#buzzfeed community

My name is Abby, and I am on a quest to find the world's best cup of hot chocolate.

It all began many years ago, during the summer between high school and college. I was lost, stilted; a wayward soul with little to make my life worth living. I was demotivated, and this demotivation gave birth to a diet consisting almost entirely of hot chocolate and microwave popcorn. This, I believe, is what began my passion for hot chocolate as a beverage and as an entity.

My quest was not officially determined until two years later. I had just transferred to the College of Charleston and was searching for an on-campus job. I had been lucky enough to score an interview at the Sottile Theater for a position as a stagehand. Looking back, I arrived at the interview in high heels and a skirt and was incapable of moving the shutters on a lamp, as opposed to the third-year theater tech major who looked like she'd just stepped off a goddamn Broadway set, but we both got the same job at the same pay rate. Perhaps the theater was simply desperate for cheap student labor.

Anyway, unjust hiring practices in the entertainment field is not the point of this post. The reason I mention that interview is because on the application, the technical director had included a question which begged of the interviewee, "What is your quest?"

Now, I'm sure there were many ways to interpret this question, and when I asked my colleagues later on about how they had answered, I was a tad embarrassed about the absurdity of my response compared to their own mundane ones. (But hey, we all ended up in the same place, right?) I do not remember if the technical director addressed the fact that I had opened our correspondence by stating that my quest was to find the world's greatest cup of hot chocolate. He probably didn't even read it, knowing the kind of person he was. He didn't stay at that theater much longer.

I do have him to thank, however, for igniting the true sparks of my lifelong quest. Had he not posed that question so bluntly, made it integral to the process of obtaining a job which I desired so strongly, it is almost certain that I would not have been forced to address the matter with finality. He handed me the pitcher full of cement which I would pour into the mold of my dreams. Now that I had said it to another person in a job interview, it was definite, sealed not only in my consciousness but in the canon of reality as a whole. For that, I thank him.

I will be uploading tales of my hot chocolate adventures every two weeks, beginning with my visit to the Ale & Pie in London, England. (Disclaimer: please don't expect too many posts about international hot chocolate. Normally I never leave my house unless I have to so I drank as much hot chocolate as I could while I was on a rare family vacation. I am not as chic and cosmopolitan as my cocoa tastes might lead you to believe.)

Okay so wait. What will happen when they go to investigate a haunting or whatever and they actually see a ghost or demon?? Shane can’t say they aren’t real anymore cause he just saw one. He’ll lose his brand. Shane will make up some excuse as to what it was though most likely tbh. Ryan will constantly brag that he is right. Ryan will be disappointed when they do another investigation and they don’t see a ghost or demon. Will the Buzzfeed Unsolved series be done once they prove ghosts or demons and whatnot are real??????

Buzzfeed Community. shwriter. June 9, 2018. 

The Trevor Project is an charity that provides 'crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to LGBTQ+ youth', according to their twitter.

Their specialist services have saved many lives in the US, and are of utmost importance to the LGBTQ+ community as one of the leading charities to the cause.

Shadowhunters fans have decided to start fundraising for the Trevor Project because of the show's ties to the LGBTQ+ community. The show has diversity in its characters, winning a GLAAD award for the portrayal of Alec Lightwood's coming out storyline.

On the show, Alec is a Shadowhunter, a half angel half human soldier, and he's gay. His love interest Magnus Bane is a warlock, powerful, immortal and bisexual. The #Malec relationship established itself on the show as healthy, meaningful and loving. Naturally, it became one of the most adored 'ships' on the show.

However, #Malec is not the only LGBTQ+ rep on the show.

Raphael Santiago, a leader of a clan of vampire, is asexual. At one point in the show, his love interest tells him 'I don't care about sex. I care about you', making it not only rare representation, but a sensitively handled, mature representation of asexuality.

Shadowhunters has many kinds of LGBTQ+ representation.

