The power of social media fan campaigns has saved quite a few of their favorite shows. Now has Manifest been added to the list?
Fans are refusing to let Manifest crash. Their Twitter campaign, #SaveManifest, may have worked. On July 20th, Deadline reported that Manifest may be saved by Netflix, where the show has spent weeks in the number one spot. Should Manifest get renewed, it won’t be the first due to a fan campaign and it won’t be the last.
When a show is canceled by its home network, it no longer means the end. With the rise of social media and streaming services, fans can plead their case to services like Hulu or Netflix with hashtags and comments. They can find each other and share theories and reactions; they form a camaraderie that they use to fight for their show. Fans have even created online petitions in the hopes of bringing back their favorite shows.
This worked with Sense8. The show was revived for a two-and-a-half-hour series finale, giving fans the closure cancellations don’t always allow for. Another NBC series save was when Timeless was renewed for a second season just three days after the network canceled it.
Who can forget the day and a half where Brooklyn Nine-Nine went from canceled by Fox to picked up by NBC? In that time, celebrities like Lin Manuel-Miranda and Guillermo del Toro voiced their support with the other fans.
Some have taken their efforts to the extreme. When The Expanse was canceled, fans funded a plane to fly over Amazon Studios. The CEO, Jennifer Salke, said she was getting cakes delivered. Jeff Bezos even got emails from George R.R. Martin to the founder of Craigslist.
Fans mailed lightbulbs, mini footballs, and eye drops to NBC to get Friday Night Lights renewed (it worked). CBS got tens of thousands of pounds of nuts to renew Jericho for another season.
While it didn’t take an airplane to potentially save Manifest, consistent pressure from fans has seen shows brought back from the dead, and the hope is alive it will for this one too!
