Wow. This it… the end of an era. How do you summarize four years of exploring the breadth of human fandom? This week, we talk about the journey from the beginning to the end of Fanthropological, what we learned, loved, and hated… and so much more!

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/thenickscast
Twitter: @thenickscast

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

Every week, our podcast, Fanthropological, delivers about an hour of fandom-related "fanalysis" covering a different fandom every week and giving you hard data, history, special guests, and, of course, speculation!

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

We are the Nickscast! Three products of late-80s / early-90s pop culture who love exploring fandom and everything geek … who also happen to have been best buddies since high school, and all happen to be named Nick.

We started the Nickscast as a labour of love, and as a place to entertain and to discuss our love of fans and fandom. We want to help others learn more about different fandoms, and to create empathy with other fans.

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Taps is in the Public Domain

View Details

As we continue wrapping up Fanthropological, we talk about several alternate universes (AUs) of topics we could have covered.

Topics we would have liked to have covered

Number 5
Z’s Choice: Haruki Murakami, or
T’s Choice: VTubers
G’s Choice: Folk Music
Number 4
Z’s Choice: “Concept: Are there fandom archetypes?”
T’s Choice: Dan Harmon’s Community
G’s Choice: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure
Number 3
Z’s Choice: Zappa
T’s Choice: Western Comics
G’s Choice: Drag
Number 2
Z’s Choice: Cyclists
T’s Choice: Undertale
G’s Choice: Breadtube
Honorable Mention:
Z’s Choice: “Is admiration for a politician, fandom?”
T’s Choice: Archer (or possibly H. Jon Benjamin)
Number 1
Z’s Choice: Aidyn Chronicles
T’s Choice: Classic Anime (In particular, 90s anime)
G’s Choice: Improv Comedy

And more! All in about thirty minutes.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/thenickscast
Twitter: @thenickscast

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

ReMix: Final Fantasy VI "Tastes Like Victory" by Leitbur from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green! (http://fragileair.bandcamp.com)

View Details

If you’re joining us for the first time, sorry to say this is the beginning of the end of Fanthropological. Join us as we revisit our favourite episodes (and maybe check them out)!

Our favourite episodes:

Number 5
Z’s Choice: Zelda
T’s Choice: Nier
G’s Choice: Galaga
Number 4
Z’s Choice: RPI
T’s Choice: Bob’s Burgers
G’s Choice: Pinball
Number 3
Z’s Choice: Breakfast Cereals
T’s Choice: Breakfast Cereals
G’s Choice: Disney Parks (Part 1 and Part 2)
Number 2
Z’s Choice: Furries
T’s Choice: Fanthropological World
G’s Choice: Gunpla
Honourable Mentions
Z’s Choices: Beyblade, The Office Team ICO
T’s Choices: Ghostbusters, SCP, Final Fantasy, Esperanto, Escape Rooms, Speedrunners
G’s Choices: Rick and Morty, Vampire Chronicles, Pro Wrestling
Number 1
Z’s Choice: Galaga
T’s Choice: Star Trek
G’s Choice: Breakfast Cereals

And more! All in about thirty minutes.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/thenickscast
Twitter: @thenickscast

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, [Instagram](https://instagram.com/thenicks

View Details

Inspired by our upcoming charity marathon, the Race Against Time, we’re back to talking about sequels and how they change fandom. A fandom can live off of very little material (e.g. Reboot, Chrono Trigger) … but what happens when there is a sequel? Is that a good thing?

In particular, we talk about:

How sequels allow for the creation of new communities
How sequels ‘change your investment in fandom’
How we’re huge hypocrites

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Plus, we’re on a short hiatus for the Race Against Time, so we’ll be back in September!

Episode Outline

Topics: Fandom exists outside of new content; people love _more_; sequels allow for new communities; sequels create connections between the past and present; sequels can make the past more relevant; sequels get you re-invested; CHRONO TRIGGER; sequels can create division; you can never go back; not everyone likes sequels and that’s fine; we’re hypocrites.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is the “Race Against Time”?

The Race Against Time is an annual charity livestreaming marathon run by the Nickscast where we beat Chrono Trigger _thirteen times_ to raise money for charity; this year that charity is Trans Lifeline! Tune in on August 8 and 9th from noon until midnight each day. We hope to outdo all of our previous records and raise $2300 USD.

For more details on the event, you can check out the main website at raceagainsttime.io, our Twitch page where we host the stream, or you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook for news about guests, giveaways, and other special surprises! Heck, you can even donate right now!

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

The Frontier by Jared Hudson from http://ocremix.org used under

View Details

What happens 30 years after a TV show finishes? Is the fandom … over? What is the relationship between a series ending and a fandom ending? And what happens if the creator turns out to be an _awful_ person. This week it’s all over as we talk about the role and effect of endings in fandom… and in life?

In particular, we talk about:

How the peak of a fandom may have already passed by the time you get there
How fandoms connect people through time, even when they do end
How endings… really any discontinuity… is hard for humans.
...Honestly, a lot about Twin Peaks, Lost, and Harry Potter.