Other reoccurring LGBTQ+ characters include Aline Penhallow, a character promised to return in 3B, another Shadowhunter and a canon lesbian.

There are also characters not included in the books.

For example, the sapphic relationship between Sam and Ollie is natural and loving. Sam is a cop and Ollie is her onscreen girlfriend.

The showrunners also added another new character, Underhill, in season 3.

Underhill thanked Alec for his public relationship with Magnus, telling him that Alec paved the way for him to come out as gay himself, and it was a sweet and touching scene that seems to be blossoming into a sweet friendship into 3B.

It's not hard to imagine why the show has become so important to the LGBTQ+ community, as a genre show that accepts, normalises and embraces these characters. It seems clear that the fans of the show have decided if they can't save their show, they can at least save some lives.

BuzzFeed Community. June 15, 2018. 

The Disney-owned network is facing increasing pressure as fans of the show Shadowhunters campaign to save it, and cracks are beginning to show.

On June 9th, Freeform executives including Karey Burke and Tom Aschiem, spoke at the ATX Television Film Festival about their Evolution of Marketing campaign.

This was five days after the announcement of the cancellation, and ATX's website describes Freeform's seminar as being about capturing the attention of the 18-34 demographic, discussing how to harness 'narratives that are inclusive, diverse, raw, powerful, and smart'. Arguably, Shadowhunters is all of those things; with strong LGBTQ+ representation and a diverse cast, it explores difficult topics like addiction, abuse, and institutional racism, and it has a narrative that unashamedly encourages the viewer to find strength and safety in those they love, but the show was notably excluded.

This seminar is last time the company officially said anything about Shadowhunters, nearly a week ago. Tom Aschiem contradicted Burke's earlier statement they were 'at peace' with the decision because it was 'economic' by saying the company felt 'rotten' to let people down. This was prompted by an outpouring of grief, frustration and anger by the fans, who felt that a fourth season had been all but promised, but they have not commented on anything since then. This silence appears to be, more and more, a decision Freeform are suffering for.

Since the announcement of the cancellation eleven days ago, the #SaveShadowhunters campaign has proved an invested audience can be far more powerful than a large one- and they blame Freeform for the cancellation.

The reaction was almost instant. Armed with nothing but keyboards, gritty determination, and adoration of their show, they coordinated hashtags on Twitter, (permanent ones and ones that change daily), started a petition, and began to send emails to Freeform, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, to name a few. All of this is impressive, but nothing unheard of. However, the Shadowhunters fandom seem intent on thriving off 'unheard of'.

Their petition has reached over 117,000 signatures. Their total tweet count is over 10 million. They've raised nearly $3,500 in campaign funds, and $11,000 for The Trevor Project in six days. For The Trevor Project fundraiser, they've opened a merchandise store, which has its own Twitter. They've made a #SaveShadowhunters Snapchat filter. They have Google documents with plans of action, titled 'A Guide To Raising Hell'. They've emailed so many streaming services and networks so many times members of their customer service teams have been talked into starting watching the show- just ask Santiago from Netflix.

Unfortunately, these staggering achievements are the result of frustration. In the six days since Tom Aschiem's statement, the silence on Freeform's part has been angering fans more, flooding every post on @FreeformTV with hundreds of comments demanding the show be renewed and they be listened to. The social media account should be used to promote current shows and engage with fans but it's essentially unusable- fans of other shows have even commented on it, annoyed by the handle being the target. At best, every post the handle shares currently becomes synonymous with the #SaveShadowhunters hashtag, and at worst, it looks unprofessional. It should be obvious that the publicity team has to do some serious damage control, and fast, but not even that prompted some kind of response from them.

Not making a statement on anything related to Shadowhunters has also meant many serious accusations levelled at Freeform have gone unchallenged.

