14 DAY TRIAL // When TLC announced that it would be taking Honey Boo Boo (Alana Thompson) from the controversial series Toddlers & Tiaras and give her her own reality show, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, audiences were pleased because this kid was witty and fun and sassy and entertaining. Oh, how the times have changed.
Honey Boo Boo is no longer that fun-to-watch kid, if she ever was, and that image of her wasn’t just the result of studio television trickery. As her appearance on Jimmy Fallon to promote season 4 of the series showed fans, she’s grown up into a tiny insufferable monster who’s rude, entitled, and completely out of touch with reality.
Since the Fallon episode aired and a very damning report of what actually went down during the taping (which was far worse than what was shown on the final cut of the episode) emerged online, the backlash has been constant: backlash against TLC, against the producers, against the show, against the Thompson family, against Honey Boo Boo herself.
Angry viewers, many of which were probably once fans of the series, have taken to social media (Twitter in particular) to urge TLC to cancel the show, now that they have finally seen how it’s ruined this kid’s life. This is no longer entertaining television, they say, this is an offense to common sense.
The backlash caused by the Fallon appearance also seems to have taken a toll on the ratings, Radar Online reports. Controversy usually works when it comes to boosting interest in a television project (especially if it’s a reality show), but there are also times when controversy does the exact opposite: it gets people to tune out.
We could be witnessing just that right now: we could be witnessing the beginning of the end of Honey Boo Boo – but only if TLC “redneckognizes” the fact that it’s crossed the limit.
“Last night’s Season Four premiere, an episode entitled ‘3 Generations and 1 Pork Rind,’ brought in just 1.73 million American viewers,” Radar informs. “That’s 260,000 fewer than the last new episode of the show, which aired on March 6, and nearly 1.5 million viewers fewer than the series high of 3.21, recorded for the Season Two finale on September 11, 2013.”
“More crucially, the show lost viewers in the vital 18-49 age bracket, scoring just 0.6, in comparison to the 1.6 it earned back in 2012,” adds the same media outlet.
The fate of a TV show, be it of the “reality” kind or scripted programming, lies in the ratings. TLC has had major hits before that took a stumble in the ratings and never got up again after a backlash of this kind, and this led to their cancelation: the Gosselin series is the best example of that.
If angry / upset viewers continue to stay vocal on the issue on social media and, more importantly, if they stick to their resolution of not tuning in for Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, this show could be next to get the ax.