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Episode Outline

Topics: Distinction between media franchise and fandom; media is always “new to you”; fandom “peaks”; twin peaks; fandoms connecting across time; how poor endings can decimate fandoms; the allure of avoiding the ending; zombie fandoms.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is the “Race Against Time”?

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Rhodes to the Past by Fatty Acid from http://ocremix.org used under [ocremix.org content policy](http://ocremi

View Details

It’s all coming together people: the role of the artist, problematic works / creators, media criticism, consumerism and capitalism… and at the heart of it? Stans. As far as fandom goes, is it the stans who rule the roost? And is that for the better… or for the worse?!

In particular, we talk about:

Take inflation and how hyperbole often destroys opportunity for nuance
The unfortunate zero-sum game that fandom can sometimes be, in particular when consumerism is involved
The role that stans play in shaping fan culture, and the media we consume

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Episode Outline

Topics: Blind fandom - blindly loving something without accepting any criticism of it; when you’re wearing rose colours glasses, red flags just look like flags; the backfire effect; hyperbole and nuance; consumerism and capitalism in competitive fan culture; the non-reality of ‘real’ fans; stans setting the bar for fandom, stans and curative fandom.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is the “Race Against Time”?

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Manifest Destiny by SirRus from [http://

View Details

Everything you consume is political; 100%! _It cannot be avoided_ and, really, that point shouldn’t be avoided _anyway_! Why then do people insist that the fandoms and media that they participate in be apolitical? This week, we’ve definitely got things to say!

In particular, we talk about:

How media normalizes certain behaviours and ideas, and makes them the default experience
How politics is often used as a shield to deflect from critical examination of media and fandom
The privilege of being able to treat things as though they are _not_ political

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Episode Outline

Topics: Be critical of the media you consume; media is political (yes even feel-good media); Doctor Who is designed to be changed (and woman doctor is not political); violence is normalized in media; Undertale is great; Politics does not mean political party; politics as systems; politics via omission; systems determine behaviours and outcomes

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Calamitous Judgment by zircon from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

Are you ready for the next… Labyrinth? _Stripes_?! Who is coming up with these remakes, and why can’t we get new material? This week, we’re talking all about the world of fandom, adaptations, reboots, and so on!

In particular, we talk about:

How money is an important contributor in the sustainability and creation of remakes (and how franchises never die as a result)
Where reboots and remakes are beneficial, especially when providing a modern take on dated material (and bringing up important issues in modern context)
How some properties… just don’t age well.

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Episode Outline

Topics: The risk of ‘new’; the role of money in content production; you can’t make new stuff unless you’re Christopher Nolan; the ease of rebooting old material; modern takes on old classics; franchises; the cult of ‘new’ and the zeitgeist; putting things in the modern world; if I haven’t seen it it’s new to me; video games as distinct from other remakes; properties not aging well; why aren’t classic movies like classic rock?

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Magnet Missiles by JJT, ptitteri, zykO from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

With the world in the middle of a global pandemic, it’s time to try to answer the question, as fans, do we _need_ to meet face to face? While it goes without saying that we don’t _have_ to meet face to face… how does that change the wide world of fandom?

In particular, we talk about:

The limitations of online communication, including the role that conventions and other events play in creating semi-private spaces?
How different forms of communication use different bandwidth, or more specifically how fan events have different levels of expectation of interaction
How the veil of anonymity changes fandom, in the online world _but_ how it also makes things more accessible

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Episode Outline

Topics: In-person communication not required; zines, newsgroups, and mailing lists (oh my); the multitude of tools available for online communication; how we identify other fans and how that changes in the online world; how meeting in person makes fandom experiences more real; how online / offline events and the distinction between public and private spaces; online spaces and accessibility; anonymity and the internet; in-person events and vulnerability.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4

The 4th Annual Livestream for the Cure (or the Livestream 4 the Cure?) has been scheduled for FORTY-EIGHT HOURS from May 28th thru the 31st, with a small four hour kick-off event scheduled for the evening before to do final tests (and hopefully wrangle in some amazing guests). This year we’ll be pushing to raise $10,000 for the Cancer Research Institute, and if all of that gets doubled, we stand a very good chance of raising over $20,000 for cancer research. Hitting last year’s goal on day TWO meant that, unfortunately, donations slowed to a trickle for the entirety of day three, so if we happen to hit our goal before the end this year, we’ll be raising the bar by $1,000 every time we hit it and offering additional prizes for people won donate to these flex goals!

As in years past, the event will be LIVE on Twitch, so be sure to head to http://twitch.tv/epicfilmguys and give us a follow! We’ll be going live with streams and other events where we’ll be mentioning L4TC all the way up until the event begins the evening of May 27th.

More details available at http://www.livestreamforthecure.com/

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

View Details

Should we get emotionally attached to fictional characters? Of course we do, intentionally or not… but _should_ we? No guarantees that we get anywhere near addressing that, but we definitely dig into how and why people get attached to characters (for good reasons… and for reasons)!

