Is Netflix the reason for "fans" behavior?

[TimW]

Fans are the reason for fans' behavior. That is us. Complaining that others misbehave does not help, and is often just an expressing of tribalism., leading to more tribalism.
Changing your own behavior does help, and is much easier to achieve.

[FromGP2toWDC]

Fanning the flames by the Sky F1 crew doesn't help things either. (Kravitz/Crofty/Lazenby)

[chrisc90]

Fanning the flames by the Sky F1 crew doesn't help things either. (Kravitz/Crofty/Lazenby)

I agree. Especially when their platform and commentary extends throughout several countries...and not just the UK. I kind of 'see' their bias (although it is massively centred around Lewis - they seem to forget Lando and George, especially when he was at Williams. So its safe to call it a Lewis bias). However they report the 'home' (UK) side of it, it should never extend to negativity towards drivers from other countries. That then is passed onto other fans who maybe arent the 'die-hard' fans and only watch because of Netflix etc.

Personally, with shows like DTS, the scripting narrative is only going to mould fans into their prerogative of how they script the show in order to gain the best audience. Its a lose-lose situation really, especially for the proper fans. I mean just look at some of the things DTS have 'scripted'. Is there really a rivalry between Lando and Danny? Is Gunther really going to 'fok smash' his office door or was it a line that DTS thought would sound cool (in my opinion it was pretty funny) Did he really give Mazepin a spinning top to take the micky out of him for always spinning the car? Or are these little snippets there to make the whole program more interesting and make it a 'show' for the viewers.

There would probably be more of a following if the whole series was actually properly behind the scenes rather than making a show. If they followed a team and documented how they did certain areas of the car, factory life, simulator work, how race weekends are set up, travelling around, behind the scenes in the motorhomes on race weekends, it would probably get more of a following with the proper fans than some scripted garbage that is on par with 10 celebs in a 'jungle' for however many weeks.

Netflix had one job. Create a interesting behind the scenes documentary of F1. For the die hard fans, they royally screwed it up. For the 'fake fans' it is a success given the fake narrative they have portrayed. if they made a better balance, there would be even less 'tension' between the fans.

It would be interesting to see a poll of what people think of the current situation is in F1 and how long they have watched it for. Im sure the longer you have watched it, the more respect and less rivalry there is you would comment on.

[Big Tea]

I believe it has little or nothing to do with F1, or Max Verstappen or Red Bull or nationality etc, it has been the same since groups of people were able to travel together to places which were not their 'home towns' and they become amorphous.

After the 'war years' people, mostly young, and usually with enough free time and money do the adult version of 'slipping away from mom and dad and pushing the boundaries where there is no one to report back and 'tell your dad'.

In the 50's there were the teds, who were their own group and everyone else was not, then Mods and Rockers, Skinheads, football 'clubs' etc who are us or them.
Having said that, it was probably the same for those off to the Crusades or any other excuse to be one of a group.

We can not blame a driver, team supporters or TV channel for it, ask Billy Joel.

[Stu]

Bang-on!
The last 10-15 years have seen the flames fanned; where an issue would previously smoulder it now has accelerant added!

Can you imagine Senna/Prost 1989-90 taking a whole year to reach boiling point now?

[MadMax]

Fanning the flames by the Sky F1 crew doesn't help things either. (Kravitz/Crofty/Lazenby)

I agree. Especially when their platform and commentary extends throughout several countries...and not just the UK. I kind of 'see' their bias (although it is massively centred around Lewis - they seem to forget Lando and George, especially when he was at Williams. So its safe to call it a Lewis bias).

Strange, I have seen Sky's deferential treatment of Horner and Red Bull over the years - the constant going to Horner for his opinion on things, almost every race they would talk to him on the pit wall (often they'd speak only to him and no one else, although they did add Haas and McLaren at times). They'd interview him frequently. And all through it they seldom, if ever, questioned what he said. It was like a party political broadcast on TV.

[MadMax]

Bang-on!
The last 10-15 years have seen the flames fanned; where an issue would previously smoulder it now has accelerant added!

Can you imagine Senna/Prost 1989-90 taking a whole year to reach boiling point now?

Balestre stepped in to give Prost the title in '89. I should think if social media had existed at the time, it would have replicated the feelings present at the end of 2021 just with different fans involved.

[chrisc90]

Fanning the flames by the Sky F1 crew doesn't help things either. (Kravitz/Crofty/Lazenby)

I agree. Especially when their platform and commentary extends throughout several countries...and not just the UK. I kind of 'see' their bias (although it is massively centred around Lewis - they seem to forget Lando and George, especially when he was at Williams. So its safe to call it a Lewis bias).

Strange, I have seen Sky's deferential treatment of Horner and Red Bull over the years - the constant going to Horner for his opinion on things, almost every race they would talk to him on the pit wall (often they'd speak only to him and no one else, although they did add Haas and McLaren at times). They'd interview him frequently. And all through it they seldom, if ever, questioned what he said. It was like a party political broadcast on TV.

Maybe he was the only one to bother to talk to the sky team?

[DDopey]

however, some drivers and parties are particularly responsible for baiting this issue, and Max and Red Bull have been particularly fanning the flames over the past years.

I think these type of comments in a topic without any team/driver affiliation is typical for the toxic behavior of certain ‘fans’.

[MadMax]

I agree. Especially when their platform and commentary extends throughout several countries...and not just the UK. I kind of 'see' their bias (although it is massively centred around Lewis - they seem to forget Lando and George, especially when he was at Williams. So its safe to call it a Lewis bias).

