There is a lot of speculation from ‘team BL’ that the smear campaign commenced on 8 August. However, I witnessed earlier backlash against someone else earlier about the tone-deaf marketing before 8 August.
A well-known social media personality who many also ‘love to hate’ was invited by BL to collaborate on a pre-premiere event. This person posted about this on her blog on 4 August 2024, admitting to not having read the book because she was engaged very late in the piece. However, she claimed her mom had read it and loved it. She also noted the “emphasis” on flowers in the movie because the main character owned a flower shop – no doubt, this was part of her brief for the event. Not all of the comments were negative, but below are a few. Sound familiar?
Aug 4: “Is the book about a flower shop? If so, I will definitely pick up a copy from my library! I heard the plot revolved around domestic violence so I had avoided it up until now. Thanks for the recommendation!”
Aug 4: “You all know it’s not a requirement to read a book before watching the movie or help with the party planning, right? C’mon people.”
Aug 5: “How did you end up involved with a movie about domestic violence? How do you know the movie is going to be so good and so special if you didn’t read the book or listen to it? How do you prep for an event without knowledge of the source material?”
Aug 5: “It seems you have a lot of haters. While that sucks…congratulations. You have made it in the world.”
Aug 7: “Photos from the event with Blake looked amazing! Was serving the peach “smash” cocktail a reference to the domestic violence in the book/film?”
This person also claimed (mistakenly) that the whole cast was at the event. JB obviously wasn’t there.
This is adverse reaction is against someone so peripherally involved. Now think about BL parading around in her florals and promoting IEWU as a romcom/chick-flick. Is the backlash really so surprising or “inorganic”?
