On Vince McMahon's Audience

There's a reason why Vince McMahon is able to bandy that amount of cash about Photo Credit: WWE.com

Over the weekend, Vince McMahon, or more accurately, the intern that runs Vince McMahon's Twitter, sent this missive to his thousands of followers:

The first law of communication is to know your audience and speak their language
— Vince McMahon (@VinceMcMahon) May 24, 2013

This rankled a lot of people, sparking the general average reply of "When will you start doing it?" Obviously, if McMahon was presenting a product that was solely aimed at us, the community of meta-fans, he'd fail, but not for the reasons any given one of us would suggest. Contrary to popular, contrarian belief, the "Internet Wrestling Community" is not a hivemind, does not share the same set of tastes and biases, and is probably a far more diverse sect of fandom than the genpop that some people derisively call "marks." Newsflash, we're all marks; deal with it. Of course, that doesn't mean those fans who aren't in the same mold as we are are a hivemind either. It just means that they seem more likely to like similar things than we are.

The truth of the matter is that McMahon speaks from experience. You don't build an empire that has lasted for nearly thirty years without continually tapping into some cultural zeitgeist. Hulk Hogan sold pay-per-views. Steve Austin got people to watch television. John Cena is a perfectly cromulent huckster of merchandise. The WWF/WWE has been a profitable entity for the McMahon family and brand, and I'm fairly certain that you don't get to the pinnacle that he gets in terms of business without speaking the language of the average fan.

Some analysts like to kvetch about how business is down nowadays, and the only metric I feel that speaks to that is the raw television rating. Yes, RAW doesn't spike 5.0s anymore, but it's been my white whale so to speak to decry the importance of that singular number. WrestleMania wouldn't be doing huge box offices and being held in giant stadiums rather than relatively dinky basketball arenas if business were down. Cable networks wouldn't have a demand for wrestling, not just WWE, but wrestling (explaining why Dixie Carter's shitshow has such a long leash despite its "bad" ratings) if not for WWE's burgeoning cultural presence. McMahon is speaking to a large audience, and he knows what they want. It just happens to be that his audience wants to root for bullies, adores John Cena as Superman-incarnate, and may not have the best attitudes towards women. Is it McMahon's responsibility to change what his audience wants? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. I tend to think it is, but at the same time, that's a topic for a whole other post.

But I tend to think that anyone who questions whether McMahon knows the language and still watches WWE programming is being insanely selfish. If you continue to watch McMahon's programming, then you admit there's something for you, whether it's just an innate need to have something to be pissed off about. You can't have the entire narrative catered to what you want, because you share WWE with 4-5 million people Stateside and even more worldwide. WWE is the Coca-Cola, and the various indie promotions are the soda shoppes or artisanal local brands. The advantages of being Coca-Cola though are the products can be varied and tailored to your wants.

You don't like John Cena? Fine, they'll give you The Shield. RAW is too much of a schlog for you? Then hey, there's Main Event with nothing but the wrestling you crave. Oh, or you could just even DVR RAW and fast-forward through the annoying character stuff to watch the great wrestling they've provided. Or if you want that story, you can pay for Hulu Plus and watch NXT. No one ever said you had to watch everything WWE puts out. No one ever said you even had to watch anything they produced. Again, if you like wrestling, there's a whole universe out there with stuff that you may be over the moon about.

It's one thing to say McMahon does a bad job of producing a good wrestling product. Obviously, there's no accounting for taste of people, which is why Nickelback is so goddamn huge, while a band like The Pixies, while critically acclaimed, was unappreciated in their time by the mainstream and still today doesn't have the monetary success that corresponds to the amount of influence or talent they had. But don't say that he doesn't know how to speak to an audience. WWE is a megalith, a juggernaut even. McMahon didn't get to the point where he is without knowing how to sell a bottle of snake oil at the very least.