Emmy voters made their voices heard Aug. 26 during the 2014 Primetime Emmy Awards. This year, they dubbed "Modern Family" and "Breaking Bad" the best comedy and drama series, respectively, on TV. Clearly, these shows are critical darlings, but are they also beloved among social media users?
The answer, it turns out, is not as much. As you could probably guess, the most acclaimed shows aren't always the most popular, and that's certainly the case on social media. In fact, very few of the most popular shows on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit were nominated for an Emmy this year.
Collecting and using data from Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and Nielsen, Quartz analyzed which TV shows are the most popular among users of the social networks. Just as we visit each of these sites for different purposes and each of them has a very different feel, the TV shows that users love the most also vary greatly from platform to platform.
On Facebook, the most popular shows tend to be comedies and animated series. The top five shows with the most Facebook "Likes" are "The Simpsons" (74.4 million), "Mr. Bean" (60.4 million), "Spongebob Squarepants" (58.2), "Family Guy" (56.3 million) and "South Park" (50.7 million).
Facebook tends to be a destination where people come to enjoy themselves and look at lighthearted content, so it's not surprising that users would follow updates from upbeat shows. Although younger people are leaving Facebook, I would argue that the most popular shows on the platform are most appealing to Millennials, who are still increasingly active on Facebook. Quartz also points out that some of the most popular shows on Facebook tend to be the most popular shows among TV watchers, such as "The Big Bang Theory" (31.9 million "Likes") and "The Walking Dead" (29.8 million). Since Facebook is also about universal appeal, it makes sense that shows that are generally popular would be popular among the platform's users, too.
Twitter is very different from Facebook in that people are talking more about TV shows as they happen live. That means live events, such as awards shows and sporting events, usually dominate the TV conversation. Quartz reports that the five most tweeted about shows and events during the week of Aug. 11 to Aug. 17 were "Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta" (471,000 tweets), "WWE Summerslam" (404,000 tweets), "WWE Monday Night Raw" (239,000 tweets), "Teen Wolf" (201,000 tweets) and the soccer match between Real Madrid and Sevilla (197,000 tweets), according to Nielsen.
In contrast, the Twitter accounts of TV shows with the most followers, not including the TV personalities, are "SportsCenter" (8.4 million), "106 & Park" (5.6 million), "The X Factor" (5.1 million), "iCarly" (3.9 million) and "The Voice" (3.1 million). For one thing, it's interesting how many fewer followers TV shows have on Twitter than on Facebook. However, this is probably just a result of Facebook having more than a billion monthly active users compared to Twitter's 271 million monthly active users. And as Quartz mentions, just because you like to talk about a certain show on Twitter doesn't necessarily mean you follow the show.
Finally, there's Reddit, which is a whole other animal in and of itself. As one might expect, the most-subscribed to TV subreddits are for shows that have more cult or niche followings. The top five TV subreddits with the most subscribers are "Game of Thrones" (427,000), "Pokemon" (369,000) — although this could also include fans of the games, movies and everything else under the "Pokemon" umbrella — "Breaking Bad" (218,000), "Doctor Who" (218,000) and "The Walking Dead" (168,000).
The reason why these shows resonate among Reddit users so well may have to do with the demographics of users and the nature of the platform itself. Most Reddit users are young men, and as such, these shows mostly attract a young male audience, according to Quartz. Reddit is also a place where fans go to more deeply discuss the latest plot points in an episode, throw out conspiracy theories and learn about moments they may have missed the first time, Quartz says.
Basically, all of this means that if you don't want that episode of "Game of Thrones" waiting for you on your DVR spoiled, you still need to avoid social media at all costs.
