I was watching a Youtuber named Yellowflash and he was talking about how Superman and Lois has better ratings than Batwoman and Supergirl despite that fact that Superman and Lois has never trended on Twitter and the other two shows have. He was making the point that twitter popularity doesn't equal actual popularity.
It made me wonder if there is a business term for what you see corporations doing by catering to mythical audiences like gaming or comic book companies who think that it is ok to insult their male (especially white males) fanbase because there is some magical group of female gamers that will make them money?
I guess another thing would be the whole "male gaze" thing. Feminists seem so upset by the fact that men like seeing an attractive woman. I mean it is no secret that an attractive male or female lead is an easy way to get at least a little interest from the opposite sex.
But is there an official term from what you see companies do by putting way too much stock in what is trending online?
From my experience they didn't have a term for it because we were told that it was the "right move" or "good for business", even when everyone who crunched the numbers knew it was an outright lie.
We were meetings for hours arguing (well, mostly me arguing) about how some of the trends they were chasing either didn't exist as material gain, or would result in a loss of retention (turns out I was right). But I was consistently told by the higher ups to "Just trust us."
The results were inevitable, and years later I so badly wanted to yell "I told you so" but instead collected severance and never looked back.
Other companies following the same trend even in different market sectors don't actually have a name for it either because they all tell themselves that if things aren't working out it's just the audience who is the problem (I wish I was kidding, but really, this is how it goes in the meetings).
It was always "the audience just isn't engaging during quarter, but we don't know why." Or there's the typical "ugh, people are just so racist/sexist/bigoted/etc.," and they pass off that people not buying into their woke propaganda are the problem, not the product.
It's as exhausting, ridiculous, and retarded as it sounds. But a lot of these companies are still getting by on grants, or buffered by bonds, or getting cash injections from donors or other institutions. It's all a huge racket, because none of this woke stuff is actually selling, but the idea is that they're inculcating the next generation with this nonsense to brainwash all the little kiddies to think it's normal by the time they get older.