But the incident illustrates at least three lessons about Web entertainment, whose brief history is littered with creative efforts that won cult followings but failed to draw mass audiences.
While the Olympics is no longer the required viewing experience it was for past generations, he said few programs could draw mass audiences in today's media environment, where so many choices exist.
Few programmes can draw mass-viewing levels like the 20 million peak that watched England's defeat by Uruguay on ITV – the largest audience for any UK programme since the London 2012 Olympics closing ceremony.
The ban coincides with the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Republic, which is expected to draw mass protests and riots from citizens who are both for and against the regime.
While Rojek states that Friends will continue to draw mass-appeal power from how "it illustrates connections between how the British and Americans look at the world," Smith offers a sobering rebuttal: In the face of so much social and international uncertainty, sometimes the drug of nostalgia just doesn't work like it used to.
Walters, who seemed to find this explanation rather dubious, shouted over Hasselbeck, "She is not running because she doesn't want to take away from the other candidates?! What about the fact that maybe she thinks she can win?" Hasselbeck defended her point, saying that Palin has the ability to draw "mass crowds" and raise "mass cash," which would not go to another Republican candidates.
He chafes at the mention of City Lights as a business and is a reluctant devotee of the Beat nostalgia that draws masses to his corner of Broadway and Columbus Avenue, a wedge of North Beach real estate with its back to Chinatown and "its front end facing the Western world," as he puts it.
The Starbucks marketing machine wound up lifting everyone's boats, or cups, drawing masses of people to the concept of boutique coffee-drinking.
Even if a Sanders win was unlikely, they say, his staying in the race drew masses of voters who otherwise would not have been engaged – and Clinton needs all of them in November. .
