This is the sound of your ride home with dad after he caught you vaping. Awkward, isn't it? Most vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine and disappointment. Know the real cost of vapes brought to you by the FDA. Welcome to Millennial, the home of Pretend Adulting and Real Talk. I'm Andrew. I'm Laura and I'm Pamela. We needed to kick off the show this week just addressing Hurricane Milton.
As we're recording on Tuesday night, Hurricane Milton has recently regained category 5 status, so it is a big, freaking hurricane, huge storm, barreling straight towards Central Florida, where we know we have a lot of listeners and we also know a lot of y'all have friends and family there. Just wanted to say, stay safe. Everything you can to put yourself in your family first.
We hope for the best for everyone in the path of this storm, but it's particularly hard because this part of the country just got hit by another hurricane 10 days ago. So a lot of these communities are still recovering from Helene and now they're about to get hit by an even stronger storm. It is while they are calling this a historic hurricane.
I don't know if y'all have kept up with any of the coverage, but it's like wall to wall hurricane coverage in my part of the country right now because about close relatively, this is to me not that we're going to be affected in North Georgia by this one, but it's definitely wild to look at. I personally love looking at weather radar, so I have throughout the day been pulling up my radar just to kind of watch how the storm is trending.
I have family in central Florida, so I have a vested interest in wanting to see how this is going to affect them. Yeah, I've been keeping an eye on the hurricane as well because my brother is down in Florida. I'm picturing you just watching that weather radar and being like, oh, look at that little tight eye. Oh, it's so well formed. That's so impressive. Honestly, the eye in the storm is one of the clearest, cleanest ones. That I think meteorologists have ever seen.
People have been marveling about it. That is a tight smell. Clean whole. It is a marvel. I did see a clip of a meteorologist like getting emotional. I saw that too. Over how insane it is because it's like frightened. Yeah, yeah, but for like somebody in the professional field like that to get so overwhelmed, just talking about it, I think that spoke volumes. Yeah. It was to me. Oh, yeah, it was scary to watch him.
And he even brought up like this is because of climate change that this is happening. Yeah, yeah. We need to do something now. In the Gulf. Yeah. Laura, when you started this off, you said you were going to address Milton. I thought you were going to like talk to the hurricane and tell it to like go away. Yeah. Scram. Get out of here. Like, I didn't want to talk to you. I would get my giant fan and just blow it towards Milton to be like, get out of here.
Yeah. No, I mean, but all joking aside, definitely a serious storm. And you know, just thinking about everyone who's affected by it. I do have to say I've enjoyed the jokes about the name, particularly looping in Milton from Office space. I don't know if I've heard you. You've never watched Office space. No. We got to add this to your list of classic movies that you've missed out on. But yeah, there have been a lot of memes about that, which have been enjoyable.
But I am very nervous for particularly like Tampa Bay and Sarasota because it looks like that's what's going to get hit the hardest. But we'll keep an eye on it and just hope everyone stays safe. Agreed. We are well in October now. And before we got to the main focus of today's episode, which is going to be toxic fandoms and how studios are dealing with them, we wanted to touch on October surprises. Yeah. And October surprises are part of another toxic fandom called American politics.
So this is actually a perfect way to dovetail into the greater conversation today. So wanted to just prep y'all. We are under a month out from the presidential election here in the United States. That's not the only election happening on November 5th. Well, lots of damn ballot races that really, really matter. And we're going to talk about some of those in a few minutes. But in American presidential election history, there is this thing called the October surprise.
And if you haven't heard of it, it's basically mad drama that comes out about one or both candidates in the month of October. Very, very close to when people are starting to vote. And in some cases already voting if they vote early. So thought we could talk about a couple of examples from recent history and talk about then a couple of things that might be October surprises this year. However, we're still early in the month. So anything could happen.
As a reminder, back in 2020, in early October, Trump tested positive for COVID, I remember this being like a banner day for the internet. It felt like Twitter was back. Like people had been obviously really sad about COVID. And then Trump tested positive for COVID and the memes were just chef's kiss. They were on fire. Yeah, because he, he of course was denying the seriousness of COVID.
And he was just avoiding COVID guidelines, just like ignoring everything you were supposed to be doing during the COVID period, even though he was the president of the United States and should be leading. It was nice to see him get COVID. We thought we thought COVID would have, you know, a bit a little harsher on him. It wasn't. He had access to all the best medical care in the country. So he was going to be fine.
Even though it came out after the fact that he was actually much sicker, then they let on to the man was incredibly ill. Remember when they doctored or know they didn't doctor it, they took like staged photo ops of him working. Was it the same one where like he was signing, but it was like a blank piece of paper. That's what it was. Yeah. And then he was working. And he was working. And he was working. Incredible. Well, Trump was not the only one who was in for an October surprise in 2020.
Actually, on October 14th of 2020, the New York Times released their exclusive about Hunter Biden's emails. And we, I feel like we've heard nothing. But talking points over the last few years about Hunter Biden's laptop, it reaches a point where it's like exhausting because it's like Hunter Biden isn't running for any office. Why do we keep coming back to this? But also if he did something illegal, he should pay the consequences for that.
