Game Of Thrones Overreaction: The Tears Of Twitter [Ft. Spoilers]

For the past week, Turkey has been in the throes of a social uprising: on May 28, 50 environmental protesters gathered in the country's capital, Istanbul, to oppose the proposed replacement of the urban Taksim Gezi Park with a reconstruction of the Taksim Military Barracks demolished in 1940. Following substantial police action and suppression, this protest flared out into riots, nationwide rallies and, by June 3, union strikes against broader governmental injustices and incompetence.

The people of Turkey are pissed off, and rightfully so – not only do they have to fight for their already limited urban green spaces, but they've been told they can't kiss in public, their right to booze is being impinged, and the general consensus among the people seems to be that their prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is a bad haircut and stupid moustache away from outright totalitarianism, which all merely scratches the surface of much deeper societal and political problems.

Tear gas has been sprayed, arrests have been made (somewhere in the ballpark of 1700), and the death toll has struck at least two, which is still two more than should come out of any peaceful (well, initially) protest.

But instead of being dominated by talk about this uprising – or any of the other thousand-and-fuckty-two awful things that are happening in our world on a twice-daily basis – do you know what my Twitter feed was buzzing about today?

Game of Thrones.

Now, I get that this doesn't seem like a big deal to the casual observer. People talk about The Block or Q&A every week, and it's not like the world suddenly started sucking with gusto yesterday. Meaningless, entertaining puff commentary is as much Twitter's bread and butter as revolutionary guerrilla citizen journalism is.

Maybe this is more indicative of the people I choose to follow than any scathing indictment on Western society as a whole, but I really don't think so, because this instance stands out as a giant, flashing neon sign that screams, “We have no concept of what's going on in the world and our priorities are terrible”.

You see, people are upset about last night's episode of Game of Thrones, The Rains of Castamere. Like, really upset. Way more upset than they should be.

Yes, it was a particularly brutal episode, and, no, I'm not suggesting that they shouldn't share their opinions about the show. Social media has given TV a fresh, wonderful dimension, building tightly woven fandoms out of previously loosely connected fans and completely changing how we watch what we watch. But that doesn't explain the way it also seems to completely obliterate people's sense of rational thinking any time they have to communicate the way a TV show makes them feel.

Anyone who has been around the Sherlock, Supernatural or Doctor Who fandoms for even a day knows that, in those circles, “I can't” is a complete sentence, and “OMG MY FEELS MY BBYS MY CREYS”* is like the house motto. Nobody can just say, “wow, that was a brutal episode”. Everybody has to act as though someone has physically stolen their ability to breathe.

So, last night, when Game of Thrones [spoiler alert] did a number on the audience's collective heart by icing beloved main characters, a wolf, a room full of bystanders and a sleeping army at an event infamously known as “The Red Wedding”, it's unsurprising that people reacted negatively.

Look, it's totally fine to form emotional connections with fictional characters. Well, it better be, or pretty much my whole life is a lie. But to gaze upon the Game of Thrones fandom from an outsider's perspective must be like watching a dense child who is learning to feel things for the very first time: you either don't feel anything, or you feel all the things at once in a screaming tantrum.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that George R. R. Martin had hopped a plane and personally violated every fan's mother before tattooing his initials on her face while aggressively giving you the finger, given the backlash. Seriously, these kinds of reactions are next-level insanity (sample taken from @RedWeddingTears, a glorious tweet-by-tweet account of the fandom's descent into madness):

I have lost all reason to live fuck you game of thrones fuck you off

— bikseu dickseu (@g__ne) June 3, 2013

I have no reason to live after watching that episode of game of thrones. My life is over.

