Welcome back to “Caught in the Ropesâ€. So there has been some behind-the-scenes shuffling going on here at Pulse Wrestling, and yours truly will be taking over the reins of “10 Thoughts on Raw†for Rhett Davis, who will in-turn be taking over for Paul Marshall on the “Raw Report†each week. I’ll still be doing my “Caught in the Ropes†act, but Pulse Wrestling have listened to the fans who have cried out for more of my work. Actually, no one has been crying out for my work, I just tell myself that I have a vocal following to soothe my own ego.
Man, writing is hard. That isn’t an underhanded appeal for sympathy, it’s just a statement of fact. There are weeks were almost every columnist on this site and many others have thought to themselves, “What the hell am I going to write about?†There are weeks were you think you might have found a seed of an idea only to find that it’s something that can’t blossom into a full article. There are weeks were you question your ability to compose a coherent, cogent sentence.
I bring this up because earlier in the week I had a thought: what if I write an open letter to Eric Bischoff commenting on his remarks about internet fans? Plenty of writers have touched on the subject, but I believed I could pen a letter without malice, ad hominem attacks, or indifference. I considered posting the letter as well as e-mailing it around and tweeting a link to Eric in the hopes that he might get a chance to look at it. Now, I thought the odds of him responding were infinitesimally small, and if he did chances were he would simply take it out of context and lambast me for deigning to question his decision making. But, and this is a big but, maybe a well-crafted letter asking him to elaborate on why he feels the need to insult fans that didn’t degenerate into childish name-calling might appeal to his intellect. While I didn’t think it was something that would change his mind, per se, it could be something that might spark a reasoned debate with the man.
Eric Bischoff is a smart guy; he made a number of intelligent decisions that helped transform the landscape of professional wrestling. But as I sat down to write the letter, and re-read his twitter comments about internet fans being an irrelevant 10% of the fan-base, I decided I just couldn’t go through with this. Why? Because the more I read his statement, the clearer it became that his tweet was a thinly veiled appeal to anti-intellectualism. It was unabashed populism, and no appeal to his intellect was in any way going to be successful.
To those who missed Eric’s comments, here they are: “Seems like 90% of the audience loves what the loudest 10% hates. So who really matters? The 10%er’s can’t get over the fact that they are irrelevant. Ratings don’t lie. Research doesn’t lie. IWC smarks need to get over it.”
Before I delve further, let me make a few things clear here, since any discussion of this nature inevitably ruffles the feathers of people who, often times, don’t seem to understand what the argument is about. I believe that in any form of entertainment, be it literature, movies, video games, and wrestling, the product’s ability to entertain comes first. If a book has an interesting message but it just isn’t fun to read, then that book has failed. Also, this isn’t about one group of people claiming to be smarter than another group of people, or better in any way. And this isn’t about politics either, so just put that to the side.
With that out of the way, Bischoff could have simply changed the term “10%ers†in his tweet to “elitists†and the message would have been exactly the same. This is the same kind of argument you hear from people when an “elitist movie critic†lambasts a Hollywood blockbuster. It’s an argument repeated ad naseum on Fox News and a multitude of other arenas to undermine the arguments of individuals that, they feel, go against the populist grain. To people who utilize the anti-intellectual argument, the lowest common denominator is always right, and anyone who wants to argue otherwise is a pointy-headed snob with poor interpersonal skills. I’m sorry, Eric, but you’re wrong on so many fronts here.
When I first read Bischoff’s comments, I knew they partially came from the man’s well-worn heel persona. But there was a certain amount of honesty to it; I’m sure Bischoff in some way blames the fans for leaving WCW for WWE. But beside being a blatant populist outcry, the tact seems incredibly hypocritical coming from this man in particular. Bischoff’s personal credo is “controversy creates cashâ€. Controversy by its nature, however, means going against the populist grain. Controversy is all about playing with mainstream values and morals to create a public outcry and garner significant attention. What then is a man who subscribes to a personal belief that treasures populist outrage or shock doing lambasting a group of people for not being populists? And the comments were not only hypocritical, they showed a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to hardcore fans.
