5 Awesome Cases of The Internet Owning The Mainstream Media
#2.
Internet Forums vs. Dan Rather
A series of memos known as the Killian documents were released by an "expert" (take note of quotation marks, they'll become important later) to CBS News officials, who used them to put together a potentially politically devastating story critical of George Bush's service in the Air National Guard right before the 2004 Presidential Election. CBS thought they had it all. This is the kind of story that takes down careers. This is the kind of story that knocks the reigning power on its ass and changes things forever. And it did exactly that. It just did it to Dan Rather instead of George Bush.
CBS's problem was that the documents in question were what is politely referred to as "a pack of barely concealed lies." Where previously it could have taken months to discount the validity of said documents, thus allowing the damage to be done for the impending election, Internet forums and bloggers were able to call bullshit within mere hours of its release.
While there were all sorts of problems with the document, the one that played to the Internet's strengths was the typography: The formatting, which was supposed to have been from an early 70s typewriter, looked suspiciously like the default settings in Mircrosoft Word.
The "original" document compared with the default settings in Microsoft Word. FAAAAAAAAKE!
CBS eventually admitted to shoddy journalism once they realized their only other option was a Bill Gates time travel conspiracy. Several people lost their jobs, and one of the most esteemed news anchors of all time had to live out his remaining days knowing that a bunch of Internet Cowboys derailed his entire career, probably without ever putting on pants.
#1.
The Internet Might Just Force Hollywood to Make ... Good Movies
It seems the prevalence of (you guessed it) Twitter is putting pressure on Hollywood's age-old tradition of green-lighting any script that's title ends in a number or that can be described using the words "heart-warming" or "Will Smith." It used to be that if a movie sucked, word of mouth would get out in a week or so and your movie would tank... after the public had bought a few million tickets on opening weekend.
Word of mouth, much like herpes in a hot tub, inevitably spread. But it took time. And that buffer zone used to allow even the crappiest of Police Academy sequels to survive through their opening weekend, before everybody met at the water cooler on Monday to talk about how this one didn't even have Steve Guttenberg. And that was still long enough for the movie to rake in more money than you will ever see in your lifetime.
If you could harvest the fury generated from that statement, you could use it to power a city.
Now, Twitter users are changing all that. Because no matter how omnipresent your ad campaign is, armchair reviewers can now gauge the level of "fail" or "gay" in your movie and have it out to the masses in a matter of hours. Some of them probably have their 140 character reviews up before the opening credits have finished.
As a result, movie studios are seeing a massive drop in box office of crappy movies, not after the first week, but after the first day. The disappointing Jack Black/ Michael Cera comedy Year One is a great example. When it hit theaters in June of 2009 critics hated it, but fans lined up on opening night to see it anyway. It's Jack Black! It's Michael Cera! How can it not be awesome?
The numbers tell the story: First night, $8.5 million. Second, $6.5. Third, $4.7. It just kept plummeting from there, as vigilant tweeters spread the word Paul Revere-style, to keep their fellow citizens from getting screwed out of eight bucks.
Jesus Christ, has this... has this been an entire article about the Internet being used for good? What is this, Jaynestown?
For more ways the old guard is getting schooled, check out our recap of The Year The Geeks Took Over and our look at 6 Technologies That Don't Know They're Dead.
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"CBS's problem was that the documents in question were what is politely referred to as "a pack of barely concealed lies." Where previously it could have taken months to discount the validity of said documents, thus allowing the damage to be done for the impending election, Internet forums and bloggers were able to call bullshit within mere hours of its release." Yeah, they also called bullshit on another president's birth certificate, and many cite similar "concerns". Sometimes the mob speaks truth to power, sometimes it's just a pack of nutters.
ReplyOne thing lost in this cutely contained tale is that there is actually reasonable evidence that Bush did receive favored treatment, as did the scion of Lloyd Bentsen, iirc. Politicians use their pull to protect their own and corruption is everywhere.
I'm gonna be honest, I clicked this article for the Firefly picture, read to see which one referenced Firefly, sighed to myself as fond memories of the show came flooding back, then scrolled down to read Firefly comments without reading the rest of the Article, am I addicted?
Reply"reality shows about fat people dancing for Brett Michaels' anal virginity (or whatever)"
ReplyPlease, let's not give the reality show powers that be any more ideas...
It always makes me laugh when the news media gets taken over by people on Twitter. Walter Cronkite would be ashamed of what constitutes television "news" nowadays.