— Eva Burke (@burkeitup) June 3, 2013

Like most well-adjusted people, Twitter users Bikseu Dickseu and Eva Burke are apparently contemplating suicide over a fictional massacre;

hAVING A FUCKING MENTAL BREAKDOWN OVER GAME OF THRONES NO WHAT THE HELL WHAT THE HELL I DIDN'T THINK IT'D BE HTIS BAD NO

— Rose Winchester (@thespnwhiz) June 3, 2013

“Rose Winchester” (spot the Superwholock fan), aside from thinking that caps lock is the only way to emote via text (this is a surprisingly common misconception), has apparently completely lost her grip on reality because a hot would-be king, his pregnant lady and his mum all got screwed over by Argus Filch from the Harry Potter films and his crossbow-wielding cronies.

Worst of all, by admitting that she “DIDN'T THINK IT'D BE HTIS BAD NO”, that tells us that a) she's read the books, b) she knew what was going to happen, and c) that she was still unable to express herself like someone who doesn't use their face to type;

I AM FUCKING RIP SHIT. Game of thrones just fucked me so hard. Ill kill every single one of the frays and fuck lord Bolton. Rip rob

— Peter Scarpato (@scarpete21) June 3, 2013

Speaking of having lost their grip on reality, Peter Scarpato is gonna teach some fictional characters a fucking lesson. Also, “I AM FUCKING RIP SHIT” might be the greatest five-word string of the past 48 hours;

NOPE I'M OUT I QUIT I'M DONE GAME OF THRONES HAS KILLED ME GOODBYE CRUEL WORLD IT WAS NICE LIVING

— moonlight (@solegrace) June 3, 2013

User “moonlight” is so unbelievably melodramatic it makes me want to hurl myself off a cliff;

GAME OF THRONES WHAT THE FUCK??! NO NO NOOOO. I'VE BEEN CRYING FOR AN HOUR NOW.

— SaRah.(@Hermi1Sarah) June 3, 2013

“SaRah” demonstrates her well-developed emotional stability by physically sobbing uncontrollably after the people who play Robb and Catelyn Stark and their supporters all didn't die in real life;

Game of Thrones last night-gut wrenching, shocking, HEART BREAKING, TRAGIC-had to watch it twice I couldn't believe my eyes. Fuck you HBO.

— Sugar❤Britches (@SugarBritchesTX) June 3, 2013

…and “Sugar❤Britches” uses a bunch of words that are probably better applied to Turkey. Seriously. Not to sound preachy, but can you even imagine what wrenches guts, shocks, and breaks hearts in Turkey right now? In Syria? Iraq? Iran? Rwanda? Not mediaeval fantasy murders, that's for sure. But it goes on like this. And on. The worst part is, as far as I can tell, absolutely none of it is ironic. “Fuck you, George R. R. Martin”. “Up yours, HBO”. Oh, the personal slight! The fandom is shaking their fists in the air, the hive mind shrieking, “You've screwed us for the last time, Waldon Frey, who isn't even a real guy!”

It's difficult to criticise the outpouring of emotion without sounding like a hypocrite, because I am obviously one of those people who generally gets pretty invested in TV shows. Got an hour to kill? Let me tell you why Captain Planet is outrageously irresponsible and has no place being near children.

Neither am I saying that everyone's Twitter feeds need be filled only with sombre, non-fiction, social justice rants or hard, tragic and depressing news; it's just that when you're the sort of person who tweets things such as “George Martin needs to be brought to justice”, and you are 100 percent totally serious about that charge, you probably have some serious re-evaluating to do. 

You want to talk heartbreak? This kind of histrionic outcry (one guy even threatened to cancel his HBO subscription) is kind of a slap in the face for so many who have legitimate gripes, who are honestly struggling to find reason to get out of bed in the mornings, and/or who are faced with real injustice and terror on a daily basis at the hands of madmen and tyrants. They don't have the luxury of being upset at the machinations of fantasy worlds – their reality is devastating and brutal enough.

So, sure, enjoy Game of Thrones. Get invested. React to it. Discuss it. All acceptable. But it would be good if, on top of our fictional investments, we could remember the other side from time to time, and not behave as though a television network and an author who looks like Santa Claus just slit the throats of your (real) loved ones.

 *Translation: “Oh my God, this hurts. My poor babies. I am crying.”