The campaign to get Loona's label to release them from their abusive contracts, by boycotting (and therefore denying the label money) until the label agreed to reasonable terms with the members, succeeded.
I think that followed classic boycott dynamics: if you can prove to a company that you control their supply of dollars, and they can get it back by agreeing to reasonable demands ("stop being abusive in contract negotiations"), they will often back down.
Older:
Very famously, Star Trek (the original series) got a third season due to fan campaigning. And Star Trek: The Motion Picture got produced because Roddenberry pointed to the existence of the fandom as proof of marketability.
Gates McFadden was removed from ST:TNG for season 2 by the preference of Roddenberry, and reinstated for season 3 due to very clear opinions by fans who wanted her back.
So, sometimes execs listen to fans, which, well, aren't all businesspeople supposed to listen to their customers? "The customer is always right in matters of taste", right? It's actually an aberration to do something else.
When the fandom represents the majority customer opinion, and the fandom has a majority opinion, going against it is a "we don't want money" choice, which you would not expect a profit-oriented producer to make.
Obviously some fan campaigns demand too much in too much detail, or demand the impossible, and the producers promptly disregard that. Some fan campaigns are dismissed as unrepresentative of the general market.
But the Star Trek producers knew that their fandom did represent their market, and knew how to tell whether they were looking at general fan opinion vs. a minority view. So of course they made the more marketable choice and brought McFadden back, right?
Sometime in between those dates:
I've actually been present for a group preparing a spinoff from Doctor Who (K-9) who were market-testing their ideas at fan conventions. They weren't sure how their concepts would go over with Doctor Who fans, who they wanted to attract. Literally everyone said "Are you hiring John Leeson?!?". NOBODY wanted any other voice actor for the robot dog! They had not been planning to do so. I watched the producers leaving the convention looking at each other saying "I guess we have to hire John Leeson!" Leeson later thanked the fans for giving him continuous work in his late career by repeatedly insisting to producers that he was the One True Voice of K-9 (even though there *was a second voice actor* for K-9 in the original series)!
So if the fandom (a) acts in a unified fashion and (b) demands something clear and simple and straightforward to do, producers will typically go along. Because they live in the same economy as we do. They want the fan dollar. If the fan demand is unified simple, clear, and easy to implement, it would be *odd* to not go along.
It's only if appeasing the fans becomes more complicated than "hire John Leeson" or "bring back Gates McFadden" that they go "not worth appeasing the fans".
Well—there was the Young Justice revival. I actually did a giant writeup about the fan-effect on an earlier blog, which I'll DM to you if you're interested.
But here's the short version.
In like 2010 the guy who created the cartoon Gargoyles in the 1990s launch a DC superhero show on Cartoon Network. It was surprisingly good, and it massed a cult following. After Season 2 it was summarily cancelled to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. There were all the usual online petitions, &c, but to no effect.
The thing about the creator (Weisman) is that he was kind of ahead of the curve in engaging with fans of his show online. There was a website where he'd post his answers to fans' questions about Gargoyles in the mid-1990s, and apparently he answered MOST of them. He's really engaged with and receptive to his core fanbase.
I don't know/can't recall too many of the details about the fan campaign(s) or how much of a role it/they played in WB/HBO/whoever they are now's decision to relaunch the show on DC's short-lived streaming service, but Weisman has more than once credited the revival to YJ's passionate cult following.
For a number of reasons, the revival--well, it wasn't very good. But one glaring new issue was that early 2010s YJ was made for a general audience on a basic cable channel, whereas late 2010s-early 2020s YJ was made for the superfans. Before it was cancelled again, the last season practically had Young Justice Twitter in the writers' room. By that point I had aged WAY out of the thing (in spite of the awkward attempt at rebranding it from a TV-Y7 to a TV-14 affair) and was watching it just to gawk at how *weird* it had made itself.
Yes, if you search for "Serenity" you'll find the relevant section! It's there because fans were tasked with promotion and then punished when it didn't go as well as expected.
Very recent:
The campaign to get Loona's label to release them from their abusive contracts, by boycotting (and therefore denying the label money) until the label agreed to reasonable terms with the members, succeeded.
