Rotten Tomatoes removes Want To See percentages for films not released yet.

[PwrdOn]

If only it was so self driven. In reality we are continually steered towards specific groupings because algorithms are seeking to put us all into boxes that have easily predictable marketing potential. Social media exists to do this. That is its raison d'être. Then we act surprised when we get echo chambers because we don’t acknowledge these algorithms have this much power over our behaviour and opinions.

There's no sinister design behind the algorithms though, they are tailored only to predict what content you will want to see to keep you using the platform. The big social media companies don't have any kind of political agenda of their own, as long as you keep using their service and feeding them your personal data, they will keep recommending you whatever content you want to see, or at least their best guess of what that is.

[Kintor]

That legacy media usually made you sit through hours of content you had no interest in just to catch a snippet of what you did want to see is turning out in hindsight to be more a feature than a bug, because it exposed to you to a lot of ideas and topics that you would never have sought out on your own. The way that the internet lets you pick and choose exactly what you want to see means that over time, your interests get funneled into a narrower and narrower corridor, leaving you largely ignorant of what's going on in the wider world outside your chosen pigeonhole.

In all my life I've never heard such a backwards explanation of how the internet and the legacy media actually function. With the legacy media you can only watch what is shown to you, at a time of their choosing, if they decide to show it to you all. The internet changed all that, it's a communication system designed to survive a nuclear war, the exchange of information can't be stopped, disable one node of the net and that information will simply be rerouted. People now have the freedom to find new sources of information and that’s a shift in the balance of power the world hasn’t seen since the invention of the printing press.

Going back to the original purpose of this thread, it's a lesson that Disney would do well to understand with Rotten Tomatoes. As a website Rotten Tomatoes only had value as a node for information input by other users, both critics and the general audience. Censoring that information, preventing it from being uploaded and tweaking the algorithms, only diminishes the value of Rotten Tomatoes as a node but doesn't stop the flow of that information. Disney may find they have gained nothing when some new website they don’t control rises to replace Rotten Tomatoes. It will take time but users always shape the future of the net, not the likes of Disney.

[PwrdOn]

In all my life I've never heard such a backwards explanation of how the internet and the legacy media actually function. With the legacy media you can only watch what is shown to you, at a time of their choosing, if they decide to show it to you all. The internet changed all that, it's a communication system designed to survive a nuclear war, the exchange of information can't be stopped, disable one node of the net and that information will simply be rerouted. People now have the freedom to find new sources of information and that’s a shift in the balance of power the world hasn’t seen since the invention of the printing press.

Going back to the original purpose of this thread, it's a lesson that Disney would do well to understand with Rotten Tomatoes. As a website Rotten Tomatoes only had value as a node for information input by other users, both critics and the general audience. Censoring that information, preventing it from being uploaded and tweaking the algorithms, only diminishes the value of Rotten Tomatoes as a node but doesn't stop the flow of that information. Disney may find they have gained nothing when some new website they don’t control rises to replace Rotten Tomatoes. It will take time but users always shape the future of the net, not the likes of Disney.

It's true, the internet has put the entire repository of all human knowledge at the fingertips of anyone who wants to seek it out, but what exactly are we using it for? To talk about how it is being used as a tool to change the perception of a distinctly legacy media product, that is itself an adaptation of an even more primitive medium. It's great to talk about the potential of the internet to spread information and enlighten mankind, but that's just simply not what most people use it for, and the ways that people do use it often serve to limit their intellectual horizons rather than to broaden them.

[JKtheMac]

There's no sinister design behind the algorithms though, they are tailored only to predict what content you will want to see to keep you using the platform. The big social media companies don't have any kind of political agenda of their own, as long as you keep using their service and feeding them your personal data, they will keep recommending you whatever content you want to see, or at least their best guess of what that is.

I didn’t say there was a sinister design behind them. However we should reject them. There are also sinister uses for any tool devised by man. It also depends if you see marketing itself as sinister. Personally I am not a fan of marketing but I am a realist. I am also part of a European culture that believes in individuals being allowed to opt out of such things.

Our fragmented culture may very well be part of this phenomenon of marketing. Many people are espousing this view and have done for years. Unintended consequences are by their nature hard to predict and hard to notice happening.

P.S. Our laws ironically mean that as a Brit I am actually unable to read less established US media outlets whose response was to just ban IP addresses rather than allow GDPR preferences. That actually shields me from a lot of content.

