The impact of toxicity is on the person who harbors it. However, there is a real risk of infecting others with it, and the consequences can be bad.
You might be part of a toxic fandom, which can have far-reaching consequences, but there is nothing worse than losing the very thing you’re exposing yourself to toxicity for.
So, how exactly are you or your toxic fandom slowly (or rapidly) destroying your show?
Turning Off Others
Having numbers on your side has never been more important than now.
Unless your show is Wednesday or Stranger Things, you could always use more viewers. People discover shows in online spaces through interaction with other people.
Sometimes, someone finds themself in the middle of a fandom without any idea how they got there.
If your show has a great ship but the fandom is insufferable, then they will want to avoid being associated with that fandom as much as possible.
And since misery loves company, more awful fans will join the fandom, and the toxicity continues.
Many people can’t stand toxicity, and the show will lose fans who want to engage with it in good faith.
Viewership drops, and ratings go down, making the show ripe for cancelation.
Alienating Creatives
Cast and crews who work on great shows are always happy to wake up another day and do what they love.
Just like a toxic work environment can ruin someone’s desire to do the work, a toxic fandom has the same potential.
Why bother giving your everything to something that people will not engage with as you intended and will nitpick the worst parts?
Why bother offering your insight into your character if you’re an actor and risk being told to kill yourself? There’s a reason many actors leave social media.
Oliver Stark had to deactivate his Twitter account in the early days of the Buddie mania.
Everything he tweeted was wrongly read as Buddie-coded, and since he didn’t have control over what was written, fans turned on him.
Nicholas Galitzine had to pull back heavily from anything Red, White & Royal Blue when it all became too much. His other projects could simply never measure up, and if he didn’t talk about the movie for one single day, it was over for him.
These are just two stories in our realm, but countless others exist.
Being blocked by someone on social media can happen, but it’s not a flex.
How insufferable do you have to be for someone who interacts with hundreds, if not thousands, of people daily to block you?
Very insufferable is how.
Alienating Allies
Journalists, Social Media Managers, and Publicists
The TV and film machines contain many moving parts. Fans are a small part of that, as are other groups.
The other moving part of the machine is journalists. Many TV journalists juggle multiple jobs, but they cover your show because they are genuine fans and want to share the joys with you.
But here’s the thing: they don’t have to.
Imagine an industry where there are hundreds of shows. Some shows are more popular than others, and covering TV is a numbers game.
Why would anyone choose to take on something guaranteed to expose them to a deluge of abuse when there are alternatives?
No matter how dedicated fans are, they can never get some places a journalist can.
You don’t have to wonder why your show has no publicity material despite the fandom begging for it. Or why there are no interviews.
There is someone whose tasks involve finding these materials and using them to publicize the show or film.
If someone needs to ask Young Royals‘ fans for permission before sharing publicity materials, your show is not for this world.
Why would someone choose to cover Young Royals when The Lincoln Lawyer is right there?
A social media manager is probably an intern who is learning on the job. If all they get is abuse, they’ll do the bare minimum and leave the account behind.
Newsflash: A social media manager does not have the ability to change anything about your show because all they do is monitor the social media and report back to their supervisor.
This is one way how small shows die. No one wants to risk on something small and toxic.
Executives and Other Suits
Executives are an important part of the show or movie; ultimately, they have the final say on what stays or goes.
To make a decision, they look at the numbers for certain shows and gauge that against several other things before delivering a verdict.
Among other things, they look at legitimate viewership, demographics, production costs, engagement, etc.
Social media engagement has become a considerable metric for shows and movies nowadays and they look at what the audience is reacting to.
Imagine being an executive and finding out a show attracts the worst people. The kind of people who will attack every actress who is cast on 9-1-1 because their character gets in the way of the Buddie utopia?
No network wants to be associated with misogyny, transphobia, or racism, and they will kick that show or film to the curb faster than a corporation after Pride Month ends.
Now imagine a niche show with a small but dedicated audience. Sadly, most of the audience is toxic, so actors are looking for every reason not to have to work on it anymore. Publicists and journalists couldn’t care less about publicizing it, and suits are not thrilled with the small crowd it has attracted.
Next thing you know, a Deadline article comes out announcing the unceremonious cancellation.
Any efforts to revive it fail partially because there are seven people in total and everyone else is happy it is canceled.
The Point Is…
It’s okay not to connect with what a writer or creator has written.
Before you watched their creation, they had a vision for it. The vision was good enough to pique your interest. But if that interest wanes, it is okay to admit that and drop it.
It’s not okay to attack them anywhere you can find them, from social media pages to real-life situations. No amount of weaponizing transphobic, racism and homophobia makes it okay.
If they are strong in their resolve, you won’t change their mind even if you have a genuine point.
But even if you do, that might not be a good thing. Everyone has the right to execute their vision; if they change it for anyone else, they’ve been robbed.
It’s Giving Entitled
If you read Eddie Diaz from 9-1-1 as being gay, the writers have no obligation to make that true.
Even if they do, they might not do the character justice because that’s not their vision, and writing the character with the new change might not be as interesting.
Not only did we miss out on good representation, but the show just became worse.
If someone else reads Eddie as being gay, that’s their prerogative and has no bearing on the story. You don’t have to call them names because you don’t like it. They don’t have the power to change the character, nor do you.
If someone thinks Lestat de Lioncourt from Interview with the Vampire is a fun character, they’re not racist for liking him.
You might have convinced yourself that Lestat treated Louis as a slave in 1900s America, and you might be able to prove that. However, you can’t prove that another person sees their relationship like that and cheers the enslaving dynamics.
That’s what we call reaching, and you’re really doing it.
This is how your fandom is killing your show.