Snyder Cut’s Online Fandom Reportedly Infested With Bots

Although there were quite a few real people campaigning for the release of #TheSnyderCut before Warner Bros. Announcement 2021, new report from rolling stone suggests that a significant portion of the film’s social media hype was driven by bots and inauthentic accounts.

When Warner Bros. announced last year that it planned to release an expanded version of its 2017 Justice League film, the move was seen by many as vindication and capitulation to director Zack Snyder and his extremely online fandom. For years, Snyder loyalists have insisted the movement was growing organically as people saw the cut Joss Whedon, who replaced Snyder as director, livery – and found it missing. But, according to rolling stonewho obtained copies of multiple cybersecurity reports commissioned by Warner Bros., at least 13% of conversations about the Snyder Cut on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram involved “fake perpetrators.”

“An identified community consisted of real and fake authors who were spreading negative content on WarnerMedia for failing to restore the ‘SnyderVerse,'” the 2021 report revealed. scanned on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – a leader on each platform. These leaders have received the most engagement and have many followers, which gives them the ability to influence public opinion.

It’s not at all surprising that bots and networks of accounts pretending to be real people are part of the thrilling mass that treated their efforts to bring the Snyder Cut to fruition like a job. What gives pause, however, is Rolling Stone’s implication that Snyder knowingly weaponized his fandom to make it look like a Snyder Cut existed when it didn’t – and removes the names from producers Geoff Johns and Jon Berg from the film’s credits when it was finally produced. .

The situation with Zack Snyder’s Justice League was further complicated by the fact that a significant amount of new footage had to be shot and money had to be spent to have it completed, although the film was originally pitched as a simple director’s cut . Instead, Warner Bros. Zack Snyder’s Justice League ended up spending an additional $60 million on post-production and editing costs, as the DCEU was long past the story that pits the Justice League against Darkseid.

It’s hard to imagine that Warner Bros. emotionally reflects on his decision to spend millions of dollars to remake a four-year-old movie that people initially didn’t really like. But it’s easy to see how rolling stoneThe report could give other studios reason to rethink their approaches to tapping into rabid fandoms, especially at a time when all it seemingly takes to get movies back into theaters is for memes about them to take off. considerably.