In particular, we talk about:

The (non-)distinction between fictional and real characters… and real people?
How writing has gotten better, and how people can relate to even villains
How people can exert agency over fictional character in fanworks and how that promotes attachment

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Episode Outline

Topics: We do get attached, fictional vs real characters, beyond the emotional journey of a story, uncritical character love, villains and relatability, queer coding villains, characters as proxies, rewriting characters’ destinies, beyond physical attraction, reinforcement learning in a nutshell, the randomness of initial selections, a bad sports fan fandom analogy, cosplay and fictional characters.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4

More details available at http://www.livestreamforthecure.com/

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, [Twitter](htt

View Details

Spoiler alert: You’ve been warned! We could spoil literally anything! That actor you like? They’re in this! That plot twist? Revealed! Deep lore?! … Probably?

In all seriousness, we’re talking about what exactly _are_ spoilers, and how they impact people’s experience with the media that they consume (and, in general, how people perceive media).

In particular, we talk about:

The (non-)importance of _the twist_ in modern storytelling
You can only experience something once… or can you?
How can we “inoculate” ourselves against spoilers in this world of modern media consumption (i.e. binging, near-instant relay of information)?

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Episode Outline

Topics: Just… give people a spoiler alert when talking about any media; we definitely spoil some key points in Star Wars, Harry Potter, and other franchises; Everything is new to someone; how long should you wait to accidentally spoil something? The levels of spoilers, preserving new experiences, the thrill of _new_, plot versus meta, inoculation against spoilers, using spoilers to catch up, consuming media for feelings versus plot, the reliance on _the twist_, false action, rewatches, spoilers versus story quality, you only get one first impression, spoilers as liberation.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4

More details available at http://www.livestreamforthecure.com/

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

We started the Nickscast as a labour of love, and as a place to entertain and to discuss our love of fans and fandom. We

View Details

The signs are all there, people! Have you heard the good word (of Firefly)? May the force be with you (and also with you)! Though there’re lots of superficial connections between fandom and religion, could there be a stronger link? Some sort of… divine connection?

In this episode, we’re all over the place, including:

The appropriation of language from other sources (e.g. canonization)
Fandom filing the role of community and providing hope and meaning
Tons of superficial (?) connections between fandom and religion

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Episode Outline

Topics: What is a religion, what is religion legally, books of worship for fandom, the sacred texts, forums as interpretive guides, codes of fandom, proselytization, rites of passage, anne rice, blasphemy, star wars, zelda, doctor who, decline of organized religion, conventions, fandom as community.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4

More details available at http://www.livestreamforthecure.com/

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on [thenickscast.com](https://thenicksca

View Details

Tune in to our totally real television show! On this week’s episode, Shakespeare and Nick Frye (the fandom guy) really dig into fans of stamp collecting, and the fascinating history of the hobby and unique origins of its name (philately).

Oh drat, looks like Shakespeare is going back to jail again

View Details

Fandom has changed a lot, and over time has gone from something on the fringe of society to the forefront. Does that also mean that fandom has moved towards a key part, an integral piece of people’s personal identity?

In this episode, we dig a bit about representation and self-identification as well as:

What does being a fan of something even mean?!
The (non) importance of level of participation in (self) identification
Conversations that are strangely lacking self-awareness about the parallels of fan self-identification as compared to other areas of self-identification, closeting… etc.

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Episode Outline

Topics: How do people identify themselves, the meaninglessness of the word fan, the difference between interests and fandoms… sort of, the difference between liking something and having it be a part of your identity, interests between people don’t inherently mean connections, how community contribution or participation impact perceptions of identity, the importance of self-identification and self-labelling, the desire to put things (and people) in boxes, labels as shorthand for characteristics, stereotypes, feeling closeted in your hobbies, aspirational vs actual identities

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4

More details available at http://www.livestreamforthecure.com/

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

We started the Nickscast as a labour of love, and as a place to entertain and to discuss our love of fans and fandom. We want to help others learn more about di

View Details

It’s fair to say that fans can take things too far, right? To the point of taking certain facts of a series and canonizing (a _biblical_ term) them, deciding which elements are ‘right’ and ‘wrong’? Or even mixing up canon and tradition and requiring long-running media to follow old rules because that’s the way it’s always been!

In this episode, we dig a bit into what canon means, in fandom, and try to answer the question… as fans, who needs canon, anyway? Also covering topics as:

Curative fandom, and the appeal of consistency and meaning
How canon justifies fan investment
A bunch of nonsense about intertextuality, worldbuilding, mythology, prescriptivism and descriptivism

And more! All in under thirty minutes.

Episode Outline

Topics: Avoiding chaos via canon, consistency and rules in stories, the reality of multiple truths and perspectives, a brief tangent on the origins of the word canon, canon as ‘integrity’ of media, how canon imbues meaning, curative fandom, canon as constraints, being beholden to canon, canon as justification for fan investment, descriptivism vs prescriptivism, worldbuilding vs mythology vs canon, and tirades about Doctor Who and the Legend of Zelda_._

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Pachabel’s Ganon by djpretzel from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

Combined, we’ve been playing tabletop games (let’s admit it, mostly Dungeons and Dragons) for decades, but what is it about a game that takes it from a good one, to a great one? We try to answer the question “what makes a great tabletop experience?” (And the answer _isn’t_ everyone starting on time… though it should be!). We cover…

The lack of importance of verisimilitude
The importance of not know what to expect
The importance of exploration

...And more!

