Ruby Sparks & Tumblr
I get it… I get why a giant movie studio or even a “mini-major” like Fox Searchlight would grab onto something like Tumblr, use it’s popularity to market their film “Ruby Sparks” in a way that would get attention. Using popular memes like the “ermahgerd” and commonality of gifs to pay tribute to a movie that has a fan base is great. Well done.
The difference is this… Tumblr picks it’s fandoms. It chooses what it wants to help promote through these methods in a natural way. Whether it’s The Avengers, Legend of Korra, The Hunger Games, Spider-Man, Batman or whatever, Tumblr’s users naturally take to making these things, posting them and watching the fandom grab hold.
You can’t simply emulate what the fandom does in hopes of getting attention for your film and have us, the Tumblr masses, take it seriously. It’s not organic and therefore it’s not something we want to pay attention to. I follow a lot of fandoms and search for a lot of them, and while I’m looking forward to Ruby Sparks, want to go see it in theaters, I’m not reblogging these pots and I’m not even seeing them on my feed.
Something to think about Fox. Maybe next time you don’t post from your official account and maybe it’ll seem more organic.
