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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36379 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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At some point, the viewership numbers make them something of an institution, rather than a garage-band operation. They feel compelled to include a female co-host. The show then reaches cultural eclipse.

Probably to expand the audience reach. Seems like a common-sense tactic - bring on people for different demographics to identify with easier.

Probably to expand the audience reach. Seems like a common-sense tactic - bring on people for different demographics to identify with easier

Maybe that's the idea. But when every organism that emerges to dominate a certain niche looks like a crab, it's probably unwise to genetically engineer yourself away from those traits, even if it makes sense on paper.

I don't think demographics are the concern, personalities are. I think most people can look past a person's outside to see if they fit in.

Who exactly was complaining (are they always the same people? Just a few people focusing on the same thing?

But does it work? I find it just as plausible that messing with the dynamic by adding a 'novel' member could also lose you some of the existing audience. And if that thought occurs to me, I'm sure it occurs to anybody whose livelihood depends on those analytics. And if a popular podcast or show were to still increase on popularity after the new member's addition, is that vindication or irrelevance?

Popularity is a fickle thing, and I have no idea how you would be able to tease an assessment from all the available data, given the number of factors blowing around in the wind. But I have always found the 'common sense' argument of "Duh, add a woman to grow the audience!" lacking in demonstration. It's so 'obvious' that you wonder why so many companies didn't snatch the free money earlier.

"Common sense" is perhaps the wrong choice, I think "intuitive" would be better. That is to say, we imagine that people might encounter some resistance to engaging with something if they don't feel an obvious relationship to it, but that's not always the case. Media like F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Dragon Ball, How I Met Your Mother, Naruto, etc. have tremendous cross-racial popularity, and there's media with relatable demographics that fail despite that.

So it doesn't surprise me that media tries to widen demographic appeal on the basis that it might attract new followers, but I agree that it's not necessarily the cause of a show's success.

"Common sense" is perhaps the wrong choice, I think "intuitive" would be better. That is to say, we imagine that people might encounter some resistance to engaging with something if they don't feel an obvious relationship to it, but that's not always the case. Media like F.R.I.E.N.D.S, Dragon Ball, How I Met Your Mother, Naruto, etc. have tremendous cross-racial popularity, and there's media with relatable demographics that fail despite that.

I wouldn't characterize this as "intuitive" either, and I wouldn't characterize media like FRIENDS with its all-white cast or Dragon Ball with its primarily Japanese/alien/male characters as having characters where the audience has no "obvious relationship" to them. This only makes sense under the framing that having certain demographic characteristics in common with characters constitutes an "obvious relationship," I don't think it's either common sense or intuitive. Certainly many people assert it or something like it, but that's not the same thing as it being intuitive. I also think that "despite" in that last sentence doesn't belong there, as it implies that having relatable demographics would have some sort of positive effect on popularity, which is certainly not intuitive at the very least.

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