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go-diane-winchester · 6 years

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Dear Misha Collins

I don't think you know how to handle your career. There are mistakes that you are making to your own detriment. I am doing the decent thing here by pointing them out to you. When you are an actor, you are the salesman and the product. These two elements are a benefit to an actor when he manages these two things cleverly, which you have not done. These two elements are symbiotic. You need them both. And the dominant element is the salesman. If the product is good, but the salesman sucks, the product is not appreciated.

Take Sam and Dean Winchester as a good example. Sam is a flawed hero. He is also, to an extent in the earlier seasons, something of an anti-hero although not a full blown villain. Dean wasn't as flawed and his swashbuckling gung-ho nature was easier to enjoy than Sam's pensiveness. Those who didn't know much about the BTS of the show in the early season, latched on to the lead characters. At that time they didn't know the actors. For many of them, Sam appeared kind of self-righteous and grumpy. Yes, he was handsome, but so was Dean who are the more funnier, showier character, so it was easy to latch onto him. Dean also bonds with other characters faster than Sam does.

When the first cons were held, people were enthusiastic about meeting the actors who play Sam and Dean expecting the actors to be exactly like their characters. When they realized that Jared is absolutely nothing like his character and was, by nature, quite a loveable and happy young man, they loved him back enthusiastically. But they encountered Jensen's reserved nature, some thought he was shy whilst others thought he was a snob. Because Jared was such an awesome salesman, his product [Sam] became more palatable to the audience. Jensen realized that as a salesman, he had a little work to do. Being construed as shy is not bad, but being seen as a snob is definitely not a good look. So he started trying to change his public image, despite his reserved nature.

So you have to examine your audience and make necessary changes to your salesman pitch, so as to not put off your target market. Then people started to see meaningfulness in the friendship that J2 share. Some liked the chemistry their character's shared. The actors acknowledged that these ideas existed but didn't shoot them down. Jensen said that he understood it was a ''hot fantasy'', which is very accurate. They just requested that fans not ask them questions on the subject, which makes sense, because why would you want my opinion on your fantasy. That is ridiculous. These two groups, Tinhat fans and wincest fans, have been around for 13 years, without making a peep. You don't hear about them, unless you go looking for them. And unlike a few nasty people on Twitter, the majority has since the beginning, respected J2.

Part of the credit for this goes to the actors themselves. They didn't overindulge this subsection, because that would be an idiotic sales pitch. I don't think you understand why. Why is it that Sam and Dean's popularity hasn't waned? They have shouldered the burden of a show that is now in its fourteenth season. They are getting more popular and mass media has an eye on them, which is why they are invited on talk shows, sporadically. You were invited on Larry King, but it was not because of your work on the show, it was for your charity project. And your charity project is not your livelihood. Your acting job is, and it isn't looking very good. You weren't even a series regular last year, and most people didn't seem to mind.

Here is where your sales pitch is going wrong.

You fragment the total viewing population of the show

You do this by your con etiquette. The fans who buy tickets to watch your panel are a heterogeneous group of people. The problem with having this type of audience, is that you have to curb your language around them, because children attend cons too. You use vulgar language. You also speak about sexually explicit things like shipping. The parents and older siblings sitting in the audience might be offended, and that never occurred to you. That is very baffling. The parents who are not offended stay on and those who are, won't watch a Misha panel again with their kids. Fragmentation. You have broken your total con audience in two.

When people ask you about shipping, you don't politely acknowledge it and move on. You ''lay it on thick'' as they say. There is a lot that is wrong with that.

Any straight male fan who genuinely admires your character is not likely going to sit through something he doesn't care about. Especially since you become very explicit. He will feel kind of grossed out, as he should, not because he's homophobic but because this is not his jam. By overdoing the shipping thing, you have forced a decision out of this fan as to whether he wants to pay good money to sit through this nonsense again. The next time he attends con, he is going to spend his money elsewhere. That also goes for straight female fans who don't like shipping. Because not all women like slash. And they will try not to attend you panel again because it didn't entertain them. Second fragmentation.

There are other ships in the fandom. That is the natural progression of things went one ship appears on a show or movie. That initial pairing pulls all the other characters in. So almost everyone of the well known actors on Supernatural have been slashed with another actor. All except Tahmoh Penikett and Alexander Calvert, to the best of my knowledge. I am not sure why Tahmoh is ignored but it might have something to do with his character killing Kevin. I think Alex is not slashed because every other man is a father figure on the show, and Alex plays a baby. You tend to indulge mostly the destiel fanbase, and destiel is discussed in almost all your panels. What is wrong with that? You isolate people who don't like destiel for whatever reason. If they don't like a pairing, they are not going to sit through a panel where that pairing is sporadically discussed. That is not what they paid for. In a convention, where audience members have been asked not to ask shipping questions, and every other guest honors the rule except you, it makes you look unprofessional and a rule breaker. That is not a good look for a salesman. Third fragmentation.

So what if you speak about destiel? You have fans. They love you. How is that detrimental to your popularity? I will explain that further down.

