page_title: Rick and Morty (season 3)
section_title: Fanbase reactions
hierarchical_section_title: Rick and Morty (season 3) / Reception / Fanbase reactions
caption_attribution_description: English: One packet of Szechuan Sauce produced for McDonalds in 2018. Picture taken at the Paradise Valley, San Diego location.
context_page_description: The third season of Rick and Morty, an American animated television series created by Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland, originally aired on Cartoon Network's late night programming block, Adult Swim. It premiered with "The Rickshank Rickdemption", which aired unannounced on April 1, 2017, as part of Adult Swim's annual April Fools' prank. As a result of production delays, the remaining episodes began airing weekly nearly four months later, on July 30, 2017. The season comprised ten episodes, and its initial airing concluded on October 1, 2017.
  The premiere picks up where the second-season finale left off, as the show continues to follow the adventures of the members of the Smith household. When Jerry asks Beth to choose between him and Rick, the strength of their marriage is tested. Jerry is confronted with the loss of his family, while Beth begins to discover her independence again. Morty and Summer deal with their parents' separation by seeking more control over their lives. Rick's nihilistic way of life continues to prevent him from bonding with his family, as he remains unable to change his self-destructive behavior.
context_section_description: In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, female writers Jane Becker, Sarah Carbiener and Jessica Gao addressed negative comments regarding their involvement in writing the third season of Rick and Morty, recalling a post on Reddit that called them "the social justice warriors that Dan had to hire". Gao stated, "The people who say [hiring writers should be a meritocracy] have never ever thought about what that actually means and where that meritocracy comes from." Following the release of "Pickle Rick", one of the season's best-rated episodes, a number of fans participated in an online harassment campaign that targeted female writers of the show—especially Jane Becker and Jessica Gao—as they felt that they were "ruining the show" for them. Said writers received rape and death threats on Twitter, and had their personal information put online. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Dan Harmon confronted the trolls, saying, "I think it’s all disgusting. These knobs, that want to protect the content they think they own — and somehow combine that with their need to be proud of something they have, which is often only their race or gender."
  The Szechuan sauce reference in the season premiere brought huge online attention for McDonald's discontinued promotional product. Internet memes spread rapidly on Reddit and Twitter, more than 40,000 people signed a petition at Change.org, asking for the return of the sauce, while an eBay auction resulted in a 20-year-old packet of this teriyaki sauce being sold for $14,700. On October 7, 2017, McDonald's served limited quantities of the sauce, without explicitly naming Rick and Morty as a reason for the return. Many fans waited for hours in long queues, but not all of them were served as the fast-food outlets ran out of the product. The fiasco prompted enraged reactions by disappointed fans, with some of them acting out and mistreating the company's workers.
  In the wake of these events, the Rick and Morty fanbase received a bad reputation, with James Grebey of Inverse noting that "Rick and Morty is a good show, but it’s quickly gaining a (frankly well-earned) reputation for having a really, really shitty fan base. Even series co-creator Dan Harmon hates a certain segment of his misogynistic fan base." Cameron Williams of Junkee attributed this "toxic behavior" to the rise of an aggressive type of entitled fan in the past decades, and examined the motivation of these people, noting that "it’s hard to feel special when you’re a face in the crowd of millions of people. A lot of bad behaving fans look for an excuse to be oppressed so they can separate themselves from the mainstream." Emily Gaudette of Newsweek said that, with the spike in popularity, the show has obtained an army of online devotees, and commented on groups like the self-described "Real Ricks", who identify themselves with the series' main character and believe that high intellect is an excuse for mistreating others. Gaudette noted that these groups do not represent the Rick and Morty fanbase, but they "tend to suck all the oxygen out of the virtual room." Series co-creator Justin Roiland said on his Twitter account that he sees more good than bad in the series' fanbase, and chooses to focus on that.
caption: A packet of Szechuan sauce
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