The first accusation made by fans of Shadowhunters was that that posts about The Trevor Project fundraiser were being deleted from the company's community page on Facebook, detailed in this article. This prompted exploration into the company's values, supposedly 'inclusive', and several fans have argued that Freeform does not care about representation, but rather about exploiting the LGBTQ+ community and diversity of their cast for views and attention. One fan simply said 'imagine thinking freeform actually cares about representation', and another pointed out The Fosters, also known for its inclusion, was cancelled by the same network. They've even argued that season three was sabotaged by the company to cancel it, giving it no promotion, because they don't own the full rights and therefore don't make as much money off it as other original shows, like The Bold Type. This claim has been backed up by evidence produced by fans, such as the above video and analysing the promotional material of the partner company, Netflix, in comparison. These accusations, particularly unaddressed, are not doing the company's reputation motto, 'A Little Forward', any favours- some fans even making parody edits of the Freeform logo with 'A Little Backward'.

It's time they call Freeform out on this. This network has been wrongly praised for being inclusive for too long now. Representation for the sake of representation doesn't matter anymore. You have to value it, treat it right. #SaveShadowhunters

How they say they care about LGBT+ community yet cancelled it's inclusive show during pride month. How they have Malec in their pinned tweet, yet they refuse to acknowledge their impact in their summits. #SaveShadowhunters

The noise fans have been making has caught the attention of media outlets, and with the silence from Freeform, only their perspective on the cancellation is being reported.

Performing best for the network in Teen Choice Award nominations out of all their shows, with seven as of today, the success of Shadowhunters with fans has finally proved impossible to ignore for Freeform. For the first time since the cancellation, the official Twitter handle @ShadowhuntersTV tweeted, although it is worth noting it was not met by overwhelming joy by the fans. One sniped in the comments 'Oh. How kind of you to finally mention it. Slow clap' in light of how the fans had been talking about it for hours, organising themselves for voting, and that the fans had been talking about the show for the past ten days but had heard nothing from the Freeform-operated account.

This near-military organisation the fans are working under hasn't gone unnoticed, either. Multiple news organisations have started reporting on everything the fans are saying and achieving, and People Now even reported on the fan response to the cancellation on 13th June. In the report they revealed the reason they heard about the #SaveShadowhunters movement was because Freeform retweeted one of their interviews with with the cast of Cloak & Dagger, and Shadowhunter fans took over the comment section. Not only are their social media accounts unusable, but their inaction, resulting in the fans continued bombardment of their social media accounts, has resulted in everything they touch being at risk. Surely this cannot be good for their professional reputation, and you have to wonder where their PR and social media teams are. Are they ignoring the problem? Is there a strategy? Are they going to say anything, ever, about any of this?

The fact remains that while Freeform stays silent, they can do nothing to salvage their relationship with a vocal group of their existing 18-34 demographic.

Many Shadowhunter fans have vowed not to touch the network until it sells the license to Shadowhunters, some going as far as deleting the Freeform app from their phones and calling the cable companies to stop receiving the channel altogether. Others have said they don't trust the company to do representation justice because it's more concerned with money, and some have pointed out silence is how the company dealt with one of their actors saying a slur in a livestream last year, which also did not work out well for them. By the time an apology video was released, many fans had already made up their mind it was unforgivable.

Buzzfeed Community. June 25, 2018. 

To say the rumours surrounding Shadowhunters are messy is generous.

It's been over three weeks since the cancellation and the fans are desperate for news, but none of the companies involved- by rumour or otherwise- have made a statement in regards to the show. Something which should be manageable and simple, like knowing when the second half of season 3 is airing, is impossible to get a straight answer on. I personally reached out to Netflix after @NetflixFR tweeted that Shadowhunters was returning on 15th August, and the member of customer service I spoke to simply said I would have to check on 15th August and if it was there, it would be aired then, and if not, I would have to assume it will be released some other time.

Netflix also did not respond to the plane fans flew around their HQ in LA, with a '#SaveShadowhunters <3' banner flying behind it, which is a fairly substantial thing to not even acknowledge.

It follows a pattern of confusion surrounding the show since the cancellation.

