I think it’s interesting that in the past month we’ve been able to see both options play themselves out. Lucas made his way to the forum after an, even by his own admission, not so smooth start in front of the camera and he’s literally spent the past month trying to win people on the forum back over to his side.
On the flip side – and at the urging of Mark – several new boys started posting before their scenes had even been scheduled in the upcoming section. And, everyone has been amazed at the number of pages ranked up on the forum for guys that hadn’t even appeared on the site officially yet.
I could be wrong, but if I were Mark and had seen how badly the reaction to Lucas had gone, I would have suggested the new boys try to get to know the forumites and win them over first. And (even if that wasn’t the actual intention) for the most part it worked. I think that both Flint and Graham have racked up quite a few fans just based on their personality and with a few pictures to tease us.
If Flint had waited until after his scenes had been posted maybe he would have read those negative comments first and stopped right there. That would have robbed the rest of us from getting to know him a little better this past week.
As a sociological experiment I think it worked in many ways, but also failed Flint in some ways as he may not have been prepared for the negative comments that came after the scene was out. I do hope that some of his friends from
Broke Straight Boys that can contact Flint let him know how some of us feel about the bullying he suffered. I also feel that the
Broke Straight Boys management team walk a tough line between trying to make people happy, but unlike some producers out there they also seem to genuinely care about their models. But hurtful comments can deal a blow no matter how much people are prepared or not.
As grandma always said “if you don’t got nothing nice to say, then don’t say nothing.” I’m really going to try to live by those words here.
Toby