Earlier this week – like, literally, hours ago – AMC Theatres floated the idea of possibly allowing audience members to text during designated screenings at various theaters. The suggested policy was a proposed method of accommodating guests who don’t want to part with their beloved technology. But people didn’t like the idea. In fact, they downright hated it. So AMC, in an effort to save face, just dropped this Tweet:
Got it? "NO TEXTING AT AMC." In all caps. No exclamation point, which is disappointing. But the company wants to make sure that it heard, loud and clear, how people feel about the possibility of allowing texting in theaters. And they won’t allow it.
To be fair, I didn’t really think it was a terrible idea. I actually said, on the record in a story, that if certain screenings in multiplexes were designated ahead of time as text-friendly screenings, then there’s no real problem with it because anyone going into that screening would know what they were getting in to. We reported a while back that some theaters entertained the idea of having texts appear ON SCREEN, which would make the theatrical experience interactive. That could be fun, if you wanted it.
But after the AMC texting news broke, Twitter flooded with reactions like this:
And this one:
So yeah. People weren’t into it. And the company is trying to backslide away from the "policy" that it never really implemented. As some have pointed out on Twitter, AMC doesn’t actually prevent people from Tweeting in movie theaters. There’s no rule, and if you were to text in a movie theater this weekend, you wouldn’t get kicked out by the theater. Though you will piss off those around you. So, while AMC is entertaining the idea of theater renovations, the texting is off the table. Are you happy?