[Kintor]

It's true, the internet has put the entire repository of all human knowledge at the fingertips of anyone who wants to seek it out, but what exactly are we using it for? To talk about how it is being used as a tool to change the perception of a distinctly legacy media product, that is itself an adaptation of an even more primitive medium. It's great to talk about the potential of the internet to spread information and enlighten mankind, but that's just simply not what most people use it for, and the ways that people do use it often serve to limit their intellectual horizons rather than to broaden them.

I don't see comics or their movie adaptions as more primitive, the weakness in these forms of information is in their distribution methods. Platforms like ComiXology and Netflix/Amazon Prime show that users will respond when that content is made easily available; I believe there will still be digital comics and movies long after the last trade paperback is printed and the last cinema closes down. But I don't believe Disney will be part of that future, I see Disney+ as the company desperately lashing out at a world it doesn't understand. Amazon alone earns more revenue per year then Disney could ever dream of, they're about to find out that Silicon Valley is a bigger town then Hollywood.

As for the users I'm not particularly bothered with how people choose to spend the majority of their time on the net. People come here to play and not just to learn, to treat this system simply as a big library is a serious waste of potential. It was perhaps naive to suggest the net would result in global harmony. Instead what we have here are nascent conflicts between internet culture and older ways of doing things but like I said before it's not a culture war, it's a war about who controls the flow of information, if anybody can control it at all. People are free to choose their own path, even if that choice leads to a strange new world.

[Powerboy]

It's true, the internet has put the entire repository of all human knowledge at the fingertips of anyone who wants to seek it out, but what exactly are we using it for? To talk about how it is being used as a tool to change the perception of a distinctly legacy media product, that is itself an adaptation of an even more primitive medium. It's great to talk about the potential of the internet to spread information and enlighten mankind, but that's just simply not what most people use it for, and the ways that people do use it often serve to limit their intellectual horizons rather than to broaden them.

People say the Internet is a vast receptacle of knowledge, the equivalent of having entire libraries of information at your disposal and the ability to communicate freely with people from other cultures and learn that the world is so much bigger than just your culture. Well, yes. It has the *potential* to be and do all of that. But what good is any of that potential when it's saturated by people with a totally tribal mentality that just use it to spread misinformation and do not even care what the real information is. Or, for that matter, just use it to check their email and/ or search for porn.

I'm exaggerating, of course. But the point is indeed that the Internet has all this potential but it's being squandered for the time being to do what you said, essentially to spread and reinforce peoples' current ignorance rather than become enlightened in any sense.

[WebLurker]

What's the matter? As a movie buff I thought you'd be more appreciative of the way these enterprising YouTubers are using the visual arts to alter people's perception of reality. It's all very avant-garde.

I have no appreciation for cyberbullies and people who pass off their own biases as fact. I do like listening to certain YouTubers on film and related subject, like Lindsay Ellis, Doug Walker (historically, the reveal of Channel Awesome's dirty dealings in the past really soured me on it), Chris Stuckmann. The thing is, there is a big difference between people like them and the random jokers (e.g. the majority of people who seem to be in ComicsGate and the like), is that the former ground their stuff in credibility.

For example, you got YouTubers like Ethan van Seciver and ComicsGater Douglas Ernst posting video after video claiming that the Captain Marvel movie is going to be hot garbage, attacking that children's charity associated with it, and claiming that Brie Larson is a terrible person. How do they do that? They take a sound bite or interview excerpt that they don't like and spin a web of misrepresentation, twisted claims, and lies to hornswoggle people into seeing things from their own warped perspective. No additional facts to back up their claims, just them spinning their theories and presenting them as fact. Now take Lindsay Ellis. When she make a piece on a subject with a specific claim, she explores the subject beyond the cursory level that the aforementioned people do, bases her's on research, including citing reputable sources in the essays and sometimes interviewing people with professional ties to the subject (like pro content creator Hank Green when discussing how content creators present themselves to the internet), etc. Even if you don't agree with everything, she lays out why she thinks that way in a way that you can understand how she got there and you have a starting point to consider it yourself. Even the pure "this is my theory based on XYZ ideas I got from the product" are far better reasoned then most ComicsGate theories I've seen.

Seriously though, by now you should realise that the critics of Captain Marvel are never going to concede an inch of ground. Even if the movie turns out to be profitable on paper this new narrative about Disney buying seats will undermine that victory. So that everything Captain Marvel acheives will be mired in corruption and controversy. With trust in the legacy media at an all-time low the general public might just pickup on the conspiracy and believe it.