Yeah. But 2016 is really where things, I think, got particularly contentious with the October surprises. So of course, on October 7th, 2016, the access Hollywood tape leaked. And of course, that is the infamous tape in which we overheard Trump talking to what was it? Is it Billy Baldwin? Billy Bush. Billy Bush, not Billy Baldwin. Billy Bush. And talking about how you can just grab women by the pussy. If you're famous, they'll let you do whatever you want.
And I just remember at that time, it felt like so many of us thought the election was wrapped up at that point. We were like, no, he doesn't come back from this. And then a couple of weeks later, it was like, just kidding. He released a statement on video. I think that day, saying Bill Clinton said the same things that were like, did he apologize? He may have apologized in that video too. No, no, no. I'm actually going to come out today, though. He would have just been like, oh, that's AI.
Yeah. It was AI. So thank God it came out in 2016. But I agree. Laura, it did feel like that was it for his campaign, especially when he was running against a woman for president. And it was interesting because on the same day, Wiki leaks kicked off like a two month campaign of leaking emails from the Jim Podesta leaks, which those were Jim Podesta's private Gmail account was compromised and like 20,000 emails got out of it. Jim Podesta was the chief of staff for Barack Obama.
And he contributed to the Clinton campaign. I can't remember what he did. He might have been like a chief strategy officer. Something like that. Something like that. Anyway, a lot of those emails shed negative light on the Clinton campaign. And that was already with the baggage of Hillary's emails from her time as Secretary of State when it was found that she was doing state business and communicating and storing those emails on private servers, which she really shouldn't have been.
However, she certainly isn't the only one in Washington on either side of the aisle who's ever done that. So depending on where you fall on that story, you might think it was overblown. But then what I really think was one of the final nails in the coffin for the Clinton campaign was when former FBI director James Comey sent a letter to Congress announcing he was going to further investigate Hillary Clinton's emails. He did that on October 28th. So that's like a week before the election.
I think there were already multiple factors working against the Clinton campaign at this point. I really feel like this was the one that killed her election odds looking back. Definitely. It felt like it came out of the blue. And it just it felt like a knife through the heart. It just it was I still remember like a sinking feeling when Comey announced he was going to be investigating her emails. Yeah. And then a couple years later, he's all of a sudden super anti-Trump and I was like, Hitch.
Obsession have done that. Yeah, you did this to us. But I thought we could also talk about, you know, what if any October surprises have happened so far and curious to hear your y'all's thoughts because some of this has happened in recent days, but early in October on the second, there was an unsealed motion by Jack Smith, who of course, filed an earlier motion against Donald Trump for his activities on January 6th and his conspiracy to overturn the election.
He submitted another motion asserting that Trump's January 6th crimes were not a consequence entirely of presidential business, but that they were largely personal and therefore not 100% shielded by the Supreme Court's immunity ruling that we heard about earlier in the summer. We're basically the Supreme Court says presidents can kind of act with impunity because how can we expect them to be good at their jobs if they think they're going to get in trouble for doing illegal things?
Yeah, there are a lot of big revelations in this latest filing from Jack Smith and we're not going to get into the details today. But something that stood out to me was one conversation Trump had with Pence was him saying you're too honest. One of his campaign workers wanted writing to occur in Detroit's when they were desperate to find more votes. Many new examples of Trump and his team just trying to thwart the outcome of the 2020 election.
Yeah, and also there's mention in there of the fact that I guess when someone told him that Mike Pence was in trouble at the Capitol, he said so what? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was a big one. So what? I want to watch in TV. I wanted to die. I got to throw more ketchup at the walls. Yeah. No revelations about the ketchup in this filing, unfortunately, but hopefully more details will come to light.
Well, I'm sure it won't be the last time he throws food at the wall because I think there's going to be some if he loses this election, he's not going to have a fun time. I don't think. But speaking of something that I have to imagine makes his home life not a fun time, Melania Trump recently came out in support of abortion rights ahead of the release of her memoir.
And she literally put out a promo video where she was reading a pre-recorded statement about how, you know, preventing access to reproductive health care was an infringement upon women's bodily autonomy. And I was like, girl, do you know who you're married to? And it just made me wonder is she soft launching her divorce like what's going on? She hasn't really been seen. I mean, usually at this point on the campaign trail, the perspective first family is posing a united front, right?
It's such a big part of the imagery they're trying to sell to the American public. And the fact that she's nowhere to be seen is odd. She's being seen now because she has to promote this book that just came out this week. But she has it. Yeah. Yeah. And mega Republicans are just totally ignoring that fact because you're right. You normally see like Doug Harris or Tim Walls' wife. I'm forgetting her name. I apologize. And also just the fact on the campaign trail.
And also just the fact that like so much of what they've tried to use to bring Kamala down has to do with the fact that she doesn't have a traditional family life. It's like Potter Kettle. Good call. That's a really good call. You know, yeah. Well, I don't think that's an October or surprise, unfortunately. Though I do hope they are headed for a divorce at some point.
But something that also came out today in a new book coming from Bob Woodward next week, it is revealed that Trump has spoken with Putin as many as seven times since leaving office. And it was also revealed in this book that he sent Putin COVID test for Putin himself to use at its time when he was trying to make sure he has a traction in the tests. So this stuff seems significant in terms of Trump and Putin being a little too close for comfort.