Strange, I have seen Sky's deferential treatment of Horner and Red Bull over the years - the constant going to Horner for his opinion on things, almost every race they would talk to him on the pit wall (often they'd speak only to him and no one else, although they did add Haas and McLaren at times). They'd interview him frequently. And all through it they seldom, if ever, questioned what he said. It was like a party political broadcast on TV.

Maybe he was the only one to bother to talk to the sky team?

He was happy to use their platform when it suited his own needs. A single throw-away line from one of the Sky crew and it's Red Bull toys out of the pram. Whatever happened to being the better man? Never occurred to him, it seems.

[SiLo]

Isnt it ironic that people ITT are already slinging passive aggressive digs at each other while pretending to have a moral high ground? It's like they don't even recognize their own retroric. Absolutely amazing.

One of the reasons I spend less time on the forum these days.

[aMessageToCharlie]

I started to follow F1 from the Canadian GP in 2011.
I really enjoyed it from the getgo, the sporting and technical competition on and off track.
Sure, there have been opinions and there were some heated discussions, but by far not to that radical extent which we have to witness in the last couple of years.

I thought about what could be the reason for that and I have the impression it started when F1 got a lot of attention and also became quite popular by the Netflix series.

What do you think might be the root cause?
I'm really interested in forum members' opinions that are F1 followers for already quite a bit of time.

It's not Netflix, no. IMO Netflix only accentuated it.

There was an uprising beginning with the rise of Max-verstappan and movement called the Orange Army. The bad behaviour from DTS fans actually brought a "counter" offense to the bad behaviour of some individuals in the Orange army IMO. I will explain at the end, but go through a bit of history as I recall it.

Max was very polarizing when he entered the sport. He was seen in two lights: an unbalanced child raised only to win in F1 - a Michael Jackson sort of figure basically - or, the next coming of Senna. When Max was started F1 at seventeen years old in 2015, flashes of brilliance was there but he was not really taken seriously. It wasn't until 2016 when he won his first race for RedBull in Barcelona that the world realized that this kid was the real deal. He was the "hero" for the Dutch now but the orange army didn't really start gathering momentum yet. It was after the failure of another "hero" that really triggered the explosion of the Orange army and its misbehaving offshoots.

Lewis Hamilton was always the next big thing after he routed 2XWDC Fernando Alonso. Won't go into that history, but Sebastian Vettel aka "Baby Schumi" was the man to quell this "hip-hop" threat to the sport. Things were going swell. Vettel got off to a rocky start in 2009 but was a dominant force from then up to 2014 before he was unexpectedly defeated by an upstart Aussie. The cracks showed but it was seen as only a blip in form and still Vettel was the "one" to take it to Lewis in 2017 and 2018. His efforts failed obviously. But while all that was happening young Max was blossoming.

As one star falls the other rises they say, and now the title of the "one" shifted to young Max in 2019. Everything aligned; the Dutch had their great contender, and the sport had "the one" to bring down Lewis Hamilton.

I think this huge anticipation by the Dutch of their contender taking over the sport brought more of the common person to the races. We saw that with entire stadiums full of orange shirts. The common folk like what we see in soccer obviously brings with it the hooliganism and fanfare. I am not saying Dutch people are hooligans, I am saying when you have massive gatherings of "common" sports fans bad behaviour usually comes with it. It's not really new in Formula 1, we actually saw a bit of it in the F1 mecha like Silverstone and Monza, but the Orange army brought it bigger because they were at more races and they are only supporting one single driver not a team or bunch of drivers.

That rise in the Orange army and its fringes was when I noticed too, that this very forum started to be a hostile place. Again I do not hate the orange Army, I actually appreciate the growth of the fanbase. I'm just telling what I noticed with the influx of more "commoners" that support one driver.

Fortunately and unfortunately, Netflix has brought a counter to that in some respects. We have more fans spread about instead of two axes of fans. Every driver gets a bigger share of fans now, which I think is great. It's just the pantomime built up around the drivers is a bit of an issue. But I totally separate the pantomime from the sports hooligansim that we have seen. It's two different things. I actually believe the fan-base will beging to settle down and unify within a few years.

[MadMax]

Isnt it ironic that people ITT are already slinging passive aggressive digs at each other while pretending to have a moral high ground? It's like they don't even recognize their own retroric. Absolutely amazing.

There is an irony in your own post as you're doing exactly what you're accusing others of doing. It's OK, we all do it.

[AeroDynamic]

however, some drivers and parties are particularly responsible for baiting this issue, and Max and Red Bull have been particularly fanning the flames over the past years.

I think these type of comments in a topic without any team/driver affiliation is typical for the toxic behavior of certain ‘fans’.

its not the intent, its just the truth as I saw it over the years. I don't recall Leclerc showing a pattern of taking shots at people in any of the years recently. With the driver in question, I recall him taking shots at people consistently. Do we need to remind you what he apologised for, when he was overheard on the radio for calling Lance Stroll a word the mods here wont even let you quote him saying?

What did he call Ocon in the press pen when questioned publicly? I don't think I can say that here either. But Like I said in another thread, he did call Ferrari cheaters when nothing publicly had been confirmed of the like. Now the same team that is complaining about reputational damage and crying about how unfair it is, is gaslighting once again in the most extremely hypocritical way. Who needs that sort of toxic drama?

This belongs in another thread but im seeing a pattern these days, if you say the truth around a certain driver or team, a gag order is occurring; both on this forum or now on television presenters in Sky

[dans79]

however, some drivers and parties are particularly responsible for baiting this issue, and Max and Red Bull have been particularly fanning the flames over the past years.

I think these type of comments in a topic without any team/driver affiliation is typical for the toxic behavior of certain ‘fans’.

Considering you are new here, you might not realize most users know who others support and dislike.