Hulu learned a valuable lesson last week that anyone anywhere will do well to learn from. Hulu, for those of you who don’t know…… is a website  developed by News Corp. and NBC. The site offers free viewing of full-length films and TV episodes, supported by advertising. Here is a link that explains more if you are interested.
The lesson Hulu learned really has nothing to do with advertising, but it’s an important one that I will metaphorically explain to you by transforming us back to kindergarten. The scene I’m setting up works well because even a small child with debilitating learning disabilities should understand early in their developmental process.

Let’s say our teacher Mrs. Huluwert came in one day and brought in a big brand new box full of blocks.  Some of the kids ran over to the new box and took out some of blocks. All the kids were really curious at first, but after a few days started to enjoy playing with them. Some of the kids picked a few blocks that they really liked and would run over and grab their favorite ones each day. They began to love them so much. Then one night Mrs. Huluwert tip-toed in and took some of the blocks away without telling anyone. The next morning all the kids show up and a few of the most loved blocks are missing. Needless to say some of the kids are heart broken. They thought yea Mrs. Huluwert was super nice to bring us the blocks in the first place, but she is kind of a bitch for taking them away without telling anyone….

I recently started watching It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia on Hulu. They had all of the episodes and almost everyday, me and thousands of other fans would watch a few, laugh a little and then carry on. One day when I was in the middle of season two, I logged on to Hulu and to my horror all of the episodes were gone. Why would this happen I wondered? I had just fallen in love with a show and then someone took it away from me right smack in the middle of watching it. I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. Almost right away fans started posting irate comments on Hulu’s message board. Here is a link to some of them.

What happened next is really the valuable lesson to be learned. Hulu apologized. For whatever the reason was it didn’t matter to the fans, including me. What Hulu learned and what can be taken away here is that even online all the same rules still apply that you learned when you were young. Social Media is about people and creating a dialogue with them. Just as in real life, because there really isn’t much of a difference anymore online or off, you need to treat people how you would like to be treated.

So class, the lesson for today is, don’t give someone something and then take it away without telling them. It pisses people off and they don’t care that you gave it to them in the first place. All they remember is that you’re the dick who took something away they liked.

Here is a link for the Apology

Here is a link from an angry viewer like me