Individuals who create blogs or write for websites or run podcasts are, at their core, hobbyists. Fanatics. They, the hardcore fans, enjoy certain mediums and activities immensely and take an interest in discussing them with other people who share their passion. Because of this passion, hardcore fans consume more media than mainstream, or “casualâ€, fans and are therefore more likely to form unique tastes and hard opinions that don’t necessarily gel with what casual fans like. People become a hardcore fan, or “elitistâ€, because there’s something inherent to the medium that appeals to them. And because these opinions are based on a more in-depth appreciation for the medium–meaning that their appreciation comes from extensive exposure and consumption of the product–, they are more likely to be vocal about them, especially when confronted with people who are of the same ilk. Hardcore fans like to talk, to analyze, to dissect and complain and cheer. They’re not loud because they feel they are insignificant; they’re loud because they love the medium.
To get back to wrestling, Bischoff’s statement in-and-of-itself was not entirely wrong; often what is popular with hardcore fans isn’t necessarily going to be popular with the mainstream. But going on the attack isn’t helping Bischoff or TNA, who need to be building bridges between the company and fans rather than burning them. If I may, I’d like to draw a parallel here to the relationship between Hollywood and Comic-Con.
As a native San Diegan, I’ve been going to Comic-Con for years. Up until about 2005, fans didn’t need to purchase in-advance ticket packages; you could go to the convention center whichever day you wanted, wait in line, and be in the main convention hall within 15 minutes. After 2005, however, being able to buy a ticket at the door became a pipe dream. There were too many people, and while the convention was always huge, it had ballooned to a gargantuan size. Why? Because Hollywood figured something out. When movies like Snakes on a Plane started gaining unplanned grassroots internet buzz, Hollywood found out that hardcore fans can be an amazing venue for free pre-release publicity. They started sending big-name stars to the event every year to build up hype for big summer blockbusters and nerd properties. Now, granted, they have cut back recently because they also realized that hardcore fans don’t latch on to EVERYTHING, especially shows or movies that don’t have real nerd appeal.
But the lesson here is that hardcore fans are more likely to follow your product intently, and are also more likely to bring new viewers in. When a hardcore fan really loves something, they want to share that with other people. That can sometimes make them eye-gougingly obnoxious, but in terms of free publicity, you can’t ask for anything more. Building a relationship with the hardcore fans could really help TNA.
And that was, to me, the most foolish thing about Bischoff’s comments. Nowhere that I have seen did Bischoff draw any distinction between the hardcore fans who lustily critique the TNA product and the hardcore fans who lustily defend it. He lumped them all into one undesirable blob. Hey, Bischoff: the loudest 10% includes both your detractors and your biggest fans. And, from all that I’ve seen, the hardcore TNA fans make up the bulk of your viewership every week.
I know several “casual†wrestling fans, and when the topic of wrestling is broached, I have NEVER heard one of them mention TNA or any of the workers that they employ. If I bring up AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Beer Money, the Motor City Machine Guns, or anyone else on the TNA roster, all I get is blank stares. They don’t know who you are, TNA. And while this is certainly not scientific, since I’m sure there are some “casual†fans who watch TNA programming, nothing I have seen tells me that TNA have made any in-roads into the mainstream.
I could go on forever about this topic, but I’ll leave it at this. Bischoff’s tweets, to a certain extent, were aimed at frustrated internet pundits such as Blair Douglas, M.C. Brown–who’s by far one of the most positive writers when it comes to TNA coverage–, and myself. They were also a “controversy creates cash†ploy, the kind of act that Bischoff believes will get people to pay attention to the TNA product. Here’s the catch: controversy doesn’t always create cash. Well-timed, insightful, well-publicized controversy creates cash. Did the Halloween Havoc ’98 controversy create cash? I doubt it. Did the Jeff Hardy/Victory Road controversy create cash? No damn way. And before you Bischoff apologists out there try to rake me over the coals, think about this: when you’re loudly defending TNA and Eric Bischoff, what does Eric Bischoff think of you?
