Does Waseem know a difference between constructive criticism and fanatic fans? Yes, tweeting abusive messages to actors and director are absolutely wrong. And what was done to Shalmalee was absolutely not the right thing to do. I wish she had not closed her twitter account because she gave power to a minority who are immature. And it is not a right thing to comment on somebody's personal life. But in the social media, you cannot control such people. Though there is always a block option to block abusers.
Saying all that, what is with him painting everyone with the same brush. So does appreciating CVs work hours/hard work imply that nothing can be criticized. The story can be inconsistent, the characters can be inconsistent and yet it is the duty of followers of the show to constantly praise the CVs for their master piece. If somebody does not do that, either they are told to shut up, or called names (TVholics, TVaddicts or get a life) or are told to stop watching the show.
I have seen in every industry that customer is the king. Yet here the motto is different. Customer better like the product and praise us or we start abusing the customer.
Does Waseem realize that he himself is acting like the abusers whom he so thoroughly detests? Those abusers use twitter to abuse the director, actors or whomever. He is using facebook to abuse the followers of the show. Mr. Sabir, it is true that many IF forum viewers do not contribute to ratings. But they do contribute to the popularity of the show. EBP would be nowhere if it was not for online followers. It generates a rating of 1.3-1.6 - nowhere close to DABH. Yet it is #1 or #2 online. And actors and CVs constantly refer to that when talking about their show.
As far as working long hours, there is an appreciation for that too among online viewers. But is this the only profession where one works long hours. 70% of the world works like that - both blue collars and white collars. Some do it out of passion, money or both and some do it out of necessity. There are many who work like this and serve others. But neither get the money or adulation that many in media get. Instead they get constant abuses.
It is a great idea that Mr. Sabir reads some posts on IF forum as he would realize that many critics of the current story are the ones who had loved this show from day 1 and had been praising both him and his team. They are the ones who have been posting threads and analysis in this forum to keep it in top 3 - the ranking quoted by the CVs. Also probably he would also find that there is a big difference between constructive criticism and abuse. And that listening to constructive criticism only enhances the product.
An Example:
I used to watch this cult show "Lost" broadcasted on US TV. It was a very different show and became hugely popular. The show was good for two years and then the story started going haywire with too many side stories and mysteries. Many lost interest and the big fans bombarded the creative team with criticism. The writing/directing team instead of taking offense, looked at it seriously and approached the channel. They had many meetings where they asked for a firm commitment from the channel for the both the timeline of the show and the story of the show. Once that was done, they planned the graph of the story and followed that. The ratings climbed up and it remained the cult show until the end. In fact, that show came back in news this year because of that unfortunate Malaysian Airlines 370 disappearing because it seemed as if the real life was imitating art.
So the point is to take the constructive criticism in the right spirit and not to encompass it either in the abuse or shallowness of fans. It had happened to other shows too where CVs did not do that, fans left the show and eventually the show ended up on a bad note (CB1, CB2 are two such examples).
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