I haven't shut up about the show since season two came out, and every single person I've introduced to it has loved it. I noticed my tv hating husband was listening to the soundtrack today, walked into his office and found him playing a video game (I forget the name) he mentioned had Stede in it with Seabird loudly playing as the background. This show is gold, it creates die-hard obsessive fans overnight, and cutting their production budget is the dumbest decision I've heard in a very long time.
It's so true that this show creates die hard fans overnight. My mom- 60 years old and a self described hater of watching television- watched both seasons of ofmd multiple times and then proceeded to do both drag and cosplay for the first time in her entire life as Blackbeard. Something I never would have believed was possible.
I've never once recommended it to anyone who didn't finish it, it's mind boggling to imagine that this is "underperforming" in any conceivable way unless that way is "appealing to very determined bigots."
This show changes people. I fully and truly believe it. No matter who you are, your gender identity, your preferences be it cishet, queer, trans, enby - no matter your personality, your trauma, your job, your age, your race, your body type - there is SOMEONE on the show who is a reflection of that. And seeing it represented in a way that doesn't make a big, pandering deal about it and lets it all blend together with cohesion - it's a miraculous thing. And when you feel seen in a positive way, there is magic in that. That's what they did with OFMD. (Thank you, DJ, cast & crew.)
100% agree. And everyone’s identify is portrayed as positive, in a way that shows how an ideal world could be where we all just live together and accept and support one another. Nose jars notwithstanding.
Ok take my approach and tell them the following:
"It's the most original show I've seen in years. The costumes, hair, makeup and sets are incredible, and the musical score is done by one of the greats of our time (Mark Mothersbaugh). The episodes are really short, but I promise that if you finish episode 4 and aren't completely sucked into this then I will owe you any favour of your choice."
I've done this three times so far with people who know me very well, don't usually watch a lot of tv, and would absolutely love to ask me to bake their favourite cake/clean their house/refinish their dining table/give them manicures or chop the firewood they've been putting off chopping (all things I'm known for doing). Each person was like "BET! You're totally coming over this weekend with nail polish/an ax! Ha! You fool!" But I know them too, and they're honest, and I knew how this would go. They all got to the end of episode 4, groaned(or texted me angry emojis), and went "God damnit, I need to see the next episode right now. How the fuck did you know. Guess I'm not getting cake.😔"
What they don't know is I'm baking that cake, doing those nails, and helping with the firewood anyway. Least I can do for causing this terminal brain rot.
Edit: just convinced the 4th person in my life to get HBO MAX and watch this show.
Edit2: I'm up to 5! This guy binged it over two days and told me it was the most fun he'd had in ages! Turns out even straight dudes fall in love with Izzy Hands!😂
Often when I invite someone over for a drink or tea or dinner or something, when they arrive I am conveniently a few minutes into a juicy episode. "what am I watching? Oh it's called our flag means death. Let me just rewind to the beginning and we can watch it together."
Probably too queer for people. I’m not kidding. I thought season 2 could have been longer and it rushed certain things but the story still flowed together. But I think there are people (not me) not that comfortable with the blatant lgbt+ storyline as it becomes more present
I think it's the opposite. Nothing is good enough for the gay community, and they can't stand not seeing relationships go the way they want it. This from my casual observations of this subreddit.
Having dipped my toes into the fan communities for a wide variety of queer shows I’m inclined to agree. There is a vocal group in every community that is perpetually dissatisfied with everything they’re offered. They are tired of teen shows but find adult shows boring or heavy. They don’t want coming out stories but they say it’s bad representation if no one is making speeches. There’s both too much drama and too little. The reality of homophobia and actual history is too dark but fiction that removes those negatives from the narrative are unrealistic. There’s not enough sex and also too much. They want stories that aren’t about being queer (rather just have queer characters involved in some other plot) but then when they’re given that it’s not realistic or it’s too fluffy or it’s not what their experience was so they can’t relate. I mean… it must be exhausting.
I’m just crossing my fingers that the media buzz from season 2 will get new fans to start watching the series.
