Why Twitter Has Become The Best/Worst Thing For TV

My name is Mic Wright and I’m a TV tweeter. With your help, I will get through this affliction – the Saturday nights dedicated to assessing the gladiatorial love combat of Take Me Out, the months committed to tapping out witty comments about The X Factor and the unshakeable need to pitch an egg-timer shaped like his head to Masterchef’s Gregg Wallace.

But as much as I love the effect the Twitter back channel has had, making TV criticism more democratic and enhancing the experience of watching event television, I think it’s also incredibly damaging to the actual production of brilliant shows.

As we disgorge the contents of our fevered brains onto Twitter, reacting to every twist and turn, some poor researcher is collating that data to show to sweat-drenched producers. To them, those second-by-second responses could mean the difference between getting recommissioned and begging for a job on a terrible constructed reality show about orange people more irritating than over-caffeinated oompa loompas.

When Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof picked up a TCA Award for the show after the finale had aired, he read out the five most angry tweets he had received. My favourites are: “My very first tweet. I started this account just to let you know how disappointed I am in you” and “Hey douche! Instead of backpacking in Europe or whatever the f*ck you’re doing, how about you give me six years of my life back?”

Twitter’s double-edged sword

While Twitter is often a source of untrammelled funniness and creativity, it can also be like opening the door to a room filled with people who hate you and wish to tell you that in ever more unpleasant ways. The response to TV shows from Twitter fits the description William Gibson applied to The Sprawl in Neuromancer: “…an experiment in social Darwinism designed by a bored researcher who kept his thumb permanently on the fast forward button.”

Within the first few seconds of a new show, Twitter can fill with people expressing negative reactions to elements of the broadcast. There is no time for reflection, no waiting to see what it might turn into. Twitter is instant and often very, very angry. I know I’m guilty of it, taking out the rhetorical pen knife to slice up a drama that hasn’t done it for me or a new quiz show that seems beyond terrible (Channel 4’s The Bank Job, I’m looking at you). The temptation for producers to seed shows with Twitter Bombs, moments that will spark fevered responses on the social network is huge.

That The X Factor, The Apprentice, The Voice and Britain’s Got Talent all have social media editors that attempt to curate the online conversation around them, makes sense. They are episodic, big event talent competitions (whatever The Apprentice might say about being a ‘business programme’) and set themselves up well for the quick response culture of Twitter.

But drama, comedy and documentaries need to tread carefully lest subtly be slaughtered on the chopping block of Twitter popularity. Look to My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding for a hideous lesson in producers playing to the mob. It’s popular but it’s painful to watch.

Co-creator of The Inbetweeners, Iain Morris, told The Guardian that watching Twitter’s response to episodes had shaken him: “I found it crippling. It made me rethink the fundamentals of how TV is made. Over nine months you make hundreds of decisions – character, plot, jokes. You used to get a review the following day…now you see every decision you made being torn apart in real time as it goes out.”

Samira Ahmed, the former Channel 4 News presenter and frequent BBC contributor, tells me (appropriately via Twitter) that “instant feedback is horrifying for executives. But like any vocal group, the feedback is from extremes. It’s not truly representative and they often cite Twitter selectively to prove what they want, just like they do with focus groups. But I do love the rotten tomato nature of it.”

Putting it into context

Twitter can have a positive effect for shows. The BBC’s long-running political debate show Question Time has been revitalised by online conversations and the makers of reality documentary series, Giles And Sue Live The Good Life, claim that it was the Twitter response that encouraged executives to commission another series.

Still I fear the growing influence of Twitter on programming decisions, the insidious creep of the hashtag into the corner of the screen. Viewers will find their own hashtag to use and, while listening to what they have to say is important, it shouldn’t be given undue weight.

One of my favourite TV shows, The West Wing, was the product of one man’s singular vision. Aaron Sorkin believed that a show about the backstage political horse-trading in the White House would be a hit. It was given time and space to develop into one of the classic dramas of the late-20th and early-21st century. In the age of Twitter, the first episode would have been deluged with a torrent of ‘hilarious’ comments about Rob Lowe’s past indiscretions and Martin Sheen’s haircut.

Sorkin has been scathing about social media both in the way he scripted the ‘Facebook film’ The Social Network and through the late, lamented Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip which featured prominent story lines about his distaste for bloggers: “I’m a fan of credentials. It’s like we’ve all spent the last five years living in a Roger Corman film called ‘Revenge of the Hack’.”

Now that line would end “…Revenge of the Tweets”. Producers would be wise to put the roiling, raging hive mind of Twitter in context. It’s still a small constituency and good telly should not be held hostage by the hashtag.