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Fandoms used to fly under the radar — now they have the power to keep TV shows alive
By Alyssa Meyers
Fandoms have been organizing significant campaigns to save the shows they love since “Roswell” was almost cancelled in 2000.
The rise of Twitter made doing so even easier for fans of more modern shows like “The Mindy Project” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”
The most successful campaigns demonstrate the monetary value of fandoms, according to media studies Ph.D Charlotte Howell.
Still, fandoms have made noticeable impacts on shows and movies in other ways.
Fandom. If you don’t associate with one yourself, you’ve at least heard the term by now. Once upon a time fandoms were niche communities of, well, fanatics, but now some of them have become so large and outspoken they’ve influenced the very nature of the content they rally around.
It started with “Roswell,” said Charlotte Howell, a media studies Ph.D. who teaches a class on fandom at Boston University.
“That was when fans really started to move past letter-writing campaigns and on to something more significant,” she said.
The show, which originally aired on The WB network, was supposed to be cancelled in 2000. But when fans of the hot-sauce-loving aliens rallied and shipped hundreds of bottles of Tabasco to the network to show their disapproval, executives reconsidered.
“[The campaign] immediately brought a smile to our face,” WB spokesman Brad Turrell told The New York Post at the time. “It was a pleasant surprise… to see people who are passionate about our programming.”
Then “Jericho” fans pulled off a similar stunt in 2007.
When CBS cancelled the series, fans sent the network millions of peanuts — a reference to a line in the show — until “Jericho” was renewed for another season.
“The Mindy Project” fandom was similarly outraged when Fox announced in 2015 that it would be cancelling their show. By then fandoms had the power of social media on their side, so they took to Twitter to express their dismay.
In less than a month Hulu announced they’d picked up “The Mindy Project” for a fourth season. Wired called it “proof that fans rule TV now.”
Three years later, something very similar happened with “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” another Fox show that was cancelled after five seasons. There was such an outcry from the fandom on Twitter that NBC picked the show up for a sixth season just one day after Fox cancelled it, according to Deadline.
The cast and crew even acknowledged the fandom’s impact when they shared the news via Twitter.
But these sort of fan campaigns only go so far, Howell said, because cancellation of shows is usually a financial decision.
If fans really want to be heard by the networks that produce the shows they love, they have to prove their monetary value, Howell said.
Take the “Chuck” fandom, for instance.
In 2009 NBC announced they were cancelling the show after two seasons. So fans, who knew Subway product placement was a major source of revenue for the network, exercised their purchasing power by buying Subway sandwiches and announcing they did so because of “Chuck.”
The campaign worked, although still NBC tried to cancel the show numerous times after that and eventually succeeded.
“What the Save ‘Chuck’ campaign really showed is that fans matter, but they only matter so much as they are an identifiable, engaged market for the media industry,” Howell said.
While fans can’t always save the day, especially when it comes to Netflix originals, fandoms leave their mark on shows and movies in other ways.
Shows like “Riverdale,” which is currently filming its fourth season for The CW, has paid homage to its fandom since season one, when characters first started regularly using fan slang. Jughead Jones (Cole Sprouse), for instance, has an entire monologue dedicated to dropping “ship” names from the show, which are typically only used by fans as shorthand to refer to relationships they support, or “ship.”
The show is also known for its frequent use of the term “endgame,” which fans use to mean a couple is meant to end up together.
"Actually, to clarify, Betty and Archie aren't dating, but they are endgame,” Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) tells new girl Veronica Lodge (Camilla Mendes) in the show’s pilot.
Speaking of endgame, in “Avengers: Endgame,” the MCU worked in a nod to the fandom with on-screen discussion of “America’s ass.”
Long before the film’s release, fans obsessed over Chris Evans’ butt. When Evans posted the Captain America promotional poster for “Endgame” a year before its release, he sparked a Twitter discussion thousands of comments long revolving around “The butt.”
So MCU executives gave the fans what they asked for.
“As far as I’m concerned, that’s America’s ass,” Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) tells Cap during one of many scenes where the heroes travel back in time and watch past versions of themselves in action.
“That is America’s ass,” Cap says several scenes later during an encounter with his past self.
People all over the world who laughed at that bit have the Marvel fandom to thank.