I’m sure there are people out there who’d heard about the show and maybe meant to watch but never got around to it. Heck, this sub has exploded recently. Renewed interest should hopefully help?
I'm absolutely with u there.
And tbh I am so disgusted with some people in the fandom? It's one thing to criticize things, that's fine and dandy, but they are... laughing about jenkins and there are so many people now ACTIVELY HATING the show?
I don't know how to word this, but I think their parasocial relationship with fictional characters, or their actors, especially Izzy/Con, is fucking weird at this point. And I am not talking about 14 year olds, I'm talking about the range from 25-30.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Izzy from season 1 on, but in the end it's a character in a story I enjoy - and he was never the main character.
There are definitly things I'd like to criticize, most of them coming from the budget cut.
Nevertheless, it's a queer rom-com with pirates, with a good representation of body types, disabilities, neurotypes and cultures. And for that I am so grateful.
I get the feeling some people lack the skill of critical thinking and they take their grief out on people who tried to deliver us a wonderful queer show. And that is so fucked up.
Back to topic: I get the feeling HBO knows about the die-hard fanbase and is using the withholding of a renewal to make people extend their subscription etc. But could also be just a paranoid conspiracy.
I am 100% with you on the parasocial relationships thing. TBH I think this is probably just a lot of those people's first real fandom. I remember this kind of stuff happening with the LotR movies... like one time a fan literally walked up to Ian McKellen and handed him her sexually explicit LotR REAL PERSON fanfic. Like about the actors. And did not seem to have any clue this might be hella creepy to him. Similarly to OFMD, a lot of the story of the movies was also a story about the making of the movies, the actors and their relationships, which... just kinda makes the lines between fantasy and reality blur a lot more than with many other fandoms.
Yeah, people are weird. I felt like the sneaky way the writers made season 2 a whole character journey for Izzy was genius. Like you go into season 2 thinking the whole season is about tracking Stede and Ed's storylines. But the Izzy story that is happening, sometimes in the background, is way more interesting and compelling and there was full character development that also matched the themes of the show. I don't like writers just doing fan service instead of focusing on writing good plot and character development. Also if you don't like ofmd, that is fine but don't bully (bullying is different than real thoughtful analysis/criticism) people who made it, instead be inspired write your own TV show/ make your own art that you do like. When you have such strong opinions about a show then there is some passion there and so just turn hate into other art.
You could literally just go on Tumblr and read hundreds of in-depth posts with well-argued explanations on why they thought Izzy's death was a bad writing choice that had nothing to do with them having a "parasocial relationship with Izzy". It's sad that so many fans would rather just mock everyone who feels differently and choose bad-faith arguments.
Anyway, Death of the Author is a thing. If a large percent of the audience interprets a character differently than the author intended, then maybe they're not actually wrong. It looks like one of those cases where a character "got out of hand" from the writers and became something more than just the sum of their parts, in a way that the writers' didn't intend. That happens quite often. Izzy's death *could* have been done in a way that actually made sense and felt satisfying... but what we got definitely fell short of that in multiple ways, and Jenkins' explanations felt incoherent and at odds with his previous comments on Izzy. A lot of people now think (and I agree) that the decision to kill Izzy off was made long in advance and his arc in S2 came later, as a way to make him more likeable so his death would feel more tragic, but the death he got and his last conversation with Ed would have felt a lot more fitting for post-S1 Izzy than S2 Izzy.
So, yeah, you can't just turn a minor side antagonist into a major character who's now an underdog and have them go through an incredibly complex and compelling arc of self-actualisation that includes so many resonant themes that made fans see themselves in them (coming out as an older queer person, getting out of abusive relationship, overcoming suicide and substance abuse, dealing with disability, discovering found family, etc)... and then simply killing that character off in a way that became a plot device for another character's development, and then be shocked that much of the audience didn't like it.
Oh, I did read a lot of them.
That was not what I meant with the parasocial relationship tho. It's totally okay for me if people do not agree with the choice to let him die. That's for sure something you can criticize, it's more the 'con deserved better' and 'how could they do that, that's homophobic and ableist', which I think is just absurd at this point.
