‘The Walking Dead’ Drives Massive Viewer Engagement for AMC

Seven seasons in and fans are still going wild for The Walking Deadon AMC.

Canvs, the language analytics company, took a look at the past three weeks of social media response to AMC programming to uncover what’s been driving the most emotional response from viewers, and out of the 755,250 total Emotional Reactions (ERs) sparked on Twitter, a whopping 92.3% of them were around The Walking Dead.

The season opener, which aired on Oct. 23, garnered 577,551 ERs with many viewers expressing love (23.1% of ERs) for the series as well as talking about how crazy (22.2%) the inaugural episode was. The character Negan was a popular conversation topic, mentioned in 8.2% of all ERs, with viewers particularly surprised and turned off by his actions.

Related: AMC’s Promo Push for ‘The Walking Dead’: 196 Million TV Ad Impressions in One Week

Wow Omfg dude wtf! #TWDSeason7

— TheDapperZombie (@TheDapperZombie) October 24, 2016

Negan is insane man. This is crazy.

— Frantz Paul (@LSN_Frantz) October 24, 2016

NEGAN YOURE SUCH A JERK

— Amanda(@amandak06) October 24, 2016

The second episode of the season collected 65,746 ERs — substantially less than the premiere, but that’s usually the case with TV series, even those with a dedicated following. This time, Carol was an oft-tweeted-about character, with 15.3% of the ERs and many viewers saying she had them laughing.

Carol, oh how nice it is to see you again. #TWD

— TV After Dark (@TVAfterDark) October 31, 2016

Carol has me cracking up laughing right now! The Kingdom is so strange. #WalkingDead

— Armenta Chavis (@ChavezChavis) October 31, 2016

The most recent episode of the fan favorite registered 53,898 ERs, with Daryl stirring up sadness in viewers, being mentioned in over 47% of all sad, upset ERs.

Seeing Daryl upset legit breaks my heart, he's been through so much :sob::sob: #TheWalkingDead

— Meg (@Meg_Elizabeth22) November 7, 2016

The zombie theme continued for AMC with its second most emotionally reacted-to show, Talking Dead, which had 7.5% of the network’s ERs for the period measured. This aftershow, hosted by Chris Hardwick, allows fans to continue the conversation following each new episode of The Walking Dead — a testament to the former’s success on the network. It allows fans to rehash what they just experienced, and many use it to vent their feelings toward the latest episode.

#TalkingDead The show was way to violent tonight

— Carol aka lorac (@carolcat17) October 24, 2016

@AMCTalkingDead This was sooo painful to watch! Sooo Sad!!

— Amber Scott (@Amber_Scott) October 24, 2016

Zombies aside, AMC’s Comic Book Men, produced by Kevin Smith, also drew some viewer reaction, with 1,307 ERs (less than 1% of the overall ERs for the network for the three weeks). Overwhelmingly viewers expressed crazy, generating 43.4% of ERs across the three episodes that aired during the measurement period.

@ComicBookMenAMC always a thrill to watch!

— Tiffani Ferguson (@Tiffani85Chanel) November 7, 2016

That man crazy $800 is still a lot #ComicBookMen

— dev|#WSCCharlotte? (@itsDevT82) November 7, 2016

Eleanor Semeraro is an analyst and contributor with TV [R]EV.