Revel in the Genius and Ignominy of Deadline Comments (and Maybe Help This Substack While You're At It)
Deadline comments are a window into the soul of this industry. Sometimes that's terrifying. Sometimes it's sublime. Help me catalog both. Or just take a survey.
In general, I avoid reading comments on Deadline, which should come with a warning badge that says: “The Internet is not real life.” Or at least I hope real life isn’t a teeming mass of fanatics, shitposters, publicists/plants, Kevin Durant-like burner accounts, and occasional poor bastards trying earnestly to make a good-faith point for some reason.
Despite my better judgment, I can’t help but occasionally take a peek. (Doesn’t everyone?) When I do, I’m usually reminded that my default policy is the right one. But every once in a while, I see a comment that is like this one on a story about the defenestration of long-time Amazon Studios head Jen Salke, the day after Seth Rogen’s The Studio premiered on Apple, with its whole story kicked off by a long-time studio head played by Catherine O’Hara going through a very similar experience:
As Max Verstappen would say: that is simply lovely.
As someone whose best life choice1 was to opt out almost entirely from engagement with social media,2 where am I going to find a better one-liner than that?
And while no one should ever make too much of them, Deadline comments can also sometimes reveal an amusingly clear public consensus about certain major executives. You know you’re looking at one of the “good guys” (or gals) when even the wretched hive of scum and villainy that frolics through those comment sections can’t come up with a bad thing to say about them. And likewise, you can get a sense when the only positive comments seem to be the result of a suddenly-deployed astroturfing campaign following a sustained run of unanimously critical (and occasionally gleeful) comments.
I assume that, on some assistants’ email list (or group chat, or message board, or Slack, or Discord, or DM, or whatever it is the kids use), there’s already a “best of” compilation of Deadline comments going around somewhere. But I am not privy to such things (and, most likely, neither are you).
So if I’m going to start featuring the best of this industry on this Substack, I figure I might as well interpret that mandate broadly enough to have some fun with it (and perhaps also occasionally feature a bit of the worst of the industry too, if it’s funny enough and there’s something to learn from it). And I’d like to see if one of you would like to help with it.
I’m looking for a reader to become a very (very) part-time contributor to The Business of Television Max(+), with some kind of take on a “Best of” Deadline comments feature. How frequent should it be? What should it celebrate? How much commentary is involved? I could come up with answers to those questions, but I’m much more interested to see what someone else thinks would be good — so good that they'd want to write it themselves. And for that, I can offer:
A one-year paid subscription to The Business of Television Max+ (including the upcoming TBOT chatbot feature) for helping me launch this.
An additional year of Max+ for every 3 months you keep at it — and at the one-year mark, free Max+ for life.
I’m a reasonably nice person who knows some people and some things. We’ll talk while we’re working on this. Maybe I can be helpful with some advice or introductions, if it seems appropriate.
If you’re interested, please send me an email at tbot.max@gmail.com, telling me a bit about yourself, what you have in mind for the feature, and maybe what compelled you to respond. Because I truly have no idea how many (if any) of you will respond to this, I don’t know what the process will be from there. But I promise to reply to you (in a non-perfunctory way) no matter what!
Or Help Me Out With Considerably Less Effort: Take a Survey
Looking for a lighter-touch way to help out (and get at least $40 of value for 5 minutes of your time)? Help me make The Business of Television Max(+) better by filling out a quick reader survey, and get two free months of The Business of Television Max on me.
Current Max subscribers will automatically receive two free months applied to their subscriptions, and will receive one month of free Max+ access, applied starting on the launch date of the upcoming TBOT chatbot.3
If you’re not a current subscriber, then take the survey and subscribe now to get your two free months of The Business of Television Max. In fact, if you’re still reading this, I trust you so much that I’m just going to give you the link for the 2-month free trial right here and now, totally on the honor system:
I’m obviously going to be able to tell if you sign up using this link without having submitted a survey. It’s fine. No one will know but you and me.
After marrying his wife.
I allow myself the occasional LinkedIn Feed doomscroll, and watch whatever my wife sends me in Instagram — generally hyperspecific doctor humor, hyperspecific local humor, information about local restaurants, and Formula 1 memes.
Release date TBD.