Last night, Tasha Robinson at The Dissolve posted an article telling the audience to calm the fuck down and stop being so outraged over movies that don’t yet exist. She points to outrage generated over Gone Girl when David Fincher made an interview comment stating that Gillian Flynn had changed the whole third act of the film (which didn’t come true). Or, outrage over then-Ninja Turtles which were subjected to comments by Michael Bay over the elimination of Teenage and Mutant, with a side plot of Space Aliens instead of nuclear mutation.

A large element missing from Tasha’s article, though she touches upon in the comments, is the role that media websites (like The Dissolve) play in generating outrage. After all, outrage serves many different purposes in Hollywood and the websites that feed from it. It generates hype for movies and clicks for commerce. If people aren’t talking about your film a year in advance, will they see the movie opening weekend? And, if people aren’t commenting on your website, how are you generating money?

I think it’s good to examine the steps that hype and outrage take, and how news can become one or the other. Note: I’m going to use Matt Singer as a prime example here because this website came off the commentariat at The Dissolve, and keeping a single source helps closely examine a cycle.

Step 1: Hints, Rumors and Conjecture – Hollywood
Most people involved with the making of Hollywood movies participate in the rumor mill. Actors, producers, directors, agents, Public Relations, agents, publicists, etc. all have Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc with which they drop bits of rumor and hype for the entertainment news industry to feed from. These people give interviews in which they drop hints on projects they either are doing, have heard that they might be doing, have thoughts about doing, or have dreamt about in an alternate reality.

Some of these crumbs are factual, like JJ Abrams passing around pictures of cast readings of Star Wars. Sometimes, these crumbs are just passing thoughts, like James L. Brooks being asked a leading question about a second movie with The Simpsons and giving a quick answer. And, some of them are people leaving messages to other people in public, like me talking about the production company who expressed interest in my script (call me!).

They’re all left lying around in the populace waiting to be picked up by the media and internet in the hopes of becoming fodder for water cooler chatting. But, people are busy, mostly too busy to notice these things. Which is why we need step 2.

Step 2: Media Attention – Trade Papers, News Lines
Since the audience doesn’t have the time to scour everybody’s Twitter feeds and read all of the interviews, presumably because they’re working full time jobs at McDonald’s (call me!), so the rumor and conjecture has to turn to the media in order to things in front of the audience to see what will bite. There are whole websites dedicated to scouring interviews and social media accounts for the slightest hints that something promising is happening.

These bits of scrap are then turned into articles. Today, Matt Singer turned an offhand comment in a 90 minute interview into the headline “Fox wants to make another Simpsons movie.” Yesterday, Singer wrote about Sony buying into a Robin Hood pitch based on “Sources” saying that Sony wants to make it into a franchise. For months, Singer wrote about Star Wars news posting articles about Harrison Ford’s ankle and tweeted images of cast readings.

These three types of article fall into the categories of “Generating Hope,” “Testing the Waters,” and “Generating Hype.” These are three distinct phases of a film’s publicity, and getting the attention of the film goer. The two more notorious ones are the Generating Hope and Testing the Waters phases, which are the Teaser Trailers for Hype. They have the potential to become Hype or Outrage.

Step 3: Reaction Articles – Entertainment Websites
The crumbs are dropped, somebody noticed and decided to write an article about it. The writing of the article itself is an important part of the Hype or Outrage cycle. Sometimes it is the media author who can turn a bit of hype into a snarky bit of outrage bait. Compare these two examples of Singer’s writing:

Singer on The Simpsons Sequel
Frankly, I think a sequel would be a great way to finally close out the series in a few years; wrap things up with a massive farewell movie that crams in as much fun and as many characters as possible.

Singer on the Robin Hood Franchise
I mean, sure, who doesn’t love an richly woven multi-film saga? What better way to rob from the poor to give to the rich (that’s how that goes, right?) than by convincing people to shell out $100 over half a dozen films to get a single story. No wonder Sony’s so keen on the idea.

These two pieces of writing show how the author of an article can start the generation of spin. The Simpsons Hope gets turned into a positive and will test the waters for becoming hype. The Robin Hood Testing the Waters gets a negative spin and has the potential to turn the audience into outrage. But, neither of these, by themselves, are hype or outrage without the audience.

Step 4: Audience Reaction – Blogs, Social Media, Comments
This is where the real response comes in. Does the audience take the bait? Should we care about a Robin Hood movie that doesn’t need to exist nevertheless exist as 20 movies? Should we care about the non-answer about a The Simpsons Movie sequel? And, how much should we care about these movies that don’t even have contracts signed yet, haven’t been written, and have a good chance of not making it to screen?

The Simpsons article has, at this time, received 31 comments, which is low but is the highest number of comments on today’s articles so far. The Robin Hood article received 106 comments, which was the highest of the non-retro newsreels yesterday (the second highest was Genevieve Koski reporting on King’s speculation about The Stand at 58 comments).

The articles about speculation test our reactions, and the size and volume of our reaction does, now and then, lead to how things happen in Hollywood, because both outrage and hype turn into ticket sales more than nothingness does.

The question becomes, who is responsible for outrage? Is it the audience or is it the media? Does the media generate strong emotions by manipulating the audience? Should it be the audience’s responsibility to not react with strong emotions to the media hype?

At this point, I’m ignoring the obvious answer that there are more important things to worry about, such as hate crimes, war, gentrification, the wage gap, politicians, corporations, ebola, and exploding marijuana soda bottles. That getting worked up over Gone Girl‘s potentially changed 3rd act or the possibility of YET ANOTHER franchise pales in comparison to getting worked up over Russia still occupying Ukraine, and Boeing writing amicus briefs in cases about ex-employees trying to get unemployment benefits when quitting a job with an abusive boss.

Of course the real news is more important than the media hype, but that’s outside the scope of this discussion. The discussion is whether we, the audience, have an increased responsibility to control our reactions when we’re being so blatantly and obviously manipulated for maximal reaction? It’s like when you’re in elementary school, and some kid puts their hands in your face and keeps saying “I’m not touching yooouuuu” until you punch them and get in trouble for it. Is it the kid’s fault for harassing the puncher, or is it the puncher’s fault for letting the kid get to him?

Reason would state that the responsibility lies on both sides of this debate, but who can be reasonable when they’re letting Zack Snyder direct yet another movie??