HBO CEO Casey Bloys is reportedly very sensitive about the comments section
HBO boss Casey Bloys reportedly had anonymous accounts made to fight with critics and commenters
Aux News HBO
Friendly reminder that network executives have feelings too. It’s just that, unlike most of us, network executives can mobilize a “secret army” to fight back against their online haters. (They should make those for low-level digital media employees!) That’s the case for Casey Bloys, HBO’s current CEO, who was reportedly so bothered by negative comments and reviews that he was crafting pithy responses and having them posted through dummy accounts. What a world!
Bloys’ “secret army” is the subject of a new Rolling Stone report, which reveals that Bloys and HBO’s senior vice president of drama programming Kathleen McCaffrey coordinated responses to reviewers like Kathryn VanArendonk, Alan Sepinwall, James Poniewozik and more on Twitter. Their scheming was then dumped into the lap of an HBO executive assistant named Sully Temori, who is now suing HBO, and that’s how we have a bunch of embarrassing text messages from Bloys and McCaffrey. “We just need a random to make the point and make her feel bad,” Bloys texted McCaffrey about a Tweet from VanArendonk.
McCaffrey reportedly told Temori that Bloys is “obsessed with Twitter”: “He always texts me asking me to find friends to reply… is there a way to create a dummy account that can’t be traced to us to do his bidding,” she asked. “His highness needs another one. We need our friend to call out Alan for Mare,” she texted on another occasion. And, after a two-and-a-half star review of The Nevers (of all shows!): “Casey is looking for a tweeter… he’s mad at Alan Sepinwall. Can our secret operative please tweet at Alan’s review: ‘Alan is always predictably safe and scared in his opinions.’ And then we have to delete this chain right? Omg I just got scared lol.”
But it gets worse: it wasn’t just established critics that Bloys targeted. This man was apparently in the comments of Deadline articles, getting worked up over virtually anonymous remarks about “Bloys-era cynicism of HBO development.” “How dare someone write that!!” Bloys reportedly texted McCaffrey. “I want to say something along the lines of ‘lol ok they are just counting their Emmys’ or something like that!?”
If Casey Bloys wants some advice from a woman on the Internet who writes about entertainment, it would be: Stay out of the comments section, brother! What goes on in there is none of your business. One would think that a television exec would develop a thicker skin in his climb to the top, or at least that the oodles and oodles of cash would be enough consolation to keep him out of the flame wars. Most of us have to endure online hate with no oodles at all. Best of luck on your healing journey, Mr. Bloys, and please feel free to come hang out anonymously in our comments section any time.
48 Comments
Your subscription dollars in action, ladies and gentlemen.
As if most corporations haven’t been doing this for many years now. Bizarre how little attention “reputation management” services get.
Well, one would hope that actual professional “reputation management” services would be more competent and less clownish.
As long as we’re hoping things, one would hope that these “reputation management” services whither and die sad about it.
Friendly reminder that network executives have feelings too.
Do they, though?
Are you insinuating that CEOs are over-represented by psychopaths and sociopaths?Because, yeah.
No one rises to that level of power and keep their empathy or even humanity. Honestly it’s the same with politician which is why I often wonder about people who say they are voting for someone because “they are likeable”.
Then maybe people shouldn’t be allowed to reach such levels of power to begin with.
No, not over-represented. Only represented.(I mean, sure, that’s not really fair either— I’m sure there are plenty of CEOs of companies large and small I’ve never heard of, and for good reason, they just do their job and don’t be an asshole about it. But the ones that get into the news, well…)
Does this mean the “HBO CEO of Tits” account was a pseudonym for the actual HBO CEO?
Pseudonym?
Clearly a fake. That’s a VP position on the org chart.
I will not have the good name of the HBO CEO of Tits besmirched by suggesting they were actually Casey Bloys!
For all you know I’m the CEO of a network/streaming service/entertainment conglomerate. Please act as if.
Alright then. Fuck you, pay your artists and employees what they’re worth!
https://images.app.goo.gl/Lf3KpbAB3WFiye1i8
If my constituents knew what their Prime Minister got up to online…
Andy!?
They’re just pile-driving one of the most respected brands in the business straight into the ground. I was a subscriber to HBO since 1999, but I let my subscription to it lapse because they wanted $17 a month for ad-free service. I might renew it when House of the Dragon returns, but it’s been real easy to live without it.
It is amazing that people with that much power have such thin skin.