Last week, when Freeform released and then retracted a press statement that the return of Shadowhunters was 16th August, which @SpoilerTV reported. Their VP of social media and marketing claimed that was 'not right' and still set for a spring 2019 return. Freeform has not mentioned the return of Shadowhunters since then, and has not commented on Netflix's 15th August (potential) air date yet.

It also follows an extraordinary amount of quiet.

Netflix have encouraged fans to 'request' the show on their website, but Freeform are the company that cancelled the show so their silence is understandable on that front. Amazon have encouraged emails to ask if the show will be considered.

However, the lack of response to everything else is astounding. The fans have raised very nearly $16,000 for the Trevor Project and a further $2,822 at last count through their merchandise store for three separate charities. Their petition has 132,000 signatures to date. They flew a plane over Netflix HQ, they've organised to have an ad on a billboard in Times Square. They should be impossible to ignore.

'Shadowhunters has everything it takes for a show to be successful. We just really hope that someone listens up and realizes why giving up on it right now is a big mistake'

-TV After Dark

Of course, it's entirely possible the fans are being more than heard- they're being listened to.

This silence might be an indication of movement behind the scenes. For the fans, a best case scenario would be that this unwillingness to speak stems from negotiations for a season 4. However, there's no evidence either way for that, and the speculation and rumour of renewal are currently only that. No official statement has been made.

Buzzfeed Community. June 14, 2018. 

Since the announcement of the cancellation of fan-favourite TV show Shadowhunters on June 5th, its network Freeform has been noticeably absent in making any reference to it. However, the show was nominated for five Teen Choice Awards on June 13th, and have said nothing.

Fans have pointed out how the network hasn't responded to the good news.

The announcement of the cancellation came last week, and this week the show got the most nominations for the network on its own, with The Fosters and Famous in Love getting two each. In fact, the first wave of nominations saw only one other show- Riverdale, on the CW- equal Shadowhunters in numbers, and none have done better. Shadowhunters had four of its actors nominated- Kat McNamara and Emeraude Tobia for Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Actress, and Matthew Daddario and Dominic Sherwood for Sci-Fi/Fantasy Actor- and the show in of itself was nominated for Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Show.

Naturally, of course, it would be right of the network to be promote this, with another 12 episodes currently planned to air yet. However, they have yet to even acknowledge the nominations on any of their social media accounts.

These aren't even the first nominations for the show in the Teen Choice Awards.

Shadowhunters has been nominated a number of times. In 2016, Kat McNamara was nominated for TV: Breakout Star, beaten out only by her own colleague, Matthew Daddario. The show also won TV Breakout Show that year, and in 2017 the show had no less than 6 nominations, including Best Lip Lock, TV Ship, Summer TV Star, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Actor and Actress, and Sci-Fi/Fantasy TV Show.

The official ShadowhuntersTV Twitter hasn't posted since the announcement of the cancellation.

It seems absurd, but the last post on their Twitter, as of writing on the 14th June, is June 4th, when 'The Final Hunt' was posted. This silence from Freeform- particularly in light of the fact that they have posted numerous times a day on their FreeformTV handle- is ludicrous. The Fosters announced their nominations. Why is Freeform snubbing their most successful show?

Of course, it could be argued that ignoring obvious causes for celebration has become habit for Freeform.

Whatever the network may think of the fan response to the cancellation of the show (over 6.1 million tweets under #SaveShadowhunters and a petition with over 114,000signatures), the fans have been fundraising for the Trevor Project while they have been campaigning to save their show. They reached $10,000 today. Freeform have not commented on it, nor the accusations levelled at them that they deleted posts on their Facebook community page about the fundraising.

What their PR and social media team are thinking is anyone's guess, but it does not make the company look good. Snubbing actors as beloved as the Shadowhunters cast alone has angered the fans, and their Twitter continues to be unrecognisable as a respectable, professional platform while the fans bombard every posts' comments with demands for the licensing to be sold so the show can be continued. Their silence is both troubling and the source of their troubles, at least for the foreseeable future.