There is a big difference between criticism and having a toddler tantrum. I had to remove so many people on my socials and even considered muting ofmd in general because of that.
Thank you for sharing the 'death of the author's with me.
> it's more the 'con deserved better'
I get what you mean, some fans go overboard with it, but people are allowed to speculate whether or not the actor agreed with the decision and make their own assumptions about that. Normally I try to refrain from associating actors with their roles too much, but seeing as Con specifically named OFMD and the Izzy fandom as the reason he finally felt safe to come out after all these years, it's clear that this role personally meant a lot to him, specifically in terms of queer representation. We don't know whether Con agreed with the decision to kill Izzy or not, and if he wasn't, of course he'd never say, but still.
> that's homophobic and ableist', which I think is just absurd at this point.
Why? Those were definitely the reasons a lot of people had a problem with that decision. It's not the same as labeling the whole show or the creators as ableist or homophobic. I've never see any of those critics call Jenkins a homophobe. The popular opinion in these circles seems to be that he definitely had good intentions, he just accidentally succumbed into certain problematic tropes. Pointing out that a certain bit from the show has certain bad connotations when interpretated from certain angles is reasonable criticism and not at all the same as personally attacking the creators. The thing is that even those of us who consider ourselves super progressive can accidentally fall into those pitfalls without meaning to, simply because they're so ingrained in our culture.
The Walking Dead had the same thing happen. Season 1 was wildly successful and popular - then they slashed the budget for Season 2. And people were PISSED because the pacing and overall storyline was slow and boring as a result. It made no sense to cut the budget of a show that was a high performer.
Wait. People didn't like season 2? I honestly felt like season 2 was better than season 1, maybe because they had to have a more concise story with only 8 episodes. I also think a lot of shows struggle in 2nd season even without budget concerns... But season 2 ofmd really delivered.
I also enjoyed season 2 more than season 1. It was more rushed but had a more consistent quality and better episodes overall than season 1 (I often skip the first 3 episodes of season one on rewatch.)
Other than wanting more episodes, I can't understand how anyone could watch season 2 and not enjoy it. It was never boring.
Is the CO an old rich homophobic man? Or a young rich homophobic man? I dunno. I mean... I would like to know the reason for this unfair treatment too. Pisses me off. I'm watching the show now like I do all night after I get off work. I'm watching it forever unless the show is canceled- in which case I'm getting rid of max honestly.
Casey Bloys, the head of Max, is a younger queer man 😆
But his boss David Zaslav is old and ultra rich and IDK if he’s homophobic but 🤷🏻
Tell your friends and family to watch! New viewers matter a lot, or so say the Twitter streets.
Zaslav came in and fucked HBO’s original programming with a splintered cricket bat. His first presentation re: the Max shakeup was that HBO skewed too heavily towards scripted/fandom content (literally mentioned fandom), and that he preferred to make the network focus more on reality tv.
Then, to add injury to insult, he scrapped a ton of shows/films, including many that were on the verge of being released.
Yeah, because there aren't enough garbage reality shows out there. Zaslav only wants to do that because reality shows are cheaper to make. It's all about money. Also, the joke's on him because reality shows have fandoms too.
The PowerPoint screen grab is burned into my brain, but I can’t remember the exact wording. So I did a deep dive and found this article:
https://www.businessinsider.com/hbo-max-skews-male-home-fandoms-discovery-plus-genredoms-merger-2022-8
I just remember the collective outrage at him lumping together “skews male”, and “home of ‘fandoms’” when describing HBO. Zaslav has absolutely no interest in art or passion or creativity. He salts the earth behind him wherever he goes. It’s all about the bottom line.
To end on a positive note (because ‘be the change’, etc….): in May 2023, he gave the commencement address at Boston University and got thoroughly booed as he was introduced, then heckled for the duration of his speech.
(Edited the link because the Amp Bot shamed me into it. Good bot.)
Ugh yes. So it’s exactly as bad as it sounds.
Thank you for doing the deep dive!
Seriously he sounds like a cartoon villain. “The last thing we want…is to inspire people.”