Well, thick skin comes from people telling you “no” and you having to live with it. The more power you get, the fewer “no”s you hear, and the greater your ability to disregard them. Being plunged back into the realm of Some Jerk Nobody Gives a Shit About with the rest of us (i.e. any lightly-moderated comments section) comes as a huge, disorienting shock to most of them.
What’s this about Elon Musk?
More amazing to me is that people can reach that level of power and still not realize that all things electronic leave an audit trail back to themselves. Someone at that level certainly has people they can instruct directly without leaving electronic fingerprints. Then there’s nothing but he said/she said when the shit hits the fan.
More proof that nothing on the internet can be trusted.
The obsession with Twitter or X or whatever the fuck is insane, along with just the general addiction to social media from people who should just fucking know better. Musk torched his own reputation along with several hundred billion dollars thanks to his obsession with it; and it’s threatening innovative companies like Tesla and SpaceX that are unfortunately tethered to him. Now this fucking HBO clown shitting all over himself. And how many other people who have lost jobs — good jobs — and tanked careers and real monetary value because they were so obsessed with the opinions of a faceless mass of strangers. I also think of my own parents and their FaceBook obsession: who liked their post, who didn’t like their post, did I see their post, why didn’t I respond to their post, blah blah blah jesus christ I don’t give a shit. If you have something important to tell me, tell me.
For all we know Zaslav could be one of his sock puppets too!
Clearly this article is a hit piece intended to distract from all the hard work being done by the good people at HBO who have been dedicated to making the place for high quality entertainment at low, competitive pricing.
perfect
reply
(if only you could add alphanumerics to your username to make it look like a shadow account)
So what I’m hearing is, I can post personal attacks right here, and it’ll actually cause CEOs to lose sleep?
thick skin is a myth – C.B.
Kind of a weird article for a GMG site when your own sites are deleting comments and sending people back to the greys for commenting on quality/topics of articles.
Yeah, wasn’t the Ernie the Kinja Tech account being deleted right here on this site?
I know on Kotaku they’re going delete crazy currently. Someone got deleted for a comment about the Amouranth vagina beer article and I got sent back to the grays for the same. They also auto delete my comments on there now because I asked what the point of a comment section is if they just delete comments and won’t interact about lists they make while asking for feedback.
What a cunt.
I knew there was something fishy about Arli$$fan69’s Twitter account…
Fan of Arli$$? Even Robert Wuhl knows that doesn’t add up…
This explains HBO/MAX’s lack of originality in their programming.
FFS Casey. Aaron Sorkin already pulled this shit 20 years ago when commenters The West Wing forum of televisionwithoutpity.com would bad mouth an episode of The West Wing, or some piece of writing they didn’t like. West Wing Weekly podcast had a couple moderators from the site on and they confirmed it and Sorkin even wrote a goddamn episode about it “The U.S. Poet Laureate”. Hey big shot Hollywood guys: Do Not Fuck with Us.
I actually really liked The Nevers, though I didn’t watch the back half of its only season after it premiered on a FAST sight. Note: I am not Casey Bloys.
Hmm, that’s exactly the sort of thing I would expect Casey Bloys to say…
Hello, I AM Casey Bloys and my penis is extremely small and I smell really bad and one time a baby beat me up.(Ha ha ha, now my true identity is safe! No one would suspect that I, Casey Bloys, would write something so embarrassing about myself! Embarrassing and yet, completely true!)
Yeah, the back half went “Poof.” I think they’re doing some sort of “sit on it for two years and then let Netflix have it” thing. At least I heard that’s where all these shows are going, unless Tubi takes off for some reason.
He can hang out with the rest of us in the greys?
Okay, own up, which one of you fuckers is Casey Bloys?
Honestly I totally get having social media people to plug your shows and even to shit on critics (even though that’s petty as hell). But for real, going at random comment sections? Dude, just fucking get in those flame wars yourself if you’re looking at the comments already. That’s not just petty, it’s lazy.
Trump, Elon, now this guy: why is every mediocre white rich guy obsessed with Twitter? Don’t they know that they can use all their stupid money to buy things? Things that are more fun than Twitter?
This is an understatement of a headline.“HBO CEO paid for employees to act as social media flying attack monkeys on his chosen targets”
This from the guy canceling quality programming right and left: Julia, Our Flag Means Death, and so many others. I suspect that the OFMD campaign, especially, has been a thorn in his side, what with the billboards and ads and airplane banner fly-bys over the WB and Max offices. Speaking of which, if you are a fan od Our Flag Means Death, join the campaign to #RenewAsACrew and sign the petition, nearly 70K signatures strong!https://www.renewasacrew.com/