Yellowstone is over – and the fans are not happy

Yellowstone is one of the biggest TV shows of recent years. When the fifth season premiered, 12.1 million people watched, breaking records. But last night, Yellowstone came to an end with the broadcast of the last episode.

Some people loved it. And other? Well, let’s just say they weren’t particularly interested in how Yellowstone completed.

A note before we continue. This article is not about analyzing the show itself, meaning there are no spoilers or discussions of plot points. Instead, the focus of the article is to consider what the online reaction to something like this is Yellowstone Means and how social media and memes change and shape the way we view art.

What is Yellowstone? And how did the internet react to its finale?

As of 2018, Yellowstone was a neo-Western TV series that ran for five seasons with 53 episodes until 2024.

The show follows the Dutton family, owners of the largest rangeland in Montana, and traces their relationships with each other and the wider world.

At the time of writing this article Yellowstone has a critic score of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning it’s universally loved.

At least it was like that.

Because despite this positive attitude, many people on the Internet were not happy with the end of the show. A common denominator on social media is that the quality of the final season has declined compared to previous episodes:

A topic that also came up regularly was the impact of Kevin Costner’s departure Yellowstone had to his success:

And how this action went into the finale:

Then, certain people used popular meme formats to express their disappointment and general apathy about how Yellowstone came to the conclusion:

Of course it wasn’t just one-way traffic. There are a number of posts from people who really enjoyed the ending Yellowstone:

Interestingly, however, these positive votes are not only less common than the negative ones, but also receive significantly fewer likes and engagement – and this could be crucial to the series’ future perception.

How social media and memes will influence the future of Yellowstone

Humanity has always enjoyed discussing art – especially in the television age. For a long time, television shows were, as they say, discussed around the water cooler, i.e. at work or in a similar social situation around the time they were broadcast.

That’s no longer the case, and that’s because of the internet.

It changed this trend in two main ways. First, the Internet has eliminated the shared culture of spectatorship. There used to be a handful of TV channels, so people often watched the same thing at the same time. Thanks to streaming and the explosion of TV channels, the public can now watch whatever they want, anytime, anywhere.

Secondly, social media has made it possible for people all over the world to discuss something. Rather than being limited to your immediate, physical location, opinions on a work of art can be sent to anyone around the world.

In a strange way, television today is simultaneously more and less communal than it was in, say, the 1970s.

This has led to an increasing niche presence, but also to the fact that public perception of a series can change in the blink of an eye.

Scientific American highlighted a study that shows that influencers – in this case accounts with many followers – are a crucial cog in how the public sees something. In other words, when big accounts post about a series, it can significantly influence other people’s views.

We just have to look at the end of Game of Thrones to see this happen in real time. After the show ended in 2019, there was a firestorm on social media, with a lot of time spent making fun of the show’s ending.

Various memes and posts spread so quickly that you don’t know how to do it Game of Thrones The conclusion became a game in itself, with the posters desperately trying to outdo each other:

This has had a lasting impact on the series, and some fans believe that the final season ruined it. Two million people have even signed a petition for this series to be rebooted.

Still, when you think about it, many think the initial reaction was exaggerated. While the last few seasons have been far from perfect, they’ve been more clumsy and “irregular” than outright terrible, which is what social media has led people to believe. Because of the internet, a lot of people still watch Game of Thrones It is still considered a failure to this day, even though it is one of the most successful shows of all time.

Social media and memes played a central role. They immediately dominated the discourse and encouraged people to have a certain opinion.

That’s exactly what’s happening here Yellowstone. We’re in those early moments, measured hours after the end of the last episode, and right now the posts and memes on social media will start moving one way or the other.

Currently the majority of posts seem to be negative Yellowstonemeaning it’s more likely that this viewpoint will become the dominant perspective in the coming weeks.

This is not about making a judgment about quality Yellowstone, This is something you’ll have to make up your own mind about, but as published in studies Nature Show that social networks reinforce extreme views. The ending of a popular show on Twitter is unlikely to just be seen as good, but is likely to tip one way or the other – and we can watch it happen in real time.

For better or worse, social media and memes are the water coolers of the modern world. And now all you have to do is share your thoughts about it Yellowstone and how you think it ended.