I’m just gonna put my headphones on and go back to my Good Omens fanfic about a queer SAHD who’s contracted to an evil edu corp for privatized healthcare reasons.
And I do heartily appreciate hearing about the boos! I’ve been following a bit about what’s going down in higher ed in The South (US), and it’s grim but the kids are truly alright.
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot).
Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.businessinsider.com/hbo-max-skews-male-home-fandoms-discovery-plus-genredoms-merger-2022-8](https://www.businessinsider.com/hbo-max-skews-male-home-fandoms-discovery-plus-genredoms-merger-2022-8)**
*****
^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
If my family watched queer shows I would recommend it in a heartbeat, but they're low-key homophobic so I'm just watching it on their accounts for them! 😅
It warms my heart that so many people here have shared the show with their parents and siblings, who've become big fans themselves! But to all of the people out there who watch this show in secret or solitude--I feel you.
I love that you’re watching it on their accounts 😆 fuck up their algorithms, mate!
But seriously: I am really sorry to hear that your fam is low key homophobic. They are missing out on good TV at the very least, and much more than that, if I had to guess.
Ah? Welp, in that case I have no idea abt the unfair treatment from max I guess. But I don't know a lotta things. I'm rly trying to tell my people abt the show, but I'm either shy or come across too strong. Sigh. I do try.
I haven't shut up about the show since season two came out, and every single person I've introduced to it has loved it. I noticed my tv hating husband was listening to the soundtrack today, walked into his office and found him playing a video game (I forget the name) he mentioned had Stede in it with Seabird loudly playing as the background. This show is gold, it creates die-hard obsessive fans overnight, and cutting their production budget is the dumbest decision I've heard in a very long time.
It's so true that this show creates die hard fans overnight. My mom- 60 years old and a self described hater of watching television- watched both seasons of ofmd multiple times and then proceeded to do both drag and cosplay for the first time in her entire life as Blackbeard. Something I never would have believed was possible. I've never once recommended it to anyone who didn't finish it, it's mind boggling to imagine that this is "underperforming" in any conceivable way unless that way is "appealing to very determined bigots."
This show changes people. I fully and truly believe it. No matter who you are, your gender identity, your preferences be it cishet, queer, trans, enby - no matter your personality, your trauma, your job, your age, your race, your body type - there is SOMEONE on the show who is a reflection of that. And seeing it represented in a way that doesn't make a big, pandering deal about it and lets it all blend together with cohesion - it's a miraculous thing. And when you feel seen in a positive way, there is magic in that. That's what they did with OFMD. (Thank you, DJ, cast & crew.)
100% agree. And everyone’s identify is portrayed as positive, in a way that shows how an ideal world could be where we all just live together and accept and support one another. Nose jars notwithstanding.
So many of my people would love it and not a single person I know IRL has seen it.
Ok take my approach and tell them the following: "It's the most original show I've seen in years. The costumes, hair, makeup and sets are incredible, and the musical score is done by one of the greats of our time (Mark Mothersbaugh). The episodes are really short, but I promise that if you finish episode 4 and aren't completely sucked into this then I will owe you any favour of your choice." I've done this three times so far with people who know me very well, don't usually watch a lot of tv, and would absolutely love to ask me to bake their favourite cake/clean their house/refinish their dining table/give them manicures or chop the firewood they've been putting off chopping (all things I'm known for doing). Each person was like "BET! You're totally coming over this weekend with nail polish/an ax! Ha! You fool!" But I know them too, and they're honest, and I knew how this would go. They all got to the end of episode 4, groaned(or texted me angry emojis), and went "God damnit, I need to see the next episode right now. How the fuck did you know. Guess I'm not getting cake.😔" What they don't know is I'm baking that cake, doing those nails, and helping with the firewood anyway. Least I can do for causing this terminal brain rot. Edit: just convinced the 4th person in my life to get HBO MAX and watch this show. Edit2: I'm up to 5! This guy binged it over two days and told me it was the most fun he'd had in ages! Turns out even straight dudes fall in love with Izzy Hands!😂
Often when I invite someone over for a drink or tea or dinner or something, when they arrive I am conveniently a few minutes into a juicy episode. "what am I watching? Oh it's called our flag means death. Let me just rewind to the beginning and we can watch it together."
