Movies, TV shows, and even Netflix shows are different: they're licensed media which were already made by legitimate studios and possibly in post-production. So when you see the trailer you can decide for yourself if it's of your liking or not.

Internet cartoons, however…well, there are exceptions: if they're independently produced, meaning that they are made by indie studios, kickstarters, etc, who know better than to count their chickens before they hatch and finance as much of the product before spoiling the mere idea, it can work as long as you do just that: do it rather than show it off.

But even then, after seeing people react to the trailers for “Long Gone Gulch”, and “Hazbin Hotel”, which are either previews for just pilots or previews for a show that only NOW we know exists, it feels like generalization is the new entertainment.

A decade ago my friend showed me an actual episode from Michael Swain's Blockhead, and it became my favorite. Not because of what it promised but because of what it already had, after consuming at least half the series. Why would I want to look forward to the cover if that's EXACTLY what I'm not supposed to judge a book by?

In fact I take it back with TV due to one case: remember “Class of 3000”? That show had the EXACT same tactic with getting people's hopes up with the trailer, and look how well it did.

Don't get me wrong: if people are fans of the creators and have already bought the tickets to the hype train months, if not years, in advance, then I can at least understand where the fanbase is coming from.

It just feels that times now are extremely different with independent cartoons, especially when they're so clearly made for fun, compared to when having them exist was good enough as long as you recommended them to friends and saw enough to enjoy rather than call yourself a fan of an upcoming cartoon.

i cant figure out what you are talking about. but maybe thats cuz i dont watch tv. i guess you have to stand on the tracks in order to be hit by the hype train. i recently watched Disenchantment and i enjoyed it a lot. i didnt watch any trailers for it beforehand and only saw one still image last year when i heard they were making it.

where do i go to see these indie cartoons? youtube?

They mostly appear on either tumblr or twitter, though I dont have an account for either one anymore due to personal reasons and just visit ones from artists and friends I used to follow. I mean it applies to everything, really, when you build up your expectations too high for something, sort of like Avatar did.

I don't see why you can't have both: Great hype and a product that delivers. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Tbh, I find MUCH fewer disappointments in this age of online reviews and ratings. Especially with movies, I never spend “theater money” (so expensive) without knowing full well whether it will be worth it.

(I have never been one to watch anything opening week or at the release date. My video games are always one console behind. So it works out pretty well for me. Often, I will buy a ‘meh’ reviewed movie or game if it's in the realm of genres I enjoy at ‘meh’ level. But I still know what to expect from them.)

lothar wrote:
i cant figure out what you are talking about. but maybe thats cuz i dont watch tv. i guess you have to stand on the tracks in order to be hit by the hype train. i recently watched Disenchantment and i enjoyed it a lot. i didnt watch any trailers for it beforehand and only saw one still image last year when i heard they were making it.

where do i go to see these indie cartoons? youtube?

WTF?
Lother is back??????????? O_o

—————

Hype gets a bit annoying when it's raised too high, I think that's a documented phenomenon. Hype something too high and you'll make people hate it. :)

@ozoneocean Yeah, though El CiD got me here. I mean despite the fact I prefer Long Gone Gulch over Hazbin Hotel (sort of a “to each their own” type of thing because Vivienne Medrano is extremely talented yet her style is visual Vegemite to me XP) the trailers sort of communicate the same kind of feeling.

Like I said: maybe I'm just a cranky old geezer who dreams of the good old days when sophisticated flash cartoons like…“retarded animal babies” and…“dick figures” were…um, sophisticating and stuff, not this new age stuff with its profoundly detailed backgrounds, ambitiously written characters and plots years, decades even, ahead of their time making me more jelly than a strawberry jam factory. >_<

Hahaha!
Also…

JaymonRising wrote:
visual Vegemite

That's beautiful :D

Blame social media because now you can get hype about the hype.

Used to be a TV commercial or a trailer in the movies – now it's flashed in your face every time you open your web browser or promoted everywhere on your Twitter feed. And you get all the fans tweeting or posting about the hype and it builds and builds and builds.

It's exponential.

And you end up with hype about the hype about the hype (i.e. someone commenting on what someone else commented on about the advertisement) And then there is promotional appearances so you get hype about the hype about the hype about the hype (a comment on what someone said about a report about a promotional appearance for the show)

Exponential. The actual hype maybe hasn't increased only our exposure to the hype.

There was this movie in 1979 where the only advertisement was an egg with a light coming out and the words “In space no one can hear you scream” It was like that for months. Finally, I saw the lobby book from someone who had seen it (the book they sold in the lobby with stills and information about the movie) AND WAS BLOWN AWAY! hype? Word of mouth. Nothing anywhere about this movie and a few weeks later (after I had seen it) it was everywhere.

Same thing with “soon to be a major motion picture from 20th Century Fox” the little blurb on the back of the Ralph MacQuarrie covered novelization of Star Wars. Nothing else. Four theaters in New Jersey. And then the universe changed–

We spend all day looking at screens and is it any wonder that promotional types elbow their way onto those screens to scream about the latest and greatest?

And then in this age of opinion and information anyone and everyone can and will comment. And it builds and the people in charge of promotions rub their hands in glee.

Yeah, over the top fan driven hype is also a turnoff…
But how much is actually fan driven really at its heart. I know some of these media companies and their tactics… some are cleverer than others.