Why Avoid the Buzz?

photo credit: IMDb

     Recently, while gathering research for my Technical Editing project on the use social media in order to generate 'buzz' (publicity, interest, etc.) I stumbled upon something, or really, a lack of something that I found rather surprising. Using the Instagram tag #iammother, in search of content relating to the recently released Sundance hit and sci-fi/thriller I Am Mother, directed by Grant Sputore and featuring mega-stars Rose Byrne and Hilary Swank, I was perplexed to find almost nothing. A single photo of what appeared to be Sputore working behind the scenes, a handful of suspenseful still frames of Swank, and just one of the robot, Mother, who's a main character and huge part of the story line from what I've gathered. So I got creative and tried #iammotherfilm. The tag was still dominated almost entirely by pregnant women, babies, toddlers, milestone announcements, nurseries, the list goes on. 

     The film did not have its own Instagram page, so I tried Hilary Swank. Again, I could count on less than one hand the number of posts pertaining to the film. Other members of my group complained of similar results on their social media platforms. In an era where the idea of social media promotion as a necessity for a business or project has been taught as a fairly strict rule, I had to ask why? Why didn't the creators of the film set up social media profiles dedicated to solely to it? Why did Hilary Swank dedicate less Instagram posts to the film she'd spent months working on than cutesy dogs and fitness routines (stars: they Insta just like us!). As previously stated, building hype on social media has been praised and encouraged as a means of getting the word out to a huge audience for free. In fact, upon searching for reasons to avoid social media advertisement, I was only met with articles further endorsing this practice or suggesting ways to do it better, but none advising against it.
     So why didn't the creators and stars of the film lean into social media promotion? The choice to keep relatively quiet on social media (Sputore did have quite a few posts pertaining to the film on his personal Instagram page, but that's the most I could find on my platform) had to be an intentional one given all the options for promoting a project of this magnitude online. So I've attempted to draw my own conclusions on why this move would make sense.
     It's possible that those involved with the film wanted other people to be the ones talking about it. Seeing praise from people who genuinely enjoyed the film gives it more credibility. If these viewers liked it, I'll probably like it too. It also may have something to do with the fact that the film was quickly picked up by Netflix. I'm not an expert on how Netflix operates in choosing shows and films, but I suppose they may prefer that creators don't put out too much information or content about their projects ahead of time, so that when they finally air on Netflix, they seem fresh and new, rather than something people have already been talking about. New stuff is popping up on Netflix all the time, and I see lots of headlines that call upon us to check out the latest Netflix series or movie. Perhaps those involved with I Am Mother knew they had a good chance of getting the film on Netflix, and understood that Netflix would want to be primarily associated with the film.
     Again, these are just my theories, and I'm excited to learn about my classmates findings when researching how others utilized social media for their Sundance projects. In the meantime, things seem to be working out really well for I Am Mother. Being picked up by Netflix is huge (I, myself, am anxiously awaiting its arrival) and mother robot is making a lot more appearances alongside the other moms of Instagram in the iammother tag since her festival debut.