I love most of the publicity and fan gushing that Tim/Tea/the McCords and, now, the newlyweds get. But the edit on the newlyweds IG fan page gives me the ick. “Two stars, one love story”— this is absolutely not what newlyweds is, it makes the show sound like Tim and Tea are doing a reality show. The account also credits Tim’s account, but he didn’t post that edit (I can’t find that he posted the original picture either, but who knows maybe he storied it?).
I feel bad because I do want the show to get buzz, and for it to be clear they have fans, but ugh, I wish everyone was a little more discerning.
I’m going to very gently address this. I don’t know who is in charge of the newlyweds fan account, but I do believe since we’re a small fandom they probably are on the tumblr side of the fandom as well.
I agree with your position that the poster is not quite becoming of the show, or of who Téa and Tim will be playing. I saw the poster and thought that immediately, as well as wondered if it was created with AI. Again, being very gentle, I fear that the usage of AI also hurts the Newlyweds image and the characters Téa and Tim will play. I personally have not researched Téa and Tim’s opinions on AI, but I imagine as two progressive people who very much care for the environment that they take more of an anti-AI stance.
As someone who works in communications, I see a lot of issues with the account itself, such as crediting the post to Tim and not being abundantly clear it was just the background photo that the person was crediting (whether or not it was actually on his page at all—I haven’t even checked). Additionally, the account looks very much like a real, NBC affiliated account, with only the “fan account” information being on the profile to signify it is not an official account.
From a PR standpoint, if I was working on the Newlyweds team, I would immediately be addressing this with the person who owns the account, and if needed, the team at Meta. Right now, the account does not signify enough that it is not an official account because people (largely) just do not go and visit pages anymore in the age of algorithms. We are fed content, and when this content pops up in our feeds, it looks official, but is not.
If you are the person who owns this account on Instagram, please know that I don’t think any of us mean any harm toward you at all. Fan accounts have to work differently now in this age of algorithmic content, and I’m so glad you’re getting people excited! So please, keep on doing that, but consider changing your username to signify more that it’s a fan account. And reduce producing new material such as the poster since it looks like it’s coming from an official NBC release when it’s not.
Keep the love in this fandom strong, please. Téa and Tim aren’t active on social media, but I’m sure that they would not be pleased if there was any hate going around on this topic. (Not saying anon is hating, either! Just a cautionary reminder)
If you are the person running that IG account, feel free to message me privately about some other ways you can make this more fan-based potentially. I work in PR and communications for two government-based entities, and I would be happy to help out.
