Thread by @Allenfire

Okay time for some brutal transparency and honesty from us to all of you. Take a close look at this chart...

(THREAD)

Scott and I have been doing our DC Films centric podcast for almost 5 years now. We started the show for one reason: We loved “Man Of Steel”, and we were frustrated that there wasn’t a weekly show matching our passion.

We were convinced that we were not alone, and that there was a zealous fan base out there just like us. Since we didn’t have the show that we wanted to feed our passion, we decided to create it.

We were validated with what we felt shortly thereafter. There was a passionate and energized fan base that loved the shared universe that WB/DC was forming as much as we did.

We were nobodies in the fan community, but our weekly news updates and discussions resonated. Our listener base grew so fast that it was frankly intimidating. What we thought was going to be a limited niche just-for-fun endeavor took on a life of its own.

Our listener base grew rapidly. It wasn’t because we were anything special. It was because the fans yearned for our updates and commentary. They wanted to hear voices with the same passion that they were feeling.

We saw that passion and enthusiasm from the listeners as we got to know and interact with them. It was energetic and invigorating, and it gave us a never-ending supply of fuel to keep doing our show as part of our mutual relationship.

So we saw the incredible strength of what WB/DC was building in a very tangible and visceral way in our partnership with the fans. We could see and feel this in a very personal way.

But we could also measure this strength in a very objective way. We could see the movement grow through our downloads, and in our reviews, with tangible numbers that separated fact from emotion.

With every subsequent film in the DCEU, we hit new milestones of downloads, which we could see were directly linked to the fan base enthusiasm. This involved films from a variety of filmmakers, such as Zack Snyder, David Ayer, and Patty Jenkins, so it wasn’t persona driven.

That trend abruptly ended with “Justice League.” What was to be the team event that we had been building up excitement for instead became a near death blow to our podcast and to our fan base. The growing DCEU film momentum crashed and burned.

Anecdotally, we saw our interactions with long time listeners disappear, and the ones that remained with us seemed defeated.

We had long-time friends of the show tell us apologetically that they were done, that the film broke all of their passion and excitement, and that they couldn’t do it anymore.

Objectively, we saw the immediate negative impact on our downloads reviewing the film, and even worse in the weeks that followed. On a personal level, the experience affected us so much that we almost ended the show. We were demoralized.

Our listener base as measured through downloads dropped around 40% from the typical in-between film levels. This continued to steadily trend down over time leading up to the next film.

With the release of the next movie in the series, the results were jaw dropping. Despite the exceptional box office results, 62% of our audience was no longer there. The people that take the time to listen to a podcast are passionate, and the franchise passion was gone.

Look at the chart again. That drop continued. The story is devastating and inescapable. This is in-the-trenches data. This is the kind of info that if we had a direct line of communication with @jasonkilar, we’d share what we saw and what we experienced...and what they lost.

The #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement was real because the passion was real; the hurt was real. What WB/DC was doing meant something to so many people. It was personal.

Now that the wrongs against the filmmakers and the fans by a different administration are being righted, and the decision makers are working to repair and mend fences and relationships, we are being transparent now for a very important reason. Let me explain:

We don’t do our show on behalf of WB, or WarnerMedia, or the corporation. They probably have no idea who we even are. In fact, we’ve given a couple thousand of hours of our time promoting, without them asking for, the characters and the stories that we love.

We don’t get paid by them to do this, and we’ve never once tried to curry favor or privilege or access. That’s not why we do this. We do this because of the passion, enthusiasm, and love that we feel for these characters, and the shared experience we have with the listeners.

These things matter to people in a very genuine way. The relationship between the fans and the filmmakers is sacred and symbiotic and needs to be cultivated and never taken for granted. It should be mutually respectful.

If the powers that were could have seen what we saw at the ground level and at the front lines as the fan base was growing in force and later being torn apart, we are convinced that this never would have happened.

So this is why we are giving full transparency to our partner in this relationship. We ask you to be there to see what we see and hear what we hear. We never want what happened to this community to happen again.

—Tim Yoko and Scott McClellan
@Allenfire @ScottDC27
Squadcast Media

Addendum: We talked at great length about this in our last episode here:

suicidesquadcast.com/suicidesquadca…