Episode Outline

Topics: Min-maxed characters don’t matter, verisimilitude doesn’t matter, the importance of not knowing what to expect, improv, subverting tropes, making the game your own, plot and narrative, exploration, creating a shared experience, wonderm supporting each other, creating opportunities to grow, not (always) winning… and consequences!

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Secret Seashells by Miku from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

Hopefully, the phrase “Aren’t you too old for this?” has come up less and less as time goes on… but it still comes up! We dig into what it even means to be too old for fandom!

Why do people try to relive their childhood (and is it just nostalgia)?
Is it even a bad thing to be a fan of things as an adult?
Why is it a problem to have fun as an adult?

And a lot more! All in under 30 minutes!

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

ReMix: Katamari Damacy "Love Everlasting" by DDRKirby(ISQ) from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

New year, new format, new episode! This week, we ask the question “Is it ok to be a fan of bad things?”. Disregarding what _bad_ means, we dig into:

Solidarity in fans of bad media
Bad media as a metaphor for life
Bad media as a references for good media

And a lot more! All in under 30 minutes!

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Trouble in Watertown by YamaYama from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

How the heck do you summarize a fandom about eleven years of films… themselves spanning twenty-three movies so far?! We’ve reached the endgame of this infinity war of fandoms, folks… and it’s time to put everything in perfect balance.

Episode Outline

Topics: Representation in media, fan entitlement, discrimination in fandom, death of the author, authorial intent, the role of fandom in creative works, cinema as a story vs cinema as an experience.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

"SNAP (Future's Avengers: Infinity War Credits Song)" by demi adejuyigbe used under CC BY 3.0
Spekkio the Brave by Steffan Andrews from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

Here we are in the future... and talking about the lessons, culture, and fandom of Steven and the Crystal Gems! Why is it so popular, especially among other contemporary animations?

_“Steven Universe is an American animated television series created by Rebecca Sugar for Cartoon Network. It is Cartoon Network's first animated series to be created solely by a woman. It is the coming-of-age story of a young boy, Steven Universe (voiced by Zach Callison), who lives with the Crystal Gems—magical, humanoid aliens named Garnet (Estelle), Amethyst (Michaela Dietz), and Pearl (Deedee Magno Hall)—in the fictional town of Beach City. Steven, who is half-Gem, has adventures with his friends and helps the Gems protect the world from their own kind. The themes of the series include love, family, and the importance of healthy interpersonal relationships.”_

—Steven Universe - Wikipedia

Episode Outline

Topics: _Animation in the 90s, Animation in the 00s, Representation in Media, LGBTQ+, Toxic Masculinity, Secondary Audiences, Media Criticism_

Fandom Facts

From the 2017 r/stevenuniverse survey (again, skewed by reddit’s demographics):
60.7% identify as male, 33.8% as female, 3.4% as non-binary
Only 50.9% identify as heterosexual; 23.7% identify as bi/pansexual, 13.7% as homosexual, and 6.1% asexual
54.9% are 20 or younger, 15.6% are older than 25 (or just 5% over 30)
Top 3 Songs: It’s Over Isn’t It (19.7%), Here Comes a Thought (16.8%), and Love Like You (12.3%)
Interest in Steven Universe is pretty spikey; plotting it against Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, and Regular show in Google Trends over the past 5 years reveals some interesting notes:
Interest is relatively flat, and obviously spikes when a new season is out.
Top 5 countries: Chile, Venezuela, Mexico, Nicauragua, Honduras (USA is 11 and Canada 22nd)

First Impressions

T:

I first watched Steven Universe while I was going through a hard time at the beginning of a divorce, and was watching with my ex-wife. Even though I wasn’t the primary audience, I definitely learned some important lessons and came back to Steven Universe recently on the advice of multiple friends.

Z:

I’ve been following the show since it started thanks to Soph’s interest in it and Adventure Time. I remember taking it in at first and thinking that it was a neat show that had the same surreality as Adventure Time but combined it with a much more banal setting of Beach City and a little more direct heart.

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

We are the Nickscast!

View Details

Description

To help us with her insight into the very dense and complex fandom that is the Furry Community, we have author and artist Sarah WaterRaven with us on this episode. Together we discover how people come to the community, why they leave, and what some of the bright spots are in this often stigmatized fandom.

And for the extra curious, here's a list of links to furry artists, interviews, and more: http://bit.ly/FurryThings/

Sarah can be found over at https://www.sarahwaterraven.com/ and on the Tapas app at https://tapas.io/sarahwaterraven/!

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

Every week, Fanthropological delivers about an hour of fandom-related "fanalysis" covering a different fandom every week and giving you hard data, history, special guests, and, of course, speculation!

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Credits

All music and sound for this week's episode was provided by Nick Green!