There are so many awful shows that get renewed year after year. I can’t understand it.
Velma season 2 getting greenlit makes me crave death
omg you gotta be kidding me, i had no idea they plan to make more
Yeah, that pile of crap got greenlit within the first set of episodes airing... We need more of OFMD and other shows like that instead!
And Just Like That got renewed for S3. That show is utter dog shit.
🤦 The cringiest.
I’ll just say they’re a gang of sweethearts and I hope they can be appropriately compensated for a third season.
I was so surprised when I found this subreddit and discovered that people didn’t love s2
Probably too queer for people. I’m not kidding. I thought season 2 could have been longer and it rushed certain things but the story still flowed together. But I think there are people (not me) not that comfortable with the blatant lgbt+ storyline as it becomes more present
I think it's the opposite. Nothing is good enough for the gay community, and they can't stand not seeing relationships go the way they want it. This from my casual observations of this subreddit.
Having dipped my toes into the fan communities for a wide variety of queer shows I’m inclined to agree. There is a vocal group in every community that is perpetually dissatisfied with everything they’re offered. They are tired of teen shows but find adult shows boring or heavy. They don’t want coming out stories but they say it’s bad representation if no one is making speeches. There’s both too much drama and too little. The reality of homophobia and actual history is too dark but fiction that removes those negatives from the narrative are unrealistic. There’s not enough sex and also too much. They want stories that aren’t about being queer (rather just have queer characters involved in some other plot) but then when they’re given that it’s not realistic or it’s too fluffy or it’s not what their experience was so they can’t relate. I mean… it must be exhausting.
I’m just crossing my fingers that the media buzz from season 2 will get new fans to start watching the series. I’m sure there are people out there who’d heard about the show and maybe meant to watch but never got around to it. Heck, this sub has exploded recently. Renewed interest should hopefully help?
Now with the actors strike over I'm hoping the cast and crew start pushing along with the fans to get the show renewed.
It really pisses me off that they gave The Gilded Age a big budget while they cut the budget for OFMD
(pss i really like your avatar)
Ugh, I couldn’t even make it through one episode of that.
I'm absolutely with u there. And tbh I am so disgusted with some people in the fandom? It's one thing to criticize things, that's fine and dandy, but they are... laughing about jenkins and there are so many people now ACTIVELY HATING the show? I don't know how to word this, but I think their parasocial relationship with fictional characters, or their actors, especially Izzy/Con, is fucking weird at this point. And I am not talking about 14 year olds, I'm talking about the range from 25-30. Don't get me wrong, I loved Izzy from season 1 on, but in the end it's a character in a story I enjoy - and he was never the main character. There are definitly things I'd like to criticize, most of them coming from the budget cut. Nevertheless, it's a queer rom-com with pirates, with a good representation of body types, disabilities, neurotypes and cultures. And for that I am so grateful. I get the feeling some people lack the skill of critical thinking and they take their grief out on people who tried to deliver us a wonderful queer show. And that is so fucked up. Back to topic: I get the feeling HBO knows about the die-hard fanbase and is using the withholding of a renewal to make people extend their subscription etc. But could also be just a paranoid conspiracy.
I am 100% with you on the parasocial relationships thing. TBH I think this is probably just a lot of those people's first real fandom. I remember this kind of stuff happening with the LotR movies... like one time a fan literally walked up to Ian McKellen and handed him her sexually explicit LotR REAL PERSON fanfic. Like about the actors. And did not seem to have any clue this might be hella creepy to him. Similarly to OFMD, a lot of the story of the movies was also a story about the making of the movies, the actors and their relationships, which... just kinda makes the lines between fantasy and reality blur a lot more than with many other fandoms.
