Hollywood Is Losing the Battle Against Online Trolls

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Megalith

Megalith

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The movie industry is blaming 4chan and reddit users for ruining the reputation of their movies with organized campaigns such as mass downvoting, which results in dismal scores at hotspots such as IMDb and YouTube months before a film’s release. It’s entirely possible, however, that Hollywood is merely churning out garbage at record rates, and the average film aficionado is fighting back. I am also damn sure that marketing departments have tons of shills who artificially boost the interest for flicks, so it all balances out in the end.

In 2016, the all-female reboot of Ghostbusters became a magnet for a downvoting campaign from 4chan and Reddit users. They organized to give hundreds of thousands of "thumbs down" to the film's YouTube marketing materials — its first official trailer, the video of its theme song, even a clip of the cast on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Sony began releasing the film's trailers on Facebook, which has no "dislike" button, but by then the trolls had taken hold of the narrative. It's impossible to say whether they made an impact on the box office, but in the end, Ghostbusters lost an estimated $70 million.
 
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Hollywood in a nutshell.
 
I saw this happen in real time with Ghost Recon Wildlands, the open beta got trashed and reviews of it where awful unless you have 4 people to play with and then it was ok (and imho mostly justified). Shortly before release it was like the goon squad came out and reviews did a 180, I've never seen a turn around so fast. Marketing was strong with that one.
 
Hey, Movie Industry; Adapt or Die. Good Movies finds their audience. Entertaining movies find their audience. Stop doing SJW remakes of mediocre movies and trying to tell me they're great and I'm just some kind of ________ist. Did anyone sit through more than 10 minutes of the Ghostbusters remake, HOLY SHIT was that terrible!
 
So, instead of taking legitimate criticisms to heart they're just going to label everything as "trolling" now? I saw my fair share of what could be considered trolling in the traditional sense and hateful rhetoric against the Ghostbusters reboot, but most of the top-rated comments where they were allowed on Youtube were very reasonable and spot on most of the time.
 
Aireoth said:
I saw this happen in real time with Ghost Recon Wildlands, the open beta got trashed and reviews of it where awful unless you have 4 people to play with and then it was ok (and imho mostly justified). Shortly before release it was like the goon squad came out and reviews did a 180, I've never seen a turn around so fast. Marketing was strong with that one.
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Entertaining and gorgeous(but not Witcher 3 Touissant gorgeous) but terribly repetitive.
 
DustMite said:
I am inclined to agree with this. Hollywood has been churning out crap for years, IMO.
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Absolutely, much of Hollywoods talent has turned to TV series as they can take more risks and be creative, movies almost require a guarantee they will make $X to be green lit. Hence all the remakes and rehashes.
 
I do or don't watch movies or TV content based on ratings on any site and those that do are doing themselves a disservice. If I watch something its because it interests me, I could give a rats ass about its ratings from others or trolls.
 
i wonder how many times the movie industry has suffered from an own goal?

multi-billion dollar companies got feels too.

just think of poor acti-blizzard with their massively downvoted COD rehash.

i think that acti-blizzard and hollywood should have a good cry session.

or at least a safe space.
 
that was an interesting read. but one thing i have never really done myself is paying attention to review sites and their ratings.

one thing some of the people in the article should also remember, negative publicity is still publicity. just like when religious groups make a big stink about some book or movie, it draws even more attention

and, as someone who worked for years literally and figuratively in hollywood, a lot of what they produce is pure crap. they simply make more money producing cheap "reality" tv crap then can producing quality scripted shows. I have seen the numbers and its hard to knock then on that as they ARE a business
 
How is it trolling? It's politically motivated (Armenian movie). I feel like the word trolling gets thrown around a lot. Now if someone is implying the government did it, I'd be happy they're wasting resources on movies about the past that we won't prosecute or do anything about anyways.

Ghostbusters, and Amy Schumer both didn't appeal to people. I didn't watch her new stand up special but Louis CKs was trash IMO. I gave it a thumbs down because it wasn't good and the fiancé hated it. Point being, if you make shit, you deserve shit. The rating system (1-10 [IMDB], up/down [netflix], or YouTube) people will tell you what they think. Much like here, sometimes without RTFA.
 
Read the article. They start out with legitimate concerns in the case of the movie The Promise, where the Armenian genocide is hotly disputed by the Turks and will do anything to either avoid talking about it or delegitimizing the history surrounding it (i.e. politically motivated). However, it then goes on to paint a broader generalized picture to direct blame away from their own poor decisions to the "hacker known as 4chan" boogeyman, using the much maligned Ghostbusters reboot and Amy Schumer Netflix special. NickJames' post above perfectly summarizes Hollywood's attitude, in my opinion. I have yet to find any analysis directly showing the causation of lower box office results being low review scores by users or critics.
 
I am much more likely to listen to my friends and colleagues when choosing entertainment than IMDB.

There are some movies that are rated horribly that I really like.
 
Are we really surprised when a Turkish right-wing group wants history to go away?

Turkey already has a bureau of alternative facts, so you know, not much you can do to fix that mess. They're going to shift a presidential republic as well, the least democratic democracy. Liberty is dying, the Turkish right is cheering. They choose oppression because they assume they will be the oppressors.

As for the stuff about Ghostbusters, it was rated down aggressively and it was an semi-organised effort. That's 4chan though, they hate women, brown people, red people, black people, yellow people, white people, plaid people, almost everything actually. 4chan hates grown-ups most of all. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Ghostbusters was a pretty bad film.
 
Sucks for the Armenian genocide movie folks, but I don't think it's just an alt-right conspiracy that's attacking Schumer unless they're gaming reddit, which is the only reason I know who Schumer is.
 
fadedlogic said:
Did anyone sit through more than 10 minutes of the Ghostbusters remake, HOLY SHIT was that terrible!
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Yes, I did. Watched the whole thing. Laughed a few times. Would have been PISSED if I paid to see it in the theater. It was a pile of rubbish from start to finish. And, I love Melissa McCarthy and Kristen Wiig. The movie was just shit, and they were HUGE on pushing the woman thing (which I support, but you can really tell when it's forced, and in this case it was. It ruined the movie).

I think Netflix would be an easy one, though. You can vote when you've watched the movie/episode. You can't vote if you haven't watched it on their service.

IMDB, etc., who knows. I know that some people go just to downvote/upvote something without watching it and only being part of the 'la resistance!' or whatever. But, I think at some point it backfires. If I see a movie that is generally rated 1/10, I'm going to wonder about it. And - I really don't care what others review it as. I want to watch movies that I like, not what some internet asshat likes. I like some dumb ass movies.
 
If it looks interesting, and I have time, I watch it. Otherwise, I have other things to do. I don't think I have ever put any stock in any review that did not come from a close friend that shared similar interest. Even then, we may disagree.
 
I don't know why everyone complains about Hollywood. I loved their Skyrim movie, and their Fallout movies. Oh wait, those were games. Never mind, they suck.
 
No problem. It's Hollywood. The'll get the government to pass Draconian laws. So many will be charged, arrested and prosecuted without proof the court system will be clogged with them.

We've never seen that before, have we?
 
Guys, free speech is a problem... Your opinion matters only if you've conducted an in-depth analysis of the topic... And your opinion needs to be vetted by a board of University professors to determine if you've conducted enough research on the topic. If they find that you haven't, your speech license will be revoked for a year. :)
 
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