The next speaker in this session at the Social Media & Society conference in Glasgow is Tess Arnold, whose focus is on fan responses on social media to the ‘failed finales’ of popular TV shows.
Such failures may be due in part to the creators or showrunners of such shows, who are built up as television auteurs who are featured in entertainment media nearly as much as the cast themselves; to the show’s fans, who engage in textual poaching to create their own fan fiction, fan art, and other derivative content that celebrates and extends the show’s participatory culture; and/or to social media, which provide a key space for such participatory culture and are actively employed by creators, fans, production companies, advertisers, and others for such engagement.
This creates a complex dynamic between these elements, which cross-influence each other; show finales provide the extreme point of such dynamics. Pre-finale discussions on social media are full of anticipation; post-finale discussions often express disappointment or blame, and can substantially affect the series’ reputation and its renewal for production.
Fans control this public-facing conversation, and can enter into a kind of mob mentality, but finales can also make audiences realise they’re not in control of these shows, of course, and this realisation can then taint their enjoyment of an entire show.