The Firefly movied flopped because it sucked and there are not enough Wheedonites (the nerds other nerds shun and mock for sucking) to make a good box office.
ReplyIt flopped for the same reason the show got cancelled. It didn't have enough fans. Not being a huge hit doesn't mean it sucks.
By that reasoning "Married With Children" was a great show. I tried watching that putrid whirlpool ignorance once. A bathtub of gin could not have dumbed me down enough to find that show amusing.
You left out the part where Firefly/Suckentity flopepd because it sucked and there aren't enough fat nerdy girls to make a decent Box Office.
ReplyOne of my favorite examples of Internet vs (or with, in this case) media (and everyone go ahead and hate all you want for this) is definitely MLP:FiM. I don't care if you like it or don't like it. The point is that Hasbro and Lauren Faust and crew recognize that they have a fanbase (because of the Internet) who has called themselves Bronies. Going so far as to even have an ad giving a shootout not just to bronies but to an obscure/un-named pony in the show who was named by the bronies. The Internet has done a lot of great things for media, and it'll only get better. If only the media can keep filtering the riff-raff out.
ReplyI'm pretty sure any such algorithm for filtering out riff-raff would have to include Bronies and other My Little Pony fans for me to consider it valid.
I don't know about the rest of the evidence regarding Bush's service, but the fonts in the illustration look different to me. Especially when you look at the "L"s lower case, Capital "G" and others. I hope there was more than that to go by.
ReplyActually, looking on Wikipedia, there were problems with Bush's service. Too bad the controversy buried the real questions in his records. Human nature: Here's the evidence, oops this one's wrong, but here's other evidence. Crap no one is listening anymore.
The problem was that there is no evidence that Bush served. OK, that's pretty much accepted, but then CBS decided to try to prove a negative, always difficult at best, and they forged documents to do it.
I liked Serenity, but I'd much, much rather have had another 2 seasons at least of Firefly.
Reply"Pictured: Nerd not thinking about how much he misses Firefly."
ReplyThe girl is a redhead, thus he is thinking it would be like banging Kaylee
A week ago I wouldn't have gotten the Jaynestown joke because I was in the dark about Firefly... my boyfriend is showing it to me and making me wait whole DAYS before I can see the movie (which he owns and I don't). His p***y argument was he had to wait YEARS to see the movie. Psh, he should have waited like I did.
ReplyRather deliberately tried to topple a sitting President during a time of war. He committed treason and should have been executed for it.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesSo half of the Republican Party should be tried for treason for their "birther" behavior over the past three years? We were still "during a time of war" in Afghanistan and Iraq.
If it's treason to undermine a Presidency during wartime, we can count on every President to do what he can to make wartime permanent.
The Constitution defines 'treason' narrowly for a reason.
No war was declared, so thus, no war!
i touched the jpeg
Replyyour not alone
It's a valid point that the internet can make or break a movie's reputation, but as it has been seen several times over; bad publicity is still publicity. When people are in a frenzy over whether twilight or the new transformers sucked or was great, it'll make bystanders want to see it so they can join in.
ReplyThumbs up if you clicked on this article because of the Firefly pic.
ReplyI liked Year One. I grew up in the church, so Bible humor always gets me.
ReplyI liked it too. It was campy, and not worth watching in theaters, but it was also very funny at times.
Regarding the CBS/Rather incident, what the media should have reported with more space was that the general's secretary (Colonel?) said that the purported document was what he would have said, even thought that was a fake document. The original documents were destroyed by Bush people when he was running for president.
ReplyThe incident goes down as one of Karl Rove's most clever escapades.
Year one: "Я rated" for retarded.
ReplyHow'd you do the backwards R? Is that Cyrillic?
^ Surely there are some koRn fans in here.
All I have to say is, good. I'll keep my 8 bucks and buy a book instead.
ReplyI own Brett Michaels' anal virginity. Got it on Ebay.
ReplySo is mine.
#1 is completely invalid, there's more sequels/remakes in the Hollywood pipeline than ever. If that's going to be your number one, you need to back it up with more than one movie example. The internet bombed the hell out of Transformers and Twilight as well and they aren't exactly hurting, now are they?
ReplyI don't think the audiences Transformers and Twilight are going for - kids ages 10-15 - really give a s**t what some sweaty 35 year old thinks about how Optimus Prime was so much cooler in some crap 80's cartoon designed to sell toys.