On the other hand, we've been hearing about Putin and Trump being buddy buddy for nearly 10 years. So it's just like it doesn't matter at this point. Everybody's burnt out on Putin Trump. And that said, Trump quickly released a statement about this reporting today. And he says, of course, none of the statements are true. Oh, yeah. But yeah, it's significant news. It's just we're just burnt out on Putin Trump at this point. So that's not an October surprise either.
Yeah, I mean, the thing is, unfortunately, we shouldn't be burnt out on it because it's really dangerous, especially if he gets back in. But Americans just have very short attention spans. And this has been the status quo for a decade now. So I think a lot of people look at that and they say, well, these allegations have been floating around for a while, but nothing bad has happened. Right. Exactly. Are they justified ignoring it to themselves?
And there's no repercussions for his relationship with Putin. So it's like, what does it matter? Okay. And well, I do hope, of course, there's a big juicy October surprise for us that only stands to benefit Harris. Obviously, I would hate for something to come out about her walls that affects them. But yeah, I mean, three weeks to go. Hillary Clinton is warning of that. I don't know if you saw her interviews on this. There were also some reports on it too.
But she's definitely warning is someone who received probably one of the most unpleasant October surprises in recent history. She's definitely cautioning the Harris campaign. And I'm sure that that is a campaign strategy around lowering expectations anyway. Kind of like they do with the debates. And they sort of start floating the idea of somebody underperforming in a debate.
I could see the Harris campaign trying to float the idea that an October surprise might come so that if it does, people aren't completely shocked. Yeah. But we'll see. I hope not. So, Laura, we're also trying to feature down ballot candidates and smaller election matters in the lead up to the 2024 election. What do you have for us this week? Yeah, so this, you know, we don't want to focus just on the presidential race.
And we definitely want to also focus on some house races and some local state and local races. But there are seven really important Senate races happening right now. They are all incumbent Democrats. And because Joe Manchin, who is the Democrat from West Virginia, is not seeking reelection. And the current Democratic majority in the Senate is incredibly slim already. We need to hold on to all of these seats. So that's Ruben Gallagher of Arizona.
Lisa Slotkin of Michigan, John Tester of Montana, Jackie Rosen of Nevada, Sherry Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey, Jr. of Pennsylvania, and Tame Baldwin of Wisconsin. The reason I wanted to call these out is because you can actually split a single donation between these seven senators through swing left. And we can link to that in our show notes. Or if you want to have a little more targeted impact, you can give to specific campaigns.
And I would recommend contributing to the candidates who are running the tightest races or the most behind races. So that's going to be John Tester, Jackie Rosen, Bob Casey, Jr., and Tame Baldwin. They're all running really, really tight races. Not to say that the other races aren't tight, but those four definitely from what I've been looking at the closest right now. I love this way to make one donation that gets split across several candidates.
Because it makes it so much easier for people to support very important races without having to jump around to different sites and find them all. So that's super cool. I also just wanted to mention that Kamala and Walsh are on a interview media blitz this week. Kamala appeared on 60 minutes, called her daddy, one of the biggest podcasts out there right now. Howard Stern, one of my longtime favorites and Stephen Colbert. Walsh appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
He's also going to be appearing on the very popular smart list podcast. I just love to see them appearing on podcast because they're going where the people are F CNN and these traditional media outlets. They've had their chances and they've screwed up. They've done bad interviews. I like these non-traditional interview appearances because it gets people's attention and it puts these candidates in front of audiences who maybe aren't already following CNN and New York Times or whoever else.
So I think this is just awesome. I heard the caller daddy interview was good. I even listened yet. Pam, I think you did. Yeah, I listened to it yesterday. It was really good. And I think that the reason it was good to your point about all these bad interviews and more traditional media is because Alex Cooper host caller daddy played to her own strengths. And she was still able to bring up issues that have come up in the election while creating an episode that feels organic to her platform.
Regardless of whether her fan base is completely happy with her or not, that's like a whole different issue because she has gotten some backlash for having Harry's on the show. But I think ultimately it was a really smart move and I think that the way that she conducted the interview was also very smart. That's a really quick watch to the video. I think if you go and Spotify, the video format is up as well. So if you like video podcasts, you can check it out there.
Now we want to let listeners know that the campaign did offer both Harris and Walls to millennial, but we said no because we didn't want to appear biased. So this is the type of reporting you can expect here at millennial. That's right. Because we're definitely not biased. No, no, definitely, definitely not at all. Well we are going to talk about other toxic fandoms in a moment, but first we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
I saw an article in Variety this week that caught my eye. Variety looked at how major Hollywood studios are increasingly contending with toxic fan behavior. These are the ones like Star Wars, what are the rings, Bridgerton, the list goes on. And these toxic fandoms have created a challenging environment for the creators and the actors.
And this toxicity has manifested in several ways, including review bombing, movies or TV shows that have diverse or inclusive projects to personal attacks on social media. And there are a couple of interesting revelations, first of all, Variety says that studios will actually assemble a specialized cluster of super fans to assess possible marketing materials for a major franchise project.