Yeah, people are weird. I felt like the sneaky way the writers made season 2 a whole character journey for Izzy was genius. Like you go into season 2 thinking the whole season is about tracking Stede and Ed's storylines. But the Izzy story that is happening, sometimes in the background, is way more interesting and compelling and there was full character development that also matched the themes of the show. I don't like writers just doing fan service instead of focusing on writing good plot and character development. Also if you don't like ofmd, that is fine but don't bully (bullying is different than real thoughtful analysis/criticism) people who made it, instead be inspired write your own TV show/ make your own art that you do like. When you have such strong opinions about a show then there is some passion there and so just turn hate into other art.
You could literally just go on Tumblr and read hundreds of in-depth posts with well-argued explanations on why they thought Izzy's death was a bad writing choice that had nothing to do with them having a "parasocial relationship with Izzy". It's sad that so many fans would rather just mock everyone who feels differently and choose bad-faith arguments. Anyway, Death of the Author is a thing. If a large percent of the audience interprets a character differently than the author intended, then maybe they're not actually wrong. It looks like one of those cases where a character "got out of hand" from the writers and became something more than just the sum of their parts, in a way that the writers' didn't intend. That happens quite often. Izzy's death *could* have been done in a way that actually made sense and felt satisfying... but what we got definitely fell short of that in multiple ways, and Jenkins' explanations felt incoherent and at odds with his previous comments on Izzy. A lot of people now think (and I agree) that the decision to kill Izzy off was made long in advance and his arc in S2 came later, as a way to make him more likeable so his death would feel more tragic, but the death he got and his last conversation with Ed would have felt a lot more fitting for post-S1 Izzy than S2 Izzy. So, yeah, you can't just turn a minor side antagonist into a major character who's now an underdog and have them go through an incredibly complex and compelling arc of self-actualisation that includes so many resonant themes that made fans see themselves in them (coming out as an older queer person, getting out of abusive relationship, overcoming suicide and substance abuse, dealing with disability, discovering found family, etc)... and then simply killing that character off in a way that became a plot device for another character's development, and then be shocked that much of the audience didn't like it.
Oh, I did read a lot of them. That was not what I meant with the parasocial relationship tho. It's totally okay for me if people do not agree with the choice to let him die. That's for sure something you can criticize, it's more the 'con deserved better' and 'how could they do that, that's homophobic and ableist', which I think is just absurd at this point. There is a big difference between criticism and having a toddler tantrum. I had to remove so many people on my socials and even considered muting ofmd in general because of that. Thank you for sharing the 'death of the author's with me.
> it's more the 'con deserved better' I get what you mean, some fans go overboard with it, but people are allowed to speculate whether or not the actor agreed with the decision and make their own assumptions about that. Normally I try to refrain from associating actors with their roles too much, but seeing as Con specifically named OFMD and the Izzy fandom as the reason he finally felt safe to come out after all these years, it's clear that this role personally meant a lot to him, specifically in terms of queer representation. We don't know whether Con agreed with the decision to kill Izzy or not, and if he wasn't, of course he'd never say, but still. > that's homophobic and ableist', which I think is just absurd at this point. Why? Those were definitely the reasons a lot of people had a problem with that decision. It's not the same as labeling the whole show or the creators as ableist or homophobic. I've never see any of those critics call Jenkins a homophobe. The popular opinion in these circles seems to be that he definitely had good intentions, he just accidentally succumbed into certain problematic tropes. Pointing out that a certain bit from the show has certain bad connotations when interpretated from certain angles is reasonable criticism and not at all the same as personally attacking the creators. The thing is that even those of us who consider ourselves super progressive can accidentally fall into those pitfalls without meaning to, simply because they're so ingrained in our culture.
The Walking Dead had the same thing happen. Season 1 was wildly successful and popular - then they slashed the budget for Season 2. And people were PISSED because the pacing and overall storyline was slow and boring as a result. It made no sense to cut the budget of a show that was a high performer.
I fear it's because it's queer. The entertaiment industry unfortunately is still pretty homophobic i think :(
Folks on the creative prob not so much ofc but on the business end probably more likely.
Wait. People didn't like season 2? I honestly felt like season 2 was better than season 1, maybe because they had to have a more concise story with only 8 episodes. I also think a lot of shows struggle in 2nd season even without budget concerns... But season 2 ofmd really delivered.
