Media in The Simpsons - Internet

Internet

Four months after the airing of a first episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", the newsgroup alt.tv.simpsons was created by Gary D. Duzan during the third week of March 1990. It was created before there was a world wide web, which emerged in 1993, so those earliest discussions were held on text-only platforms. According to Turner, the newsgroup was among the most trafficked newsgroups of the early 1990s. The comments of alt.tv.simpsons have been quoted or cited in the writings of mass media commentators. This has led to situations in which relations between writers and viewers have become strained. In 1994, Simpsons creator Matt Groening acknowledged he and the other showrunners have been reading the newsgroup and in frustration said, "Sometimes I feel like knocking their electronic noggins together". Showrunner Bill Oakley used to respond to select Simpsons fans through e-mail in a friendly manner, but by 1996 claimed "here are people who take it seriously to the point of absurdity".

The writers sometimes make jokes at the newsgroup's expense. Within the series, the character Comic Book Guy is often used to represent a stereotypical inhabitant of alt.tv.simpsons. The first such instance occurred in the seventh season episode "Radioactive Man," in which Comic Book Guy is logging on to his favorite newsgroup alt.nerd.obsessive. Comic Book Guy's oft-repeated catchphrase, "Worst episode ever," first appeared on alt.tv.simpsons in an episode review and writer David S. Cohen decided to use this fan response to lampoon the passion and the fickleness of the fans. In the chapter "Who Wants Candy" in the book Leaving Springfield, Robert Sloane finds alt.tv.simpsons an example of an "active audience ... who struggle to make their own meaning out of the show". He mentions that in this context, the fans nitpick the show to an extreme and allow no room for error, where the writers believe that nitpicking leads to an under appreciation of the show's qualities. Turner writes in the book Planet Simpson that The Simpsons appeared tailor-made for a newsgroup in the early 1990s because it includes minor details that reward attentive viewing and can be easily scrutinized. The episode "The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show" deals with the viewer backlash and obsession with internal consistency. When the character Comic Book Guy saw that the television show The Itchy & Scratchy Show added a new character, called Poochie, he immediately goes on the internet and writes "Worst episode ever" on a message board; a commentary on how the active audience nit picks the episode. The writers respond by using the voice of Bart:

In 2011, the producers let the users of the Internet vote over what direction The Simpsons should take. In the twenty-second season finale "The Ned-Liest Catch", the characters Ned Flanders and Edna Krabappel started dating. The episode ends with Homer and Marge Simpson giving the viewers a link to the official The Simpsons website, TheSimpsons.com, and encouraging them to go on the website and vote over the summer of 2011 on whether Ned and Edna should stay together. Showrunner Al Jean said in an interview that the writers decided it would not be interesting for them to do another episode where a relationship ended, and they thought it would be interesting "to see what people think, the Internet certainly has a lot of opinion on the show, might as well have them have their say." When asked why the writers thought Ned and Edna were the right characters for a cliffhanger like this, Jean said that "In life, unusual things happen. People couple together in ways you would not expect, and he's single and she's single. We thought it would be funny, the fact that they both have these connections to the Simpsons but they never really met or if they have met it was minimal." The result of the poll was revealed in the season 23 premiere "The Falcon and the D'ohman". According to Jean, the poll was "very strong in one direction." He assured in an interview before the result was presented that the poll was authentic and the writers would not undo the viewers' decision, and added that "What our fans have joined together, let no writer tear asunder."

"I Am Furious (Yellow)" references the dot-com bubble, a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000. In their article "15 Simpsons Moments That Perfectly Captured Their Eras", Genevieve Koski, Josh Modell, Noel Murray, Sean O'Neal, Kyle Ryan and Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club wrote: "By April 2002, the dot-com bubble of the late '90s had been popped for a couple of years, taking with it myriad Internet start-ups. A sobering soul-searching settled in their place, which The Simpsons captured in this episode about Bart creating a popular Internet cartoon called Angry Dad. Touring the laid-back start-up that hosts the cartoons, Lisa asks head honcho Todd Linux about their business model. 'How many shares of stock will it take to end this conversation?' he retorts. Lisa asks for two million, which Linux grabs from a paper-towel dispenser. When Bart and Lisa return later, the company has gone bust, and Linux is stealing copper wire out of the walls." The episode was also partly based on some of The Simpsons staff members' experience with making internet cartoons, such as Queer Duck and Hard Drinkin' Lincoln, both of which were created by former showrunner Mike Reiss. In his article "Best Indicator Ever: The Simpsons Foreclosure", Jonathan Hoenig of SmartMoney wrote that the twentieth season episode "No Loan Again, Naturally", an episode in which the Simpsons are foreclosed from their house, could have indicated that "the worst of the housing crisis" at the time the article was written, was over. Hoenig based this theory on the fact that shortly after "I Am Furious (Yellow)", which satirizes the dot-com bubble, aired, the dotcom stocks "began a massive rebound from bear-market lows."

In the episode "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes", Homer buys a computer and creates his own website to spread fake news. He defends his action towards Bart by stating "Real news is great, son, but I'm getting a thousand hits an hour with Grade A bull plop". In his review of The Simpsons: The Complete Twelfth Season, DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson wrote that he enjoyed the episode's take on "Internet idiocy". He wrote, "Some parts of it feel dated, but the web features even more ill-informed opinions today than it did nine years ago, so much of it remains timeless and on target."