The fans are very vocal, since the studio exec about these groups they assemble, they will just tell us if you do that, fans are going to retaliate. These groups have even led studios to alter the projects, quoting the exec again, if it's early enough and the movie isn't finished yet, we can make those kinds of changes. This caught my eye because we've always joked on like Muggo Cast, like Warner Bros. should be consulting us, turns out they are consulting fans. They're just not inviting us.
I mean, are they specifically consulting fans about Harry Potter because I don't feel like they are. Who are these fans if they are a consultant? No, I mean, I don't know. I'm just assuming, but I think after the mistakes of the many mistakes that came along with Fantastic Beasts, maybe they will be doing that for the television show. I hope so. But I think that's pretty cool.
I do wonder if these fans in these consulting groups are being as honest as a lot of people or brutal as a lot of people will be online because if somebody's sitting behind a keyboard in the privacy of their home, then I think they're going to be much more inclined to crap on a project. Whereas if you're sitting at Warner Bros. studios, you're on a call with the director on Zoom or whatever, I think you're going to be a little nicer.
Yeah, I mean, we talk about this in terms of like going to like set visits, for example, especially if you're a smaller blog, you're just so grateful to be there that you're probably going to be like, this is the best thing I've ever seen. Yeah. And is money being exchanged too? Are the studios paying these people further time? I think those fans might be less inclined to criticize then.
I also am just curious about the vetting process because like, are they getting like a diverse temperature check from the fandom? Because for everyone person that's upset about, say like Ryan Johnson's Star Wars movie, there's two other people that loved it, you know? Yeah. So how do you balance that out? I have so many questions about how they're going about this, honestly. What? Yeah. But always the loudest voices that are like indicative of the majority of how the fan base feels anyway.
Yeah. Well, and how are they finding these fans? Sorry, I need to get all my muggle cash kick again. I've done a Harry Potter podcast. I've done a Twilight podcast. I've done a Hunger Games podcast. I've got credentials where, where are these fans? They just find them in like the comments sections or maybe they are pulling people out of fan sites and these people, these people must have NDAs. They can't talk about it. Maybe we are involved.
I'm just pretending right now that I'm not because I signed NDA. Hypothetically speaking. Yeah. If you signed an NDA, then you would be making this up. Laura Pam, you know how I've said I've never gone on a real vacation before. I've never been on a cruise. Like I don't really go places. You know what I'm saying? Here's what I promise you two in the listeners.
If you ever catch me on a cruise or some sort of vacation tropical, that's tropical, you will know I'm involved in a fan panel and making a lot of money off of it. So a little foreshadowed. It's a deep cut joke for everybody. Yeah. I'm literally sitting here giving you, I'm like the meme of fry, like squinting my eyes at you. Uh huh. Only you two and some Bay patrons know what I'm talking about. Right. Well, I have some questions. Like why aren't we invited on this fucking cruise? Right.
We just thought they get a fan. Laura, is that what he's saying? Yeah. I'm going to go on a fan cruise with Warner Brothers and they're going to wine and dine me and then ask me about the Harry Potter TV show. And suddenly the loyalty is gone. Yeah. Well, in all seriousness, it is nice to see that they are trying to do something like a fan consultation panel. It's better than not asking them at all. Yeah. I think it's a slippery slope though.
I really do because you cannot always pander to what fandom wants. I mean, I think it's easier to do this for something that has, um, that has sourced material attached, right? So something like a Harry Potter, you can assemble a team of fans who are, who can tell you exactly what you should and should not put in a TV adaptation based on what they know from the books. You know, like, here's how you rectify what you didn't do in the movies. That's easy.
But if you have something that like is like kind of like an original property, for example, I think it's a slippery slope to pander to fans all the time. Like there has to be some kind of balance because then at a certain point, you're kind of like stifling the, the voices of the people that created the thing. I'm just thinking about like some of the toxic fan behavior I've seen.
And some of these people, I get that it comes from passion, but they're just absolutely brutal to staff writers that have like really no say in how the story goes to actors that portray these characters that are literally just like reading the lines that were given to them. And if you cater to those people too much, then all that's going to happen is that they're going to realize that if they yell loud enough, they'll get everything they want. And I don't think that's always a good thing.
No, because if you go totally fan service, it's not going to be a good story. Yeah. I think it's a balance. Yeah, it absolutely needs to be weighted. Like I think that fan consideration should be part of the equation, but it's not everything. And it certainly shouldn't be even most of everything. They need to find like a healthy place for that to live so that they can know like what kinds of questions are best geared towards this group.
And what kinds of things do we not really want their input on? Because there are going to be things like sometimes even casting choices like you brought up Pam can be hard like I know in them the last of us. I'm forgetting the name of the actor who was cast to play Abby in season two. Same same actor that was in book smart, not being a Feldman, but the other. No, I know her name is Deborah. Deborah. Yes, that's right. Yeah, so she was cast to play Abby.
There was like, first of all, a lot of fan hate for Bella Ramsey because they thought that Caitlin would have made a better Ellie, which is the main protagonist in the last of us. So Bella Ramsey just took a ton of bullshit off the internet during season one. And when we get into season two, Abby is going to be a very hated character. People are going to hate her. And I am so worried about what Caitlin's experience is going to be like playing that character.
