HBO CEO Casey Bloys is reportedly very sensitive about the comments section
HBO boss Casey Bloys reportedly had anonymous accounts made to fight with critics and commenters
Friendly reminder that network executives have feelings too. It’s just that, unlike most of us, network executives can mobilize a “secret army” to fight back against their online haters. (They should make those for low-level digital media employees!) That’s the case for Casey Bloys, HBO’s current CEO, who was reportedly so bothered by negative comments and reviews that he was crafting pithy responses and having them posted through dummy accounts. What a world!
Bloys’ “secret army” is the subject of a new Rolling Stone report, which reveals that Bloys and HBO’s senior vice president of drama programming Kathleen McCaffrey coordinated responses to reviewers like Kathryn VanArendonk, Alan Sepinwall, James Poniewozik and more on Twitter. Their scheming was then dumped into the lap of an HBO executive assistant named Sully Temori, who is now suing HBO, and that’s how we have a bunch of embarrassing text messages from Bloys and McCaffrey. “We just need a random to make the point and make her feel bad,” Bloys texted McCaffrey about a Tweet from VanArendonk.
McCaffrey reportedly told Temori that Bloys is “obsessed with Twitter”: “He always texts me asking me to find friends to reply… is there a way to create a dummy account that can’t be traced to us to do his bidding,” she asked. “His highness needs another one. We need our friend to call out Alan for Mare,” she texted on another occasion. And, after a two-and-a-half star review of The Nevers (of all shows!): “Casey is looking for a tweeter… he’s mad at Alan Sepinwall. Can our secret operative please tweet at Alan’s review: ‘Alan is always predictably safe and scared in his opinions.’ And then we have to delete this chain right? Omg I just got scared lol.”
But it gets worse: it wasn’t just established critics that Bloys targeted. This man was apparently in the comments of Deadline articles, getting worked up over virtually anonymous remarks about “Bloys-era cynicism of HBO development.” “How dare someone write that!!” Bloys reportedly texted McCaffrey. “I want to say something along the lines of ‘lol ok they are just counting their Emmys’ or something like that!?”
If Casey Bloys wants some advice from a woman on the Internet who writes about entertainment, it would be: Stay out of the comments section, brother! What goes on in there is none of your business. One would think that a television exec would develop a thicker skin in his climb to the top, or at least that the oodles and oodles of cash would be enough consolation to keep him out of the flame wars. Most of us have to endure online hate with no oodles at all. Best of luck on your healing journey, Mr. Bloys, and please feel free to come hang out anonymously in our comments section any time.