View Details

“Critical Role is an American web series in which a group of professional voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons. The show started streaming in March 2015, partway through the cast's first campaign” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Role \ \ Fandom Facts

Holy crap Critical Role is popular: is is the most popular it has ever been (aside from March 2019), but also, its popularity coincides with a massive increase in popularity in Dungeons and Dragons (but _not _Pathfinder)
There is a site entirely devoted to stats about the critical role game: d20 rolls, puns, lore, you name it!
“After the split from Geek and Sundry, the cast announced a fundraiser for an animation of the popular Whitebriar arc. The campaign asked for $750,000 but reached $1 million within an hour, ending with a record-breaking $11.3 million in donations.”

First Impressions

T: I honestly had very little impression of what CR actually was. My only exposure was through following ItsGinnyDi on Twitter and seeing various Jester-related cosplay (I actually forgot that the show’s premise was voice-actors playing Dungeons and Dragons)! I might have seen some humourous animatics with Jester too… but when G said that the episodes are like three hours long and unedited, I was skeptical.

Z: I think I first heard about this from G, and I thought it sounded kind of like The Adventure Zone. And that was kind of it. Not because I don’t find D&D interesting, but instead because I felt like I’d heard The Adventure Zone and I was good on the recorded tabletop RPG playing front. Aside from that, though, it seemed to me like it was kind of like the Game Grumps when they’d first started: The first big thing of its kind to really make headway into the mainstream.

Observations

_What we thought about the thing / fandom after reviewing it. Try to make this more of a review style._

Conclusions

_Any concluding thoughts on the fandom._

_Z: _After reading about the phenomenon that is Critical Role and listening to the first episode of the second campaign, I feel pretty comfortable saying that it’s just not for me. The episode that I listened to had a good variety of metagame chatter, general in-character conversation and exploration, and even a bit of combat, but trying to listen to what seemed like at least 7 players and one DM was just too much for me to do passively. And, to be honest, it seemed kind of slow, at least in comparison to The Adventure Zone. But I think that comparing the two is like comparing a svelte young elf who stumbles across the recipe for a Tex-Mex delicacy and an energetic tiefling with a penchant for mischief. One interests me enough to pull me through over 100 hours of recorded D&D and the other makes it fairly easy to understand why people enjoy them and the game they’re a part of, but not to listen in to the show they’re a part of.

Links:

How Do I Beat the Matt Mercer Effect?

Ginny Di's Guide to Catching Up on Critical Role

Google Trends Data

CritRoleStats

Critical Role on Fanlore

Thoughts on Critical Role vs The Adventure Zone?

The rise of D&D liveplay is changing how fans approach roleplaying

Where can I get updates?

If you want to f

View Details

This subject of this week's minisode turns inwards as the Nicks ask themselves if they consider themselves a good fan and break down what being a good fan even means

What is the Race Against Time?

The Race Against Time is our annual charity livestreaming marathon where we get as many endings as possible in Chrono Trigger to raise money for the Alzheimer Society of Canada! This year’s event will be August 10 and 11th from noon until midnight each day. This year, we hope to outdo all of our previous records and raise $1500 CAD. For more details on the event, you can check out the main website at raceagainsttime.io, our Twitch page where we host the stream, or you can follow us on Twitter or Facebook for news about guests, giveaways, and other special surprises! Heck, you can even donate right now!

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Race Against Time Promo Music: "Temporal Distortion" by Star Salzman from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
Ending Music: "Green Ice Exposed" by Fragile Air

View Details

Are retro gamers missing out on the newest, hippest games or are they right to dig deep into the style that they love? The Nicks dive into the breadth, depth and philosophy of getting into a niche!

What is the Race Against Time?

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Race Against Time Promo Music: "Temporal Distortion" by Star Salzman from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
Ending Music: "Green Ice Exposed" by Fragile Air

View Details

After nearly 20 years of con-going, and collectively well over 40 different conventions been attended, what kinds of things are missing from conventions (anime, sci-fi, comic, or otherwise), anyway?

What is the Race Against Time?

Where can I get updates?

If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered:

Facebook: facebook.com/fanthropological
Twitter: @fanthropologic

And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts).

Oh, and here at fanthropological.com

What is Fanthropological?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Who are you?

If you want to learn more about us, you can follow us on most social media @thenickscast (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), see all of our projects on thenickscast.com, or email us.

Credits

Race Against Time Promo Music: "Temporal Distortion" by Star Salzman from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

Who would’ve thought that spinning battle tops could enchant kids and adults alike? And that the franchise has more in common with Transformers than meets the eye? Definitely not us -- listen along as we learn about the fandom that shouts “Let it Rip!” with glee.

Episode Outline

Topics: Beyblade as the first anime series that ran up against our budding cynicism, the complexity of the toys, the complexity of the battles, the reality of the tournament scene, Beyblade World Championships, the World Beyblade Organization, adults are fans?, the physical appeal of Beyblades, why does this guy have four apple watches?, Beyblades and bathtubs don’t mix

Fandom Facts

“Beyblade, known in Japan as Explosive Shoot Beyblade, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Takao Aoki to promote sales of spinning tops called "Beyblades" developed by Takara Tomy. ... The series focuses on a group of kids who form teams with which they battle one another using Beyblades.