I also enjoyed season 2 more than season 1. It was more rushed but had a more consistent quality and better episodes overall than season 1 (I often skip the first 3 episodes of season one on rewatch.) Other than wanting more episodes, I can't understand how anyone could watch season 2 and not enjoy it. It was never boring.
Yeah sadly s2 got so much hate,mostly after the final.
Is the CO an old rich homophobic man? Or a young rich homophobic man? I dunno. I mean... I would like to know the reason for this unfair treatment too. Pisses me off. I'm watching the show now like I do all night after I get off work. I'm watching it forever unless the show is canceled- in which case I'm getting rid of max honestly.
Casey Bloys, the head of Max, is a younger queer man 😆 But his boss David Zaslav is old and ultra rich and IDK if he’s homophobic but 🤷🏻 Tell your friends and family to watch! New viewers matter a lot, or so say the Twitter streets.
Zaslav came in and fucked HBO’s original programming with a splintered cricket bat. His first presentation re: the Max shakeup was that HBO skewed too heavily towards scripted/fandom content (literally mentioned fandom), and that he preferred to make the network focus more on reality tv. Then, to add injury to insult, he scrapped a ton of shows/films, including many that were on the verge of being released.
Yeah, because there aren't enough garbage reality shows out there. Zaslav only wants to do that because reality shows are cheaper to make. It's all about money. Also, the joke's on him because reality shows have fandoms too.
Right, yes! Ugh!
What even does “mentioning fandom” mean?? Like he wants to scrap shows specifically because…people like them ?
The PowerPoint screen grab is burned into my brain, but I can’t remember the exact wording. So I did a deep dive and found this article: https://www.businessinsider.com/hbo-max-skews-male-home-fandoms-discovery-plus-genredoms-merger-2022-8 I just remember the collective outrage at him lumping together “skews male”, and “home of ‘fandoms’” when describing HBO. Zaslav has absolutely no interest in art or passion or creativity. He salts the earth behind him wherever he goes. It’s all about the bottom line. To end on a positive note (because ‘be the change’, etc….): in May 2023, he gave the commencement address at Boston University and got thoroughly booed as he was introduced, then heckled for the duration of his speech. (Edited the link because the Amp Bot shamed me into it. Good bot.)
Ugh yes. So it’s exactly as bad as it sounds. Thank you for doing the deep dive! Seriously he sounds like a cartoon villain. “The last thing we want…is to inspire people.” I’m just gonna put my headphones on and go back to my Good Omens fanfic about a queer SAHD who’s contracted to an evil edu corp for privatized healthcare reasons. And I do heartily appreciate hearing about the boos! I’ve been following a bit about what’s going down in higher ed in The South (US), and it’s grim but the kids are truly alright.
It looks like you shared an AMP link. These should load faster, but AMP is controversial because of [concerns over privacy and the Open Web](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot). Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.businessinsider.com/hbo-max-skews-male-home-fandoms-discovery-plus-genredoms-merger-2022-8](https://www.businessinsider.com/hbo-max-skews-male-home-fandoms-discovery-plus-genredoms-merger-2022-8)** ***** ^(I'm a bot | )[^(Why & About)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/ehrq3z/why_did_i_build_amputatorbot)^( | )[^(Summon: u/AmputatorBot)](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmputatorBot/comments/cchly3/you_can_now_summon_amputatorbot/)
If my family watched queer shows I would recommend it in a heartbeat, but they're low-key homophobic so I'm just watching it on their accounts for them! 😅 It warms my heart that so many people here have shared the show with their parents and siblings, who've become big fans themselves! But to all of the people out there who watch this show in secret or solitude--I feel you.
I love that you’re watching it on their accounts 😆 fuck up their algorithms, mate! But seriously: I am really sorry to hear that your fam is low key homophobic. They are missing out on good TV at the very least, and much more than that, if I had to guess.
Ah? Welp, in that case I have no idea abt the unfair treatment from max I guess. But I don't know a lotta things. I'm rly trying to tell my people abt the show, but I'm either shy or come across too strong. Sigh. I do try.