punch line.

And not to say the arictle isn't problematic, but the amount of stupidity and entitlement is horrific and IMO there is no chance for constructive dialogue in 140 characters, especially when there are hundreds of participants and every thoughtful answer you might give is only going to attract even more people who think they finally have a chance to vent their frustration at somebody with influence.
The way Sara Hess is doing it is perfect I think, funny and interesting behind-the-scenes bits, but without engaging too much with fans. The latter only creates an illusion of influence and stirs things up even more.

[nightdog_barks]

*rereads*

You are exactly right. ARGH! I read "screaming and yelling and noise" and for some reason my mind conflated it as a continuation of the Twitter conversation. My apologies for putting words in Hanson's mouth. :-)

And yes, I think you're right. There are so many voices on Twitter, so many trying to be heard that they drown each other out and it becomes a cacophony. Sara Hess, I believe, gets it right about 99% of the time, and yet I've seen stupid people/trolls be ridiculous with her when she expressed a political opinion. It is sad.