… An anime adaptation, also titled Beyblade and spanning 51 episodes, aired in Japan on TV Tokyo from January 8, 2001, to December 24, 2001. The second, Beyblade V-Force, ran for another 51 episodes from January 7, 2002, until December 30, 2002. Beyblade G-Revolution, the third and final adaptation, also spanned 52 episodes (the last two episodes were released together as a double-length special in Japan) and aired from January 6, 2003, until its conclusion on December 29, 2003.”

—Wikipedia - Beyblade

Even though the original series only aired between 2001 to 2003, a sequel, Beyblade: Metal Fusion premiered in 2008 and ran until 2012, a Japanese-Canadian spin-off, BeyWheelz, which aired in 2012, and another sequel, Beyblade Burst, which ran from 2016-2017 (though the manga is still ongoing)
“Beyblade, Let It Rip! The Official Album was released in the UK to coincide with the show's popularity. It featured the anime's opening theme, as well as songs by artists including Nickelback and Busted.” (Wikipedia)
Interest in Beyblade is… a little down since 2004 according to Google Trends (but is really, really variable). There was a huge spike in interest around late 2010 (Release of Metal Fusion in North America, perhaps?), and has since dropped but is on the rise again.
The Beyblade subreddit only has about 2400 subscribers, and, bizarrely, explicitly prohibits “roleplay, fanfiction, or memes, all of which deserve their own subreddits.”

First Impressions

G

It was the first series I remember being like “oh they’re still doing this thing?” about. Just another physical thing to collect and fight, and one that wasn’t part of my growing up at all.

T

Going to be honest; as a kid, even though I loved anime, I thought it was super dumb (and, given timing, I might have just been outside of the age demographics for it)... and I liked Yu-Gi-Oh (although I also had stopped watching that). Fighting magic tops sounded… stupid, and I don’t think I ever got over that. I am excited to see if my impressions have changed though.

Z

Before starting the research for this one, my strongest memory of Beyblade was that it was one of what seemed like many shows trying to channel some of the hype around Pokemon -- one of those shows about something collectible that battles and has its own personality (or “heart” in the case of Yu-Gi-Oh). In particular, I remember my younger brother being really into the show, though I don’t think he ever got into collecting the tops themselves. I

View Details

We dig into authorial intent, the challenges of animation, and fan work (and entitlement) as we talk about Rooster Teeth’s RWBY and its fans!

Episode Outline

Topics: RWBY (obviously), Anime, Linguistics, the _Tales of_ series, authorial intent, dudebros, expectations and fan work

Fandom Facts

“RWBY (pronounced "ruby") is an American anime-style web series and media franchise created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth. The show is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people train to become warriors (called "Huntsmen" and "Huntresses") to protect their world from monsters called Grimm. The name RWBY is derived from the four main characters' forenames: Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, as well as their associated theme colors; Red, White, Black, and Yellow. Following several promotional trailers, the first episode was screened at the Rooster Teeth convention event RTX and then released on their website in July 2013.”

‒ Wikipedia - RWBY

A fan survey from about a year ago gives us some idea of the demographics (and other interesting tidbits about the fandom) with over 700 respondents:
86% of respondents identified as male (and a non-zero percentage as assholes: Attack Helicopter)
Almost 86% are under age 24 (67% are between 18 and 24); if we do some math, its reasonable to assume that means that folks probably started watching between ages 13-19 (i.e. five years ago)
Just over half (55%) watch Rooster Teeth’s podcast

First Impressions

Z:

I knew absolutely nothing about RWBY before starting the research for this episode. I’d seen some cosplayers and had no idea who they were until someone told me, but had no idea that it was a web series or “anime” or whatever. Also, had no idea that it was something Rooster Teeth did - and had no idea how big Rooster Teeth is until digging into the research for this episode.

T:

I couldn’t even tell you what my first impressions of RWBY were, not because it was so long ago, but because a lot of life happened between now and then. I was following along pretty closely for a period, though digging into the research, that was probably only the second season. I … definitely was watching for the Anime-ness of it all.

Famous Last Words

What did we have to say about next week’s topic, _Beyblade_ with only our first impressions?

G: How much is focussed on the battle tops in the anime? 50/50? 90/10?

T: Is Beyblade still running? If so, what innovations have there been in battle tops?

Z: Is there a world championship tournament? If so, who is the world champion Beyblader?

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What

View Details

Description

We hopped back into the Millenium Falcon with Alex Robinson of The Star Wars Minute podcast to get an inside look at Star Wars fandom (and to try to figure out how anyone could watch the prequels a minute at a time)!

Episode Outline

Topics: Phantom Menace Number, Barnacle Facts, Spaceballs, Star Wars: The Fandom people love to hate?, Star Wars the new Geek Stereotype, Online Fandom Divisive, In-Person Fandom Down to Earth, How a Summer of Star Wars was Possible During the ‘70s, Richard Nixon, A Special Message for Star Wars Fans Everywhere

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Credits

All music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

This week, the Nicks tackle iconic 90s nerdy show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They'll talk about the emergence of genre television, what Buffy means as a Strong Female Characters & how the whole world now sounds like 90s teens!