You bite the hand that feeds you

If you have been employed on a show for ten years, you cant badmouth that show. Especially when you are incorrect. In 2013, you said that the show was 'gratuitously misogynistic', during one of your panels. Since then, the show has been bringing in unnecessary female characters. This is aggravating for fans who were watching the show since before you got casted. They didn't like most of the female characters, and yes the non-approving fans were all female. Ratings were still good and the show was popular. There were female characters whom the fans had no problem with, for example, Missouri Mosley, Ellen Harvelle, Pamela Barnes and to a certain extent even Ava.

Ever since your statement, CW and associated twitter pages blew up with accusation from ''concerned fans'' who were now asking for ''representation'' on a show that was already nine years old, despite managing to be misogynistic. So now, we have characters are extremely unpopular like Claire Novak, Jody Mills, Donna Whatshername and even Mary Winchester. The spinoff for these inadequate females bombed due to lack of ratings. The show invested time, resources, money and effort into a spin-off that failed, because you said something stupid that made them look bad. The day they figure it out, you will leave the show with a reputation of being problematic. And word travels in Hollywood.

You overestimate your knowledge

You tend to speak up for a lot of different people. Usually I would admire that, because it is a sign of inclusiveness - not a bad trait to have. You, however, are very heavy handed with it. And you speak about subjects like you know them. You have an inadequate knowledge of slash fiction and yet you speak about it and you speak wrong. I have already done an article on that subject. You speak about feminism and misogyny and women's rights which makes me livid, because as I previously pointed out, you say the wrong things. And as a women, I would prefer to speak up for myself. I don't need a voice box speaking incorrectly for me.

You also speak about LGBT issues. LGBT teens who make up a small part of your already small fanbase, like that. After all, they are kids and they don't know any better. Grown ups, are generally, getting irritated. Because if you wanted these people to have rights, you will let them speak instead of speaking for them. Right now, only you and your destiel fans have a voice on the subject of LGBT, and collectively, you do a lot of damage to that community. Non-destiel fans are constantly fighting off destiel fans because of their ''deep'', stereotypical and damaging analysis of Dean's sexuality. They are becoming dissatisfied, but because you are not a mainstream actor and a household name, you fly just under the radar. The day GLAAD releases an official statement about you and your fans, you are not going to like it. Neither is CW.

You don't control your termites

In the past year and a half, your destiel fans have:

verbally bashed Jensen Ackles on Twitter

sent him a death threat

threatened to burn down his house

threatened to poison his beer so his brewery will shut down

smeared J2's reputation over a harmless joke they made at Nolacon [yep, those were your fans - their profile pictures and names gave them away]

were planning to hire a plane so that they could fly the words ''Pedowitz sucks'' outside Mark Pedowitz's office

threatened to kidnap Jared's children

slandered Jared by saying that Jared abuses his wife, whilst pretending to be her number one fan on Instagram

They only have one motivation for doing this: YOU.

And its not because they love you so much. Its because you overindulged something that was essentially a harmless pastime, you have turned them into junkies and you are their only dealer. The day you switch off their juice with finality, you will see a very ugly side of these termites, who are eating away at the foundations of Supernatural.

Because you over spoke about destiel, these troublemakers are now the majority of your fans. Outside of destiel, they have no interest in you. The Misha-led con recently didn't do very well, did it? Due to fragmentation you have lost many fans, and mishandling of your product caused you to use all the others. How many fans do you have left? Less that 80 000. That is my estimation. Those are the majority of the fans who petitioned for Wayward Daughters. The standard audience didn't give a hoot about that stupid project. Why did the shippers care so much? Because Wayward Daughters was a fan-backed project. The fans made it happen. They assumed that if they could succeed in that, then maybe they could make destiel canon too. For them, destiel is endgame.

Supernatural as a total audience of 3 million. Less that 80 000, is not an impressive number. Unfortunately 80 000 are still inaccurate, because this was not a ''landlocked'' survey. It was done via the Internet, which means that fans from all over the world could vote. So they don't fall under the category of the 3 million viewers who tune into Supernatural in America, every week. You fans are not Supernatural's core audience. You did that to yourself. These fans are also mostly teens. That is why they are so loud compared to other fan subsections. They have no mortgages to pay. They don't have to face rush hour traffic and they can fixate on destiel without much interruption. And since they are kids, they understand social media better than you and I. So they know how to use their resources.

I want to point out though, that not all destiel fans are problematic. Some are civil and level headed. I feel sorry for them because their reputation is tarnished due to the majority. And an ok ship, that they enjoy, is ruined.

The only thing that is your saving grace, for many fragmented fans is your anti-Trump stance. I hate him too, but I also hate Hillary. She is no better than him. However, even that is baffling because if you are brave enough to tweet and irritate Trump, who is unfortunately your President, why don't you have the courage to deal with your fans, in defense of your co-stars and the show that has employed you for ten years. Especially when these fans are mostly children. So you are not afraid of President Trump, but little girls scare you? Because my vantage point, I can see that this doesn't make you look good.

You used to be one of my favorites amongst the additional cast, until I got fragmented out of your circle. I even liked destiel, until it turned into a vile beast. You are now one person, that I cant write a slash story for. Because you have made it difficult for me to like you.

I thank you for your time, Mr Collins, and I hope some of what I said, gets through to you.

Sincerely

An ex-Misha Fan

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