You wanna play with math, bitches? Let's play

[lokiyan]

Cards on the table: as a social justice/education scholar (hence the antagonistic attitude toward the abusive relationships displayed as 'romantic' in media and pop culture, but that's another post), I'm a qualitative researcher by habit so this isn't exactly my forte. However, we do use quantitative research to supplement our findings, keeping in

Comments

[angel_bunny]

I love you for this. I bow down. And the gifs = A++++.

I did something not nearly as in depth at the end of last season when they started trying to run with this theory, but I related it to the promos, and with one or two anomalies, the Chair heavy promo episodes actually got the lower ratings for the season. The highest Chuck centric promo featured him with RAINA.

[lokiyan]

Thanks! That actually sounds really interesting. I thought about doing more in depth descriptions episode-wise, but then I realized that I REALLY don't have that kind of time... lol

[frelling_tralk]

Yep, Shattered Bass (421) was heavily promoted with Chuck in the trailers with the scenes of Jack and Nate working to have him committed. At the time no one knew it was a fact-out obviously so you'd think audiences would eat that sort of Chuck-centric episode up (after it promoted as such in the trailers) if Chuck is the the fan favourite that it's claimed, yet it bombed heavily in ratings and did the worst of the season.

People can argue about Chuck trending on twitter, but when it comes to ratings he doesn't make much of an impact. If anything the end of season 4 suffered from dropping the Dair arc as they were staying pretty consistent before that

[revertigo]

EVERYONE BOW DOWN

and fyi chair stans, ratings were down across the board this week -- get some fresh and sunlight and join the rest of us the real world. there is more to life than your creepy relationship with a fictional couple
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/across-the-board-lower-ratings-have-networks-asking-why/?smid=tw-nytimestv&seid=auto

[revertigo]

and if you have tumblr, reblog!! http://meesterbate.tumblr.com/post/17800851234/lets-talk-gossip-girl-ratings-chuckistans-prt-i

i'll be stretching the series out over the next few days for dramatic effect lol

[lokiyan]

Thanks! It would have been waay tl;dr (too long; didn't read) otherwise.

[zizm0re]

yeah i have to agree, i wouldn't put the whole blame on lack of interest in chuck and blair as a couple

[lokiyan]

I agree and I'm not trying to place blame on any particular element of the show for a decline in ratings (which is why I went through and mentioned the major storylines including S). Rather than trying to prove what is, this makes more of an effort of what is not - that Chair is NOT the hail mary of the show and that putting them together alone CAN'T maintain ratings, as those who stand with the original Tumblr post imply.

[prinklerjelly]

This post is so amazing, I almost want to tweet it to the writers in a vaguely-threatening, chuckistanian way. BLESS YOUR HEART.

[revertigo]

definitely tweeting it monday