I've seen these troll's regular attempts to manufacture controversies and drag down movies they hated and how badly these turned out. I can't see them winning this one either, esp. considering how much they've had to move the goalpost to even be able to claim anything.

[The Negative Zone]

I feel like Captain Marvel is the start of people wising up to this sort of insanity. The crazy youtube people really should have known better than to try to sink a Marvel movie. One has to wonder that within in an echo chamber as beliefs become more exaggerated and extreme where will it all end?

[skyvolt2000]

Meanwhile, people on other continents shrug and file this nonsense as just another instance of crazy Americans tearing their own society apart. The sheer arrogance that any of this affects anything where I live is staggering. Witness the global box office.

As JKtheMac said earlier. It's a bunch of folks making stuff up and HOPING it sticks to the wall because most folks don't bother to research. Those who don't care for it move on with their lives and others take it as the truth and try to join in.

See Black Panther-I know a youtuber who said that movie would FLOP so hard that Disney would shut down Marvel Comics, Marvel Movie division & Marvel Tv side. Disney would lose so much money that they would either sell Marvel Comics to DC to save face.

He went out his way to TRASH that movie.
He insulted black folks for watching that film and saying they were race traitors.
He insulted Ryan Coolger's family.
He insulted members of this message board
The success of this film was NOT going to help comic book stores. Unlike all the others that did (lol)

Mind you this is Disney-we are talking about.
Of the top 10 all time box office bombs
5 in terms of budget belong to Disney. In a 6 year span. Solo, Tomorrowland, The Lone Ranger. The Lone Ranger, John Carter. John Carter & Alice Through the Looking Glass

Then came Cap Marvel-where he tried to get black folks to attack it by saying "yall supported Panther and Marvel says CAROL is the face of Marvel movies now. And my Cap Marvel is a MAN. Of course when he started reading comics when Cap Marvel was a black woman named Monica. His current crowd funding for his book is suppose to be the a RALLYING call to his "group" as a message to Marvel that "we don't want Carol, Khan, Moon Girl, Shuri, Riri, Kate Bishop, Gwenpool, X-23, Domino, Squirrel Girl & America in our books."
Only 9 folks want his book.

For all that crying and rallying from that echo chamber-it hasn't done any real damage. Yes creators are getting harassed on Twitter and a website has to redo its polices-yet no major damage is being done.

Folks are judging for themselves.

And to piggy back on something else-

If you are going to make a claim-at least have some legit DATA to back it up.

Showing an empty theater means NOTHING. Because BOX OFFICE is saying something else.
Saying no one buys Cap Marvel books is a LIE because her trade sales say other wise.
Maybe "moving the needle" really means lets change how a book is delivered. Maybe that floppy is no longer needed for Carol.

But this mess we are seeing now is NOT helping anyone.

[Midvillian1322]

Well the 2nd weekend is looking good for CM. A drop in the 50s with the movie looking at 70m +. So the people expecting that huge drop are gonna be disappointed

[Jokerz79]

Well the 2nd weekend is looking good for CM. A drop in the 50s with the movie looking at 70m +. So the people expecting that huge drop are gonna be disappointed

What you'd expect why do you think they dropped the Endgame trailer? Just already hearing the B.S. excuses besides the Disney bought seats of course.

[Powerboy]

I feel like Captain Marvel is the start of people wising up to this sort of insanity. The crazy youtube people really should have known better than to try to sink a Marvel movie. One has to wonder that within in an echo chamber as beliefs become more exaggerated and extreme where will it all end?

Since all that these youtube and similar people have is anecdotal arguments that clearly have had, for all practical purposes, zero impact on people going to see these movies, I might as well throw in my own anecdotal evidence.

I have a "Justice League" cap that has so far generated no conversations other than "Nice cap". I just today bought a "Captain Marvel" cap. Maybe my little statement on the movie. Two conversations already. One in the computer game store where I bought the cap with the clerk.

Him: "Awesome movie. I take it you've seen it?"
Me: "Yeah, really good movie. Makes all the arguments on-line seem stupid."
Sound of crickets chirping.
Him: "I'm not familiar with that but people on-line sure can come up with ways to turn anything into an argument."

Then a conversation in a restaurant.