Here are some of the sources we used for the episode:

The Importance of Being the Zeppo: Xander, Gender Identity and Hybridity in Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Mark Camron

Buffy Summers: Third-Wave Feminist Icon

The Complex Feminist Legacy Of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’

How Buffy the Vampire Slayer transformed TV as we know it

10 Ways Buffy The Vampire Slayer Changed the World

More information about Epic Film Guys' Livestream for the Cure can be found here!

Z's Beowulf blog can be found here!

G's Bandcamp page is here!

Fandom Facts

“The series narrative follows Buffy Summers (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar), the latest in a line of young women known as "Vampire Slayers", or simply "Slayers". In the story, Slayers or the 'Chosen Ones' are "called" (chosen by fate) to battle against vampires, demons, and other forces of darkness. Buffy wants to live a normal life, but as the series progresses, she learns to embrace her destiny. Like previous Slayers, Buffy is aided by a Watcher, who guides, teaches, and trains her. Unlike her predecessors, Buffy surrounds herself with a circle of loyal friends who become known as the "Scooby Gang".”

–Wikipedia - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The Buffy subreddit has us covered this week for fan data; in a survey conducted in 2017 (you can also check out one from 2013 to compare), here is some interesting tidbits:
Gender: _Unlike_ much reddit data we see, the results are pretty evenly split with about 51% female, 47% male, and 1% as non-binary, intersex, agender, or genderqueer.
Age: Most fans are 25-34 (i.e. grew up with the show; 44%) and there are more fans younger than 25 (36%) than there are over 34 (19%)
Least favourite season: #1 (38%)
Most favourite season: #5 (30%; Introduction of Buffy’s sister, Dawn)
Most folks watched the show from the beginning.
If you look through the tag cloud of non-Whedon shows that people also like, huge amount of diversity (anything from Desperate Housewives to Evangelion, Band of Brothers to Critical Role)
Google trends data only goes back to 2004, which is not too long after the show ended in Spring 2003. Interest in the show has gone downhill pretty linearly from 2004 to 2007, and much more slowly from then until now. Surprisingly, a lot of interest from Canada, UK, Ireland, and Australia (in that order)... and then the United States.
It was one of the first shows on the WB network

First Impressions

T:

I remember watching Buffy in late elementary school (middle school, if I had one). I think I followed the show pretty steadily until some point probably mid-way into high school when Bu

View Details

Anthony of the Transformers University podcast joins us to clear the air about what Transformers fandom is actually like… and about how the fandom may be held together with duct tape.

You can here our original take here: https://fanthropological.com/transformers

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

What is Livestream for the Cure?

Since 2017, Nick and Justin of the Epic Film Guys have dedicated a block of time each year to livestream their podcast and other content in order to raise funds for the Cancer Research Institute. This organization researches immunotherapy with the goal of curing all forms of cancer. They are among some of the most reputable charities out there with a rating of 92% on CharityNavigator.org.

Last year's Livestream for the Cure 2.0 (check it out here) was a resounding success. In 30 hours live on the air, the Epic Film Guys raised over $5,000 for cancer research and an additional $780 for Perry Johnson, a fellow podcaster who guested on the event and was diagnosed with stage IV esophageal cancer shortly before it began. Because they smashed their goal and because of their amazing community of peers and fellow podcasters, they decided this year’s event should be even bigger and better.

The 3rd Annual Livestream for the Cure will be held from May 17th through the 19th, and the Epic Film Guys will be live for FORTY hours as they try to hit their biggest goal yet and raise $7,500. The event will be held live at https://twitch.tv/epicfilmguys and will include dozens of fellow content creators and podcasters who are joining them to reach this common goal.

They will be live for 40 hours from the following times (all are EST):

May 17th: 10:00 AM to 2:00 AM

May 18th: 10:00 AM to 2:00 AM

May 19th: 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Follow the event on Facebook or follow @livestream4cure on Twitter for updates and guest information. Links for merchandise (all proceeds go toward the total) and other information will be coming in the near future. To make a donation before and during the event, visit [LivestreamfortheCu

View Details

Description

In 1993, special agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder began their quest for irrefutable proof of the existence of the paranormal and popular culture has never been the same.

Episode Outline

Topics: the importance of fan-fiction to the X-Philes community, the strength of the community over the decades it has existed, creators’ interactions with the 90s fandom, fans’ reactions to the recent reboots, can a fandom survive without new content?

Fandom Facts

“The series revolves around Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who investigate X-Files: Marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. Mulder believes in the existence of aliens and the paranormal, while Scully, a medical doctor and a skeptic, is assigned to make scientific analyses of Mulder's discoveries to debunk his work and thus return him to mainstream cases.” -Wikipedia - The X-Files
Unfortunately, Google Trends data only goes back to 2004, and season 9, the last season to air before a long break, ended in 2002. From that data, it looks like interest has been on the decline, but spiked in 2008 (_The X-Files: I Want To Believe_), 2016 (Season 10), and a much smaller spike than either in 2018 (Season 11).
Couldn’t find data, but from this note from Fanlore (originally a Tumblr post, A Note about the X-Files Fandom):
“The X-Files' prime Nielsen demographic targets were 18-49. That was the most popular viewing age for the show. … The average viewer was in their mid- to late-20s. They had jobs and families that came home to watch TV together at the end of the day. The people who wrote most of the classic fan fiction we have today were in their 20s at the time, or 30s.”

