Keep seeing posts in solidarity with the WGA strike that say things like âno one cares about your favorite showsâ and âfuck your tv show. I hope it gets canceledâ and while I understand and agree with the underlying sentiment, which is clearly âReal people are more important than fictional ones, you dipshitâ I donât like the framing because, well, it feels shitty to dismiss the importance of the work made by the workers weâre trying to defend.
No one cares about your favorite shows more than the writers do.
No one understands the power and importance of tv and film more than the writers who created them.
No one loves tv, movies, games, and stories more than the people who fought tooth and nail in an incredibly competitive and underpaid profession for the chance to be part of it.
They know itâs important. They know it changes lives. They know it can be more than just a story, more than just a bit of entertainment. Theyâve loved and respected this medium, continue to love and respect this medium, more than you ever will.
The person who wants a show to get canceled the least is the writer who poured their everything into making it good.
TV and movies are great, actually, and you are not wrong to be invested and care about them. Thatâs what the writers gave you. Thatâs what the writers wanted when they wrote it. Thatâs why they wrote it.
Which is why we respect them when they make the call that this strike and its demands are worth risking it.
The people on that picket line do not want their shows canceled. They want to keep writing them. They canât, not under the current conditions.
So we accept the risk with them and support them.
But I donât want to berate the power and importance of their work, the value they put into it and the love they have for it, in the same breath that I am defending their strike. Worthy shows will likely get canceled or derailed and that will be a tragedy worth mourning. The writers know that better than anyone.
So when they say something else is even more important, we listen. And when your favorite show gets ruined, you make sure your fully justified anger and grief is pointed in the right direction - at the CEOs who killed it.