I think that followed classic boycott dynamics: if you can prove to a company that you control their supply of dollars, and they can get it back by agreeing to reasonable demands ("stop being abusive in contract negotiations"), they will often back down.
Older:
Very famously, Star Trek (the original series) got a third season due to fan campaigning. And Star Trek: The Motion Picture got produced because Roddenberry pointed to the existence of the fandom as proof of marketability.
Gates McFadden was removed from ST:TNG for season 2 by the preference of Roddenberry, and reinstated for season 3 due to very clear opinions by fans who wanted her back.
So, sometimes execs listen to fans, which, well, aren't all businesspeople supposed to listen to their customers? "The customer is always right in matters of taste", right? It's actually an aberration to do something else.
When the fandom represents the majority customer opinion, and the fandom has a majority opinion, going against it is a "we don't want money" choice, which you would not expect a profit-oriented producer to make.
Obviously some fan campaigns demand too much in too much detail, or demand the impossible, and the producers promptly disregard that. Some fan campaigns are dismissed as unrepresentative of the general market.
But the Star Trek producers knew that their fandom did represent their market, and knew how to tell whether they were looking at general fan opinion vs. a minority view. So of course they made the more marketable choice and brought McFadden back, right?
Sometime in between those dates:
I've actually been present for a group preparing a spinoff from Doctor Who (K-9) who were market-testing their ideas at fan conventions. They weren't sure how their concepts would go over with Doctor Who fans, who they wanted to attract. Literally everyone said "Are you hiring John Leeson?!?". NOBODY wanted any other voice actor for the robot dog! They had not been planning to do so. I watched the producers leaving the convention looking at each other saying "I guess we have to hire John Leeson!" Leeson later thanked the fans for giving him continuous work in his late career by repeatedly insisting to producers that he was the One True Voice of K-9 (even though there *was a second voice actor* for K-9 in the original series)!
So if the fandom (a) acts in a unified fashion and (b) demands something clear and simple and straightforward to do, producers will typically go along. Because they live in the same economy as we do. They want the fan dollar. If the fan demand is unified simple, clear, and easy to implement, it would be *odd* to not go along.
It's only if appeasing the fans becomes more complicated than "hire John Leeson" or "bring back Gates McFadden" that they go "not worth appeasing the fans".
Well—there was the Young Justice revival. I actually did a giant writeup about the fan-effect on an earlier blog, which I'll DM to you if you're interested.
But here's the short version.
In like 2010 the guy who created the cartoon Gargoyles in the 1990s launch a DC superhero show on Cartoon Network. It was surprisingly good, and it massed a cult following. After Season 2 it was summarily cancelled to much wailing and gnashing of teeth. There were all the usual online petitions, &c, but to no effect.
The thing about the creator (Weisman) is that he was kind of ahead of the curve in engaging with fans of his show online. There was a website where he'd post his answers to fans' questions about Gargoyles in the mid-1990s, and apparently he answered MOST of them. He's really engaged with and receptive to his core fanbase.
I don't know/can't recall too many of the details about the fan campaign(s) or how much of a role it/they played in WB/HBO/whoever they are now's decision to relaunch the show on DC's short-lived streaming service, but Weisman has more than once credited the revival to YJ's passionate cult following.
For a number of reasons, the revival--well, it wasn't very good. But one glaring new issue was that early 2010s YJ was made for a general audience on a basic cable channel, whereas late 2010s-early 2020s YJ was made for the superfans. Before it was cancelled again, the last season practically had Young Justice Twitter in the writers' room. By that point I had aged WAY out of the thing (in spite of the awkward attempt at rebranding it from a TV-Y7 to a TV-14 affair) and was watching it just to gawk at how *weird* it had made itself.
Definitely interested!
Your note on how it shifted from being for a general audience to the hardcore fans makes me think of a lot of brands of today....
Is the link to your article about Firefly correct? I don't see anything about it in the linked article.
Yes, if you search for "Serenity" you'll find the relevant section! It's there because fans were tasked with promotion and then punished when it didn't go as well as expected.
Oh right, I forgot that was the name of the Firefly movie!