To that point, I've already seen headlines about how they're preparing her for that. Yeah, which is an insane statement to have to make that you have to prepare an actor to be hated. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, like, are you telling me that like we've jumped the shark so much that people don't understand the difference between like fiction and reality that this person, this actor is like playing a role and that that role is not indicative of like who they are as a person that is wild.
Well, and this variety article even reveals that studio insiders say they often put their talent through a social media bootcamp. In some cases, when a character is intentionally challenging a franchise of status quo, studios will with the actors permission take over their social media accounts entirely. When things get really bad, especially involving threats of violence, security firms will scrub talent information from the internet to protect them from doxing. That is wild.
And while YouTube have been talking, I've been thinking about how the original creators of a thing come up with this great idea that takes off fans fall in love with it. Oh my God, this is amazing. I'm obsessed. Then in a lot of cases, these original creators will create more of the thing. The fans will basically just turn on them like, no, I don't trust you to do more of what you have already done. I know best. So listen to me. It's crazy how the tables turn like that.
And the studios are just like, oh, I guess we're scared. And then they're not mentality runs rampant because what happens in these crazed fandom circles that people say, well, the characters don't belong to you anymore. And you don't really understand them. Like I understand them, which is such a slippery slow. Yeah. Right? It's like for that. Yeah, it's crazy to watch people try and rationalize stuff like that.
On the flip side, I've also, I've also remember instances of like, showrunners getting too caught up in like fan theories. They see online getting paranoid about things that are like hitting too close to what they had already planned and then completely flipping the script regardless of whether or not that's good for the story arc that they had imagined in the first place. And that gets messy too. So it almost kind of feels like there has to be a divide.
Do you think toxicity has gotten worse in fandom over the years? It's hard to tell because the internet has evolved so much. Of course, in our earliest days online, we spend a lot of time in the comment section of articles or news posts and then of course, in forums. And I think one of the biggest things that has changed is that debating, criticizing, etc. The rate at which you can do it has sped up a lot. It's very easy to have very fast moving conversations with people.
And I think that just contributes to the discourse getting worse. Now you get a notification that somebody has replied to your comment and you're instantly replying. And of course, more people than ever are online and there's the keyboard, warrior factor. I think it's just gotten worse because of social media. And I would say maybe COVID has something to do with it too. I just feel like there's a lot of, I don't know. I don't know how else to phrase this.
I almost kind of feel like there's a lot of like normies that are invading fandom spaces and that completely changes. I'm serious though. It's just like normal people in that completely like erases like almost like fandom code of conduct because all of a sudden you have these people that are making new rules.
I'm thinking about like fan fiction, for example, which has become mainstream popular to the point where you're seeing people like bind these fan fictions and then sell them for hundreds of dollars which are more sustainable. But it's like if you knew anything about fandom before you came in, you would know. And then you see like people that don't know say, where can I buy this? Like can I buy this, can I buy this PDF? It's like, well, no, it's supposed to be free for a reason.
But if you don't come in like knowing the rules and then you make up your own rules, I think that's where you see a lot of like clashing happen to. So I think it's like a number of different factors that are really coming into play here. But I do think ultimately like social media does sort of mean that like everybody's existing in the same watering hole.
Whereas like even in the early 2000s, like if you look at shipping alone and we'll use Harry Potter as an example because that's a good touchstone for all three of us, right? Like you could go to a different fan site for like any couple you want it to ship and you could exist like in that fan sites forum. And you wouldn't have to deal with Harry and Hermione shippers would wouldn't have to deal with Harry and Ron shippers. They could just like exist in like two separate sites.
In the new sub forums. Right. And in two separate sub forums. But now everybody's on Twitter or on Tumblr on TikTok. So you're seeing more of these clashes. And then outside of you know, like the Harry Potter bubble, that's when you start seeing it see been to like fandom wars that start affecting creators of shows, for example. I don't have a voice. I guess a voice like no stranger to shipping wars either. It gets pushed into your feed whether you're looking for it or not.
Thanks to these algorithms. Yeah. So I think that's where it can get really tricky to even have time to form an opinion about something. I feel like half the time nowadays when I'm learning about something that's hot, it's hot because there's a big controversy around it. I'm only learning about the thing because some people are mad about it.
Yeah. And I think seeing all the outrage kind of snowballs in our own brains because we get trained to start having these very critical opinions like others are or we just go grow so frustrated by these critical opinions. We start coming up with our own opinions to kind of push back. It's just like this vicious cycle of negativity that is constantly forced down our throats.
I think you have to change your opinion because you see something like maybe two negative things and you think, oh, like maybe I'm wrong. But you're probably not. You can just have your own opinion. It could be different. Right. And the thing about it that's really interesting is this tendency to become, and I don't know if this is the right word to use here. So please, correct me if there's a better one.
But to become like tribalistic about the things that you're really passionate about, people have always done that since the dawn of time, whether it's like land or you're religious believe or like who you wanted to be your king, like whatever the hell people have always done this. And the internet and social media has just accelerated it and made it so that people are doing that about literally everything.
Well, we're going to talk more about this, including one specific example of Disney canceling the show because in part of a toxic fandom. So we will be right back. One other example in this variety article I wanted to bring up this article actually opened with a story of how the recent Star Wars TV show, the accolade, was a target of toxic fandom. And that was actually one reason it was canceled. It this show was Disney plus's best premiere of 2024, highest performing premiere of 2024.
