The Vanishing Act: How The Afore Turned 32,000 Viewers Into A Literal Ghost Town

[Everybody Wang Chung]

It appears the Afore's Becoming Brigham is a masterclass in audience evaporation. Watching the Afore's viewership numbers is like observing a base jumper who forgot their parachute. It’s a straight, hilarious plunge into the abyss of irrelevance. The Afore launched with a semi-respectable 32k viewers, but by episode two, 20,000 people had evidently decided they’d rather watch paint dry. From there, the crash became a giant smoldering crater. By the time the Afore hit the eleventh installment, he was down to a lonely 2,000 viewers, roughly the amount of people who accidentally left their YouTube autoplay on while napping.

Producing nearly 80 more episodes of content that nobody will watch is plain foolish and clearly done only for financial gain/priestcraft. At this rate, by episode 50, the only person left watching will be the Afore, and even he'll be skimming. It's safe to say that after spectacular critical and financial bombs like Witnesses and Six Days, failure has a new brand ambassador, and its name is the Afore.

[drumdude]

It looks like 90 percent of the episodes are going to be the same three people talking to each other about their thoughts and opinions. Two of them are actors who are just listening to Dan lecture.

I can’t imagine anything more boring.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

It looks like 90 percent of the episodes are going to be the same three people talking to each other about their thoughts and opinions. Two of them are actors who are just listening to Dan lecture.

I can’t imagine anything more boring.

It’s painful to watch. There is nothing quite like watching three people pretending to be spontaneous, while reciting a stale memorized script. Beyond being mind-numbingly dull and completely whitewashed history, it’s a total masterclass in the "uncanny valley." The dialogue is so stiff and the spontaneity is so forced that you find yourself praying for the Afore to just to end the charade and return the donors' money.

If the goal was to make Becoming Brigham feel like a mandatory HR training video from 1964, the Afore absolutely nailed it.

[Gadianton]

Does each episode require a visit to the shooting site? Just curious.

[I Have Questions]

Here’s what I don’t understand. Witnesses bombed, Six Days cratered. On what basis did the Afore conclude that there was an appetite for another 18 months worth of even less substance about the same subject? It makes zero sense no matter how you look at it. And worse than that, the Afore went out and publicly committed to 70+ episodes up front, what kind of an idiot does that on the back of two previous unmitigated disaster covering the exact same subject matter?

Just how much money has Redbrick Filmworks (the Afore’s chums) received from Interpreter over the last 10 years?

[drumdude]

Just how much money has Redbrick Filmworks (the Afore’s chums) received from Interpreter over the last 10 years?

It has to be the vast majority of Interpreter funds. I believe Dan when he says no one else gets paid.

Including witnesses, that adds up to well over a million dollars of donor money. Enough to keep Redbrick afloat for a long time. Interpreter is a great cash cow for them.

[I Have Questions]

Just how much money has Redbrick Filmworks (the Afore’s chums) received from Interpreter over the last 10 years?

It has to be the vast majority of Interpreter funds. I believe Dan when he says no one else gets paid.

Including witnesses, that adds up to well over a million dollars of donor money. Enough to keep Redbrick afloat for a long time. Interpreter is a great cash cow for them.

The production of the two box office disasters on their own would have seen more than $3 million move from the Interpreter's coffers to Redbrick Filmworks just on their own.

[Tom]

This week’s self-sabotage: if one visits this page on the largely dead Interpreter Foundation website, one will find a purported link to episode 11 of the Bowdlerizing Brigham series.

The link takes the visitor to a page bearing the heading “ BECOMING BRIGHAM EPISODE 11: IN SEARCH OF A PROPHET.” The content of the page, however, consists of a video titled “ Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — Insights Episode 2: Martin Harris, Witness” and a transcript of the episode. I am not making this up.

By the way, the powers-that-be at the Interpreter Foundation have still not fixed the “Donate” button link on the Bowdlerizing Brigham website. There remains no option to designate a donation to the series. !هذا جنون

Posted from Correlation Junction, Utah

[I Have Questions]

This week’s self-sabotage: if one visits this page on the largely dead Interpreter Foundation website, one will find a purported link to episode 11 of the Bowdlerizing Brigham series.

The link takes the visitor to a page bearing the heading “ BECOMING BRIGHAM EPISODE 11: IN SEARCH OF A PROPHET.” The content of the page, however, consists of a video titled “ Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — Insights Episode 2: Martin Harris, Witness” and a transcript of the episode. I am not making this up.

By the way, the powers-that-be at the Interpreter Foundation have still not fixed the “Donate” button link on the Bowdlerizing Brigham website. There remains no option to designate a donation to the series. !هذا جنون

Posted from Correlation Junction, Utah

Didn’t Interpreter spend a small fortune upgrading their website not that long ago? Basic errors like links going to the wrong destination or not working, and donate buttons that don’t work, are unforgivable. Who the heck is (mis)managing the website?

[Tom]

This week’s self-sabotage: if one visits this page on the largely dead Interpreter Foundation website, one will find a purported link to episode 11 of the Bowdlerizing Brigham series.

The link takes the visitor to a page bearing the heading “ BECOMING BRIGHAM EPISODE 11: IN SEARCH OF A PROPHET.” The content of the page, however, consists of a video titled “ Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — Insights Episode 2: Martin Harris, Witness” and a transcript of the episode. I am not making this up.

By the way, the powers-that-be at the Interpreter Foundation have still not fixed the “Donate” button link on the Bowdlerizing Brigham website. There remains no option to designate a donation to the series. !هذا جنون

Posted from Correlation Junction, Utah

Didn’t Interpreter spend a small fortune upgrading their website not that long ago? Basic errors like links going to the wrong destination or not working, and donate buttons that don’t work, are unforgivable. Who the heck is (mis)managing the website?

I assume that the Interpreter Foundation spent many of the Relief Society Sister in Parowan’s mites to fund the website upgrade. I recall that one of the Foundation’s leaders famously claimed that “there's no other website on the internet, that I'm aware of, that has the resources and the complexity we do,” so heavy spending wouldn’t surprise me.

Incidentally, I am pleased to see that the Proprietor or one of his acolytes (perhaps a neighbor) read my earlier post and updated the link to episode 11 of Bowdlerizing Brigham. (I suspect that fixing the donation page link will be a longer-term project.)

As for the identity of the poor individuals who manage the Foundation’s mostly inert website, I cannot name names. The Foundation keeps such information private.

Posted from Correlation Junction, Utah