It's Tuesday, Go Home: The (Not)Thing About Twitter and Movies
On a day without much news, it should surprise no one that Twitter is once again on the lips of every entertainment journo and lord knows what else. Twitter will save us. Twitter will empower us. Twitter will even write your book for you and then you can tweet out for people to hype your own book!
Twitter is teh awesome!
Twitter also saved Inglourious Basterds over the weekend and it may even change the concept of marketing that Hollywood has painstakingly crafted over the years. Don't forget, Twitter even killed a studio film like Brüno but couldn't dent Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But the burning question I've got here is: where's the proof of this glorious trend?
Of course, it's always appros to claim whatever social media is big at the time will topple industry and gleefully write the grave stones of giants. They made the same claim that texting would redefine films, like idk my bff Jill? Twitter's sole use on film has been to provide continuous debate and an incredble marketing machine for indie directors.
There has yet to be any comparative proof or study showcasing that a negative reaction on Twitter, Facebook or even MySpace has legitimately caused the death of a film. Of course, these platforms are relatively new when compared to something like film, but to signal the death of film criticism when analysts and trade magazines become incredibly interested in a 140-character blast of "Basterds rulez lol" is idiotic. What sort of research can be held, aside from "what's trending" at the time on the right hand side? Even then, it's a grab-bag of pop culture dregs that most shouldn't even go near.
For the time being, it is impossible to base reactions off a tweet. In fact, it's downright baseless. Twitter ranks up there with IRC in terms of an Internet Tool that does nothing except let fanboys rant and self-promote. It is not a game changer in anything except for adding another head onto a Media Hydra to get links out there, establish connections and do god knows what else.
Or else it's entirely about paying off @RyanSeacrest. Which I am fine with doing.
Now go home.
-John Lichman
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