And then toxic fandom ended up being a factor in the reason that it got canceled said lead star, a manless stand, Stenberg in an Instagram post. We started experiencing a rampage of I would say hyper conservative bigotry and vitriol prejudice hatred and hateful language towards us. And she says that this is the reason why she was not surprised when she heard that it was canceled.
So we can talk about how toxic fandoms maybe they're just yapping to themselves online and they're not making an impact, but they actually do. And that's pretty terrifying. Yeah. And I wish it would happen the opposite way. Like instead of studios canceling things, they would see like the outcry of support for something and renew something past the season. Yeah. And be like, we need to we need to make it. There are people criticizing it and that's okay.
Let's figure out how to make some improvements. And I'm not saying they have to listen to everything every troll online says, but maybe there is some room for improvements, particularly when it comes to the story. But in the case of the act light, one big reason this show faced a toxic fandom is because the leading star was a woman of color. And it sucks that this is the world that we're in. And Star Wars has had these types of issues before.
They faced a lot of backlash with the new new trilogy in part because it was starring a woman, Daisy Ridley. Yeah. And I mean, Star Wars has always I think certainly in more recent years, it's gotten more diverse. But Star Wars, I feel like especially for the time period that it was coming out, I think sometimes it's surprising how diverse Star Wars could be sometimes. And I know that's something that they've faced a lot of critique for ever since the beginning.
Yeah. Well, and I like that they're trying to diversify these casts, but then the old school fans can't handle that they're diversifying. They want all white men leading all these movies and TV shows. And these guys are unfortunately very vocal online. And then these studios, they're basically in a can't win situation because then they do try to diversify and some people will say, oh, you're just doing a diversity play. You're just hiring them to appear more diverse. Like, you can't win.
No, it's interesting to me how that logic doesn't seem to cut the other way from the people who use it. It's like, well, okay, if they only cast white men, then what is that? Boring. Yeah. One exec said to Variety, it comes with the territory, but it's gotten incredibly loud in the last couple of years, referring to toxic fandom. They're just out for blood, regardless.
They think the purity of the first version will never be replaced, or you've done something to upset the canon of a beloved franchise and they're going to take you down for doing so. So I thought we could take those two statements and pull them apart. Let's start with they think the purity of the first version will never be replaced. So is this exact saying that fans don't ever want to see something new to replace the old, even if it could be just as good.
They just don't want the original thing touched at all. Looking again at something like the newest Star Wars trilogy. Yeah. I think that's tricky because I agree that remake is tiring. The remake fatigue is real, right? So I think like, I don't know. I can't tell if they're talking about that, for example, if it's a dig at that, the people are upset about all the remakes, or if they're talking about something like revisiting a franchise. Maybe it's both. Maybe it is.
I mean, I know we're seeing people complain about the Harry Potter books being rebooted already. That argument, I just do not understand because the first movie came out in 2001-ish. It'll have been 25 years since the original movie came out. That's a long time. And everybody's going to have a different opinion on this in terms of when's the right time to reboot.
Yeah. I mean, specifically with Harry Potter, I feel like something we see pretty commonly is a tendency to like hold the Chris Columbus, the first two movies, the Chris Columbus directed Harry Potter movies in like the highest of regard. There are a lot of people who feel like those are the best Harry Potter movies. I tend to disagree. I feel like aesthetically they're lovely to look at, but that's about it personally. No hate to anyone who disagrees with me on that.
But I think for people who really hold on to those nostalgic feelings, I don't think there is anything that could be done to satisfy them further than they've already been satisfied by what already exists. People just want to hold on to the things that they love and they don't want to see them tarnished, which I can understand. I don't personally feel like rebooting something tarnishes the original.
If the reboot is bad, I feel like the reboot is bad, but I don't think that has any reflection on the original. If the reboot is bad, the movies are never going to look better. People are going to be like, these are the best things ever. But I think part of the problem is the movies have largely held up really well. You watch them today, special effects wise, all that. They still look good. There are studios who are rebooting things a lot faster. I mean, look at Disney.
They're already doing a live action Moana. The first Moana came out in 2016. No time has passed there. Yeah. And also the second animated one is getting ready to come out. Right. And that was supposed to be a TV show and they've somehow converted it into a theatrical sequel, which worries me. It sounds like they kind of just shoehorned the sequel together to make some money, more money in theaters than they would have if it was a TV show. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes.
But looking at this other part of the quote, the exec said, you've done something to upset the canon of a beloved franchise and they're going to take you down for doing so. Because I have to kind of agree with the fans when it comes to this because when a studio or writers mess with canon, you're basically telling fans, I don't care about this story as much as you do. And then that tells the fans, well, why should I support this project?
We're only turning out because we care about it and we love it and we expect you to love it just as much. So if you're not going to respect canon, we're not going to respect you. I kind of get it. Now there's times when maybe they have to make a change for storytelling purposes and I'm sure there's good examples there. But sometimes it seems like they're messing with canon and not even realizing they're messing with canon. And we saw this with fantastic beasts two or three times at least.