In this case, another customer commented on the cap and we got into a conversation about the history of Captain Marvel including Billy Batson, the Kree Warrior Mar-Vell, Monica Rambeau and Carol Danvers as Ms. Marvel, Binary and Captain Marvel. I would prefer not to mention it but I'm not 100% sure if his being black had anything to do with any of this. But ya know what he didn't mention or seem to have any awareness of? Yup. The online arguments. When I briefly mentioned them, he had no idea of any of these criticisms and certainly did not have any such issues with the movie himself. We read each other and each knew what the other was talking about on every detail except the online criticisms. On that one, his blank look told me he had no idea what I was talking about.

Granted this is anecdotal but that's all these online "old boy" arguments are. And I say that as a 61 year old. The world is, thankfully, changing. The kind of sexism and racism these people spout is, I sincerely hope, moving to the wrong side of history. Of more immediate importance, it really is an echo chamber. It's a bunch of people standing in a circle facing each other with their backs to reality and possibly something personal in a hand, repeatedly telling themselves they are relevant and that their world isn't fading away.

We can argue about how it's a culture war of technology but, for it to me a war, there is usually some question as to who is going to win. When it comes to this kind of stuff, the sales themselves clearly show that these people are the equivalent of flat earth advocates trying to use technology to further a lost cause.

[PwrdOn]

Since all that these youtube and similar people have is anecdotal arguments that clearly have had, for all practical purposes, zero impact on people going to see these movies, I might as well throw in my own anecdotal evidence.

I have a "Justice League" cap that has so far generated no conversations other than "Nice cap". I just today bought a "Captain Marvel" cap. Maybe my little statement on the movie. Two conversations already. One in the computer game store where I bought the cap with the clerk.

Him: "Awesome movie. I take it you've seen it?"
Me: "Yeah, really good movie. Makes all the arguments on-line seem stupid."
Sound of crickets chirping.
Him: "I'm not familiar with that but people on-line sure can come up with ways to turn anything into an argument."

Then a conversation in a restaurant.

In this case, another customer commented on the cap and we got into a conversation about the history of Captain Marvel including Billy Batson, the Kree Warrior Mar-Vell, Monica Rambeau and Carol Danvers as Ms. Marvel, Binary and Captain Marvel. I would prefer not to mention it but I'm not 100% sure if his being black had anything to do with any of this. But ya know what he didn't mention or seem to have any awareness of? Yup. The online arguments. When I briefly mentioned them, he had no idea of any of these criticisms and certainly did not have any such issues with the movie himself. We read each other and each knew what the other was talking about on every detail except the online criticisms. On that one, his blank look told me he had no idea what I was talking about.

Granted this is anecdotal but that's all these online "old boy" arguments are. And I say that as a 61 year old. The world is, thankfully, changing. The kind of sexism and racism these people spout is, I sincerely hope, moving to the wrong side of history. Of more immediate importance, it really is an echo chamber. It's a bunch of people standing in a circle facing each other with their backs to reality and possibly something personal in a hand, repeatedly telling themselves they are relevant and that their world isn't fading away.

We can argue about how it's a culture war of technology but, for it to me a war, there is usually some question as to who is going to win. When it comes to this kind of stuff, the sales themselves clearly show that these people are the equivalent of flat earth advocates trying to use technology to further a lost cause.

All of this bigotry is certainly not anything new, it's just that it's been shielded from public view for a while. With the anonymity of the internet, however, these people are free to express whatever insane beliefs they want without fear of being shunned or shamed in public. And despite how uncomfortable this makes people, it's good that this is happening because we are forced to open our eyes and acknowledge that we still have serious problems with our society and can't simply go on pretending like everything's fine anymore. These days though, that is starting to change because it's becoming increasingly clear that the internet is not a refuge anymore and that what you say online will have consequences in the real world, so that lots of these racists are being exposed. But lest we get too comfortable, this also means that these ideas are just going to be driven further underground, and so we should be careful not to pretend like the problem is just going to go away by itself like we have done so many times in the past.

[Star_Jammer]

There’s also people that spend a lot of time on the internet, and I think some of those people assume everyone spends an equal (or close to) amount of time on the internet as well.

[Username taken]

There’s also people that spend a lot of time on the internet, and I think some of those people assume everyone spends an equal (or close to) amount of time on the internet as well.

Exactly, which is a big mistake,

Another thing is, although we do spend a lot of time online, just how much are we actually swayed by what we consume online.