One week before Dropout released Season 7, episode 8 of Game Changer, show host and Dropout CEO Sam Reich took to social media to deliver an intriguing PSA about how to get the most out of the episode.
There were three rules he suggested viewers follow. First, watch the episode as close to its premiere date as possible. Second, if you aren't able to watch it as soon as possible, it's best to stay off of Game Changer's social media channels. Third, if you can watch it live, he encouraged you to interact with Game Changer's social media as much as possible. What could this warning mean, and what did social media have to do with this upcoming episode?
Turns out, everything. The episode, titled "Fool's Gold," takes the game to social media and encourages audience interaction in a way no Game Changer episode has done before.
In "Fool's Gold," contestants Mike Trapp, Rekha Shankar, and Jordan Myrick each have $10,000 that they can use to fund video pitches by fellow Dropout cast members. These videos will end up on Game Changer's social media channels. By the end of the month, the contestant whose videos have racked up the most views will be declared the winner. All they have to do is figure out which pitch has the potential to go most viral.
The concept works on multiple levels. On a Game Changer front, it's a comedic riff on Shark Tank, one that delivers ridiculous concepts ranging from a breast milk taste test (pitched by Lily Du and Isabella Roland) to a man peeling glue off his entire body (pitched by Paul Robalino). The episode also doubles as the perfect Game Changer marketing campaign. Dropout's primary marketing strategy is social media clips, so the entire episode has been reverse-engineered to market the show.
"Whenever we're brainstorming for Game Changer, I'm looking for ideas that are not only original but also elegant in their simplicity," Reich told Mashable over e-mail. "This idea appealed to me because it basically strips down the job we do as Dropout development every day to its bare essence: coming up with ideas that are going to translate both to long-form on Dropout and short-form on social media as a means of marketing the platform. Really, the episode is just me being a good delegator!"
"Fool's Gold" also offers an insight into Dropout's cast's understanding of virality. They know sex sells, which is why Persephone Valentine pitches a Dropout cast car wash. They also know they can replicate a prior success, which is why Roland pitches a parade of animated buttholes — a follow-up on her already-viral request from Season 4's "Sam Says" episode. And finally, they know that drama always wins big on the internet. That's why Vic Michaelis' pitch for a "Why I Left Dropout" video from Dropout fan-favorite Brennan Lee Mulligan gets funded by every contestant, along with Reich himself.
Of course, the players' opinions on virality are only half the battle to winning "Fool's Gold." The other half is entirely dependent on the viewers, who, if they abide by Reich's guidelines for viewing the episode, will be able to "play" along live as "Fool's Gold" airs. Then, over the course of the next month, viewers will be able to keep affecting the episode's outcome. Could we see concentrated efforts to influence social media algorithms and get one video more views than others?
"Fool's Gold" is the most a Game Changer episode has interacted with its fanbase, but it's far from the only one to do so. Multiple Season 7 episodes have made fans a part of the game. "Crowd Control" cast Dropout fans as the audience for comedians Jeff Arcuri, Gianmarco Soresi, and Josh Johnson. One of the challenges for the Season 7 premiere, "One Year Later," involved creating the most profitable piece of Dropout merchandise, something fans only realized while watching the episode. Either unknowingly or knowingly, Game Changer is bringing its fans into the game, and, according to Reich, that's a testament to Dropout's relationship with its fandom.
"Game Changer pulls from basically every available resource in order to remain fun and surprising — the players' significant others, their families, the crew, the studio, etc. — so it should be no surprise that now Dropout fans are getting in the mix," Reich explained. "Brennan makes this observation in another upcoming episode: For the most part, the fans can be trusted to be funny, which is pretty unique to Dropout as far as fandoms are concerned."
In terms of the logistics of getting fans involved in the episode, Game Changer released each social clip created for "Fool's Gold" as they aired. That way they could avoid fans posting the clips ahead of them, therefore "upsetting the experiment," as Reich put it. Hence Reich's PSA from the week prior.
"For this episode, our social channels are more spoilerific more quickly than ever before," Reich said. "That said, the audience can also 'participate' by engaging with the clips they want to see win. So the message [of the PSA] is sort of, 'Don't engage until you've seen the episode; then engage to your heart's content!'"
In addition to its fan involvement, "Fool's Gold" marks a new step in Game Changer's experimentation with its own form. This season has played with time scales and delays in games before. "You-lympics" saw contestants competing with themselves from four days prior, while "One Year Later" gave contestants an entire year to complete a list of challenges. With "Fool's Gold," though, Game Changer extends past the episode's production and into the future, a fascinating — and exciting — shift for a show whose only constant is change.
These shifts in timeline have created bold new opportunities for Game Changer, not just behind the camera, but in front of it, too. "The greatest reward has been watching my players spread their wings creatively when given the opportunity," Reich said of the show's experiments with time. "After all, by virtue of Dropout championing mostly unscripted content for the last handful of years, they haven't had the opportunity to write or shoot anything on location. Episodes like this and 'One Year Later' prove that they aren't just brilliant off the cuff; they're brilliant premeditatedly too. Of course, by doing this, we're making my (patient and diligent) production and post team's lives much more difficult."
Now that the dust has cleared and "Fool's Gold" is finally out, the question remains: Which pitch does Reich think will go most viral and take the crown?
"Here, the real battle is between the Game Changer meta (in which case my money is on 'Dimension 20: On a Bus') and non-Game Changer meta (in which case my money is on 'Project Snake Skin')," Reich said. "But the truth is that social media is always gambling, and I just don't know."
Speaking of "Dimension 20: On a Bus," is there a chance we'd ever see more of Katie Marovitch's Dimension 20 campaign with Mulligan, Aabria Iyengar, Jasmine Bhullar, and Matthew Mercer? (Or "Mark," as Marovitch calls him?)
According to Reich, "I'm in if Mark Mercer is!"
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