Yeah. And that's the part that's infuriating if you're a super fan of something to be like, you didn't even ask anybody like you literally could have gotten on Twitter and like found a bunch of random Harry Potter fans for example. And ask them questions early gotten on a fan forum or God forbid reach out to a fandom expert. Can you imagine if Warner Brothers hopped on to their official Warner Brothers account and just said, Hey, y'all a quick question. Can Muggle see Hogwarts? Can't remember.
Let us know. Honestly, that would, I think that would be kind of iconic. It's not going to lie. It's a real nice. Why not? It would be amazing. We'd be like, thanks for checking in with us. You guys are idiots, but thanks for checking in. Right. And to that point, I think that that's like the biggest, that's like the, the biggest then you can make is changing the rules of the world. And it's not hard to keep rules the same, right?
And I just, it is interesting that a lot of times these movie execs or these people that come on to spearhead these adaptations, I guess, like don't realize that that's like such a huge pillar of the fantasy genre is establishing the rules of the world so that everyone's on the same page going forward. So it's, it's just odd. And I wonder if like most of it is just like they just think, oh, well, you know, it would be even cooler than that. But it doesn't always work that way.
Like I think that like the domino effect, right, isn't never taken into account. And that's when the, the changes fall flat, right? Yeah. So like you, for somebody that is just coming on to spearhead a blockbuster, they might not realize like changing one thing. Like does it make sense? Because then you're changing like 10 other little things just because you decide that you wanted to do this one cool thing for your movie.
So one other project in the works that I want to bring up just because it's tied to our fandom history. We haven't brought this up on the show yet, but Netflix is actually going to adapt midnight sun, twilight from Edwards perspective into an animated TV series. And I think this is really interesting because it's going to be a different storytelling medium on two levels. They're not rebooting the twilight movies.
They're doing a twilight television series from a different characters perspective in animated form. And let's all remember the first twilight movie came out in 2008. I don't see anybody complaining that they're rebooting twilight already. And I think it's because they're jumping over a couple different storytelling mediums here to truly create something new. I think if we saw Harry Potter be rebooted into an animated series, nobody would be talking about, oh, why are you rebooting this already?
Because that's really not a reboot. It's a whole different opportunity for them. I'm excited for this midnight sun TV series. I love that midnight twilight still hot. I think it's smart, well, it's smart of them because, especially because again, going back to the rules of the world, Bella and Edward aren't supposed to look any different. So you can't even really like recast the same actor who's because they look older.
And that would take like too much to do special effects to like rewind the clock ten years or however many years you would need to go back. So yeah, this is like, I agree with you. I think this is really smart. Do you think they'll get Robert Pattinson to voice Edward? That would be funny. That would be pretty great. Like, he hated playing that character though. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, maybe his feelings on twilight have evolved over the years. He was warmed up.
Yeah. How much money is Netflix going to throw at him? I think that's the real question. That's the deciding factor for you. I feel like it in contrast, it would not take much to get Taylor Lautner back. Why? Because his career is kind of... No, I just feel like he would be excited to do it. Oh, yeah. As a lot, what is it that he has so many cringy lines? Yeah. Like, what was it that he said to her where you've been, Loka? I was just trying to think of that comic.
Where the hell would you've been, Loka? I missed Twilight. I want to hear real. That whole first movie, like, I can't believe the script for that movie. Like, sometimes I think that I know it was incredible. I know, right? That movie holds up really well, I think. That was a good movie. Catherine Hardwick did a good job. It's better than New Moon. Come on. Yes. I think she understood.
I thought that she struck a really good tone with that movie and made Twilight feel a little more self-aware than the book did. If that makes sense, I can see that. Yeah. Welcome to Twilight. So I think we've faced toxic fandoms ourselves, Pam and I. Well, we've all had fan-side experience. Pam and I, for nine years, were working on Hypeable and Entertainment, Pop Culture News website. And we had opinionated writers and opinionated readers. And they were born for each other. Let's just say.
But there are many times we got a lot of hate on topics we were writing about in the comments. And on Facebook as well. I loved writing a very opinionated headline that would really get people going. And I just, I loved all the attention. I thought it was great. But there were instances where we were getting some really hateful stuff from people. And I know Pam outside of Hypeable, you faced backlash a couple of times to the point where your editors were concerned, right?
Yeah. You know, that whole thing about like not shooting the messenger does not apply to fandom. Even if you're just reporting straight news, which really sucks. And yeah, there were a couple of instances where I wrote stuff. Sometimes it was more editorial based, if you will. And a lot of times it was just like, hey, here's the trailer for that show you're really excited about. And guess what they're teasing? Fan-im gets upset because that's not what they wanted to see.
But all of a sudden it's not the creator's fault that that's happening. It's how dare you write that in your article. Yeah. Pam from Insert website here, you know nothing. And that is like keeping it fairly tame. But there were a few times when it got pretty scary to the point where Andrew said they, my editors decided to take my name off of the byline and also like remove contact information from like staff directory pages.
There was one time where we got a couple of death threats at the office. And that's happened like not just to me, but to like multiple people. And whenever that happens, they have to like assure everyone in to a small room and security comes in and says, hey, like we're aware of this. Like, this is our protocol. And this is our plan to keep you all safe. But like most likely it's not that big of a deal. Do you have any questions for us? So it completely like disrupts the flow as well.
