The advent of OTT brought about a comfort in viewing, a personal safe space to indulge into, to escape the bitterness of reality, at your own convenience. This witnessed a sharp spike as the pandemic hit, becoming ‘The New Television’, giving the youth what they want to see, whenever they want to. For some shows more than the others, the feeling goes beyond appreciation to create a deepened sense of association. Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’ surpassed the popular ‘Stranger Things season 4’ for the most watched hours for an English-language series in the debut week itself, bagging top 1 in 83 countries. Jenna Ortega’s choreography on the song ‘Goo Goo Muck’ recorded more than 400K remakes in less than a month. Reddit forums are seen to be buzzing with fans tattooing Wednesday itself, eagerly awaiting the second season. Wednesday surely took the internet by storm, single-handedly reviving the Gothic subculture. This research engages with the online conversations around ‘Wednesday’ and their consequent influence on audiences to form participatory cultures. Netnographic research method will be used to understand the reception of the show and its impact via platforms like Reddit forums, Twitter, Quora, Instagram, and others. The aim of this research is to understand the specific elements that foster the creation of participatory cultures around OTT shows like ‘Wednesday’. Deciphering these factors will allow content creators in the entertainment industry to design superior content that can gain popularity easily and stand out in the vast content pool available at everybody’s fingertips today.

Authors:
Nikita Chowdhary, FLAME University, India

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Nikita Chowdhary is a University Postgraduate Student at FLAME University in India

See this presentation on the full schedule – Monday Schedule

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