In the aftermath of era-defining cultural events, narratives form and mutate. When Game of Thrones concluded its run in May of , a lot of narratives formed around its polarizing final season. The HBO fantasy drama had, across its eight years on air, become a phenomenon. It broke worldwide viewership records, Emmy awards piled up, and critics were awestruck. So of course the eighth and final season was watched intently. Two million super-fans even signed a petition demanding a remake.
And in the absence of any concrete movement there, the public devised its own narratives about the final season of the show, and about its legacy. Of the narratives that formed immediately after the series finale, a handful still get talked about to this day. In fact, just last month, Collider published an entire word article supporting this theory without offering any evidence as to whether it was actually true.
Facts disprove this narrative right off the bat. According to Parrot Analytics , Game of Thrones was the most-watched and most-pirated TV show across streaming services in An analysis of British viewing habits revealed it was the second-most popular show during the pandemic. Blu-ray sales for season 8 were the highest for TV boxsets in the United States in , and the fourth-highest in A lot of people may not like the final season of Game of Thrones , but the plain data shows that they still talk and care about it.
A lot. Now, I could conclude this article here with a hefty mic drop of hard facts, but that would only half-finish the job. What human emotions are behind it? Our experiences on Twitter, for example, are never accidental.
Twitter is run by an algorithm that deliberately pushes us towards content that provokes strong enough emotional reactions to keep us coming back. You may only be reading this because Twitter detected a provocative headline and steered you here. My second theory comes from a suggestion raised by culture critic Asher Elbein. But when season 8 was widely criticized, those same websites suddenly flipped and instead began flooding the zone with articles about why season 8 was a disaster.