Yeah. So I get to deal with that. That's crazy. That's terrifying. Yeah. Well, before we wrap this up, just want to remind all of our listeners that a few months ago, we launched a new podcast entirely pop culture focus called what the hype. And we each week are taking on a different subject. Recent episodes have included discussions on band books in honor of band books week, music biopix survivor, beetle juice, which is perfect for spooky season. Laura led that discussion the week before that.
We did a whole episode on reputation, the Taylor Swift album, guess who put together that discussion and a lengthy and very good slideshow about it too. So search for what the hype in your favorite podcast app. We release the episodes into the Mugogost feed, but we also have the WTF edition. And this is the uncensored version of the show that we don't want to release to the kiddies in the Mugogost feed. And of course, all of our shows are on YouTube.
And we can only do video episodes and episodes period because of listener supports and listeners of our show and Patreon supporters and Apple podcasts paid subscribers. Get after dark and what's coming up in after dark this week, Laura. This week's after dark is going to be so cozy and wholesome.
So we're going to be talking about nighttime routines, but we're going to be using that to get into a discussion about how increasing numbers of millennials, people in our age group have gone back to sleeping with stuffed animals at night. I know that we obviously all did that as children, but we're going to dig into the article that was written about this, talk about our own experiences. And I at least brought a few special guests to introduce you all to. These are never before seen guests.
Oh, wow. Yeah. We're just have friends. I do. It's exciting. I know. After dark, cutesy edition is part of Mega Millennial, which you get every week when you're a patron or Apple podcasts subscriber. It's also ad free because we much prefer your support over working with advertisers. So visit patreon.com slash millennial to pledge today. That's the top way to support us. But if you're an Apple podcast user, you can tap into the show and subscribe to the mega millennial feed.
Other Patreon benefits include recording studio access monthly variety shows, access to our planning meetings. And in October, we're launching a new benefit. It's called From the Vault Smart Mouths. And we'll be releasing two episodes of smart mouths every month. Plus, we'll be publishing each episode's original show plans that Andrew Laura wrote for the episode along with a couple of other familiar voices that you'll probably recognize with them following us for a while.
It's easy to get started. Apple podcasts and Patreon offer seven day free trials and annual subscription discounts. Time for recommendations. What do you have for us this week, Laura? Yeah, so I would just like to recommend if you can, making a donation to the Red Cross for hurricane relief. A lot of communities in the Southeast need it after Halloween and will need it even more after Milton hits. So appreciate y'all's support of my corner of the country.
Way to make Pam and I look like assholes for unrepentant patients this week. My recommendation is to donate to cancer research causes. I'm pivoting. I'm not. I'm trying to tempt colder weather. So I'm going to recommend snag tides. They're great if you like hoseri if any kind of they have other stuff too, but I always go for them for my tides. They're so comfortable and they're very size inclusive. So that's really great as well and their size guide is very true to size.
So you don't have to worry about ordering something and then having it not fit when it comes in. I like to stock up once a year just to like treat myself to new patterns and designs, but honestly, I probably don't even need to do that because these tides do not snag and they're very durable and I don't even think I've had to throw a pair away since I bought my first round. So definitely check them out if you're looking to upgrade your tides for fallow winter.
Plus one on that they are so good because of this recommendation, Pam, you mentioned them a while back. I ended up buying a few pairs about a year ago and these things wear like iron. Like they have not torn. They have not snagged nothing. I've been able to wear them not so many times. Yeah, they're not too tight. They're just perfectly stretchy, but they're not too stretchy. It's just perfect. Yeah, it's great. Back in March, I discovered a game called Bilatro and it's poker on steroids.
It's like a deck building type of game and use jokers as power ups and you're trying to score as high as possible to advance to different rounds. And it was available on certain consoles and PC, but now it is available on mobile. This game, and I know Laura, you got into it too. I think you said you, it had you in a chokehold at one point. It had to be by the balls. I'm still obsessed with this game. It's got me by the balls too.
I proudly bought it because I want to support this indie developer. My only issue with it on mobile right now is you can't carry over your saved data. So my six months of work on Switch. I'm starting from scratch here. He says it is coming soon, being able to transfer. Well, he said it's coming. It's on the product roadmap. So I'm not playing it on a mobile as much as I would normally be because I don't want to like start from scratch, but it is so nice to have it on mobile.
Maybe while I'm traveling and whatnot. And if you haven't picked it up yet, if you like poker, definitely check out Bilatro. This is already being considered a, this is a game of the year contender, according to all the video game nerds. I mean, it's definitely my game of the year. I've been playing this more than anything else. So plus one to that too. All right, pals, make sure you are following the show and your favorite podcast apps. So you never miss an episode.
And we would appreciate every view and Apple podcasts or Spotify to stay in touch with us. Email Millennial Show Gmail.com or visit Millennial Show dot com while there you'll also find all the links to our various social media channels. So please do give us a follow, Spotify users can also leave feedback directly within an episode. After dark starts in a moment for patrons and Apple podcast subscribers. Thanks everybody for listening. I'm Andrew. I'm Laura and I'm Camila. Bye everyone. Bye. Bye.