First Impressions

G: Never something that he got into, G regarded The X-Files as simply that show that came on after The Simpsons. Really aware of it primarily through other bits of pop culture that reference it.

T: He watched a little bit of the later seasons of the series’ first run when the episodes were fun (e.g.: the gang finds a genie and has various wishes granted), but never really became invested in it.

Z: It was something that he was only ever really aware of through other bits of pop culture. In more recent years, it’s seemed a little interesting to him, but not enough for him to seek any of it out.

Observations

Overall, the fandom seems to be as strong as ever, if perhaps shrinking. But, as Z observed, as long as the show is on services like Netflix, it will probably find an audience among those who are interested in shows that blend soap opera and (paranormal) conspiratorial mystery elements.

Fan fiction still seems to be very important to the community, perhaps because the series’ continuity is lacking in some areas or because, as of this recording Mulder and Scully have yet to be in an explicit romantic relationship.

Also, in the current culture of binge-watching, the series’ general “monster-of-the-week” format helps it to fit right in.

Conclusions

G: There’s simply too much of it to catch up on, and, because it’s mostly a “monster-of-the-week” kind of show, he wasn’t convinced it would catch and keep his interest.

T: He had watched a few episodes of the series recently and found himself entertained. If he can make the time to do so, he’ll probably watch more of it, maybe some of the earlier seasons.

Z: Admittedly, it might scratch the same itch his near annual Twin Peaks rewatches do. But, he was not convinced that it would be quite as good as Peaks because it was too much of a mainstream success (yep, Z played the hipster card). Though, at some point, he said that he wo

View Details

This week, this Nicks have a look at the hot new (3-year old) shounen anime that's sweeping the world - Boku no Hero Academia! They'll talk about the strengths and weaknesses of ensemble shows, what the superhero craze looks like reflected through and Japanese mirror and whether or not anyone axtually likes Mineta!

Click here for more information on the Livestream for the Cure!

Fandom Facts

“My Hero Academia … follows Izuku Midoriya, a boy born without superpowers (called quirks) in a world where they have become commonplace, but who still dreams of becoming a hero himself. He is scouted by the world's greatest hero, who shares his quirk with Izuku after recognizing his potential, and later enrolls him in a high school for heroes in training.”

The BNHA subreddit is pretty popular: Within the first three months of the subreddit’s creation, it went from almost 300 000th to somewhere in the 15 000’s (and is now ~1400th most popular subreddit).
Someone did a fan survey with general interests in the anime on the subreddit (circa 2018). Of the over 400 responses, here are some interesting bits:
Best aspect of BNHA: The characters (53%), the overall concept (28%)
11% dislike generally shonen (the remainder are either indifferent or like shonen)
47% have read the manga in its entirety
7% dropped the show completely; 5.8% strongly disliked it or hated it
There was also this fan survey which was more about the characters which had some demographics (and a thousand responses)!
Predominantly male (76.4%), with some female representation (20.6%)
Overwhelmingly young: 85%+ under 24 (20-24: 42.7%; 17-19: 33.2%)
Favourite character: Izuku Midoriya (39.2%), Katsuki Bakugou (21.5%), Toshinori Yagi (18.8%)
Main weakness of the show: Too many characters (46.5%), some characters have limited development (33.6%)
Interest in BNHA is definitely on the rise, and it’s the most popular it’s been … ever (which isn’t surprising, since it’s still coming out).
BUT while it is popular, it hasn’t surpassed Naruto (too big to show) or One Piece (on the decline), even if it is overcoming series like Bleach and Fairy Tale.
According to Fandometrics, BNHA was the #1 Anime and Manga fandom, and #5 fandom overall for 2018.

First Impressions

Z:

Before I started watching the series I figured that it was just another shonen series that G was really into because he’s a fan of superhero stuff. Admittedly, even watching through the first episode or two I wasn’t quite convinced that it was anything more than just another Dragon Ball, another sprawling shonen series poised to seize the world’s imagination the way that Naruto or One Piece did. But then, I think it was something said during Deku’s initial training (or maybe just the quirkiness of seeing all the Star Wars references in place names -- neat, but...why!?) or maybe his heroism in trying to save Bakugo from the sludge villain, after that bit of the show demonstrated its heart I was in for the long haul.

T:

Beyond know that it is popular, and seeing it crop up in spots like the Anime Feminist, I didn’t think much of it other than that it might be the next Fairy Tale / Bleach / Naruto / Dragonball Z / Shonen show. G heavily recommended it and I watched the first season, and while there were still heavy shonen tones, I got a better appreciation of it, and liked the vibe (X-men, but anime) and that it wasn’t all

View Details

What is it about the show that has managed to keep it relevant for over thirty years, even far from its home? And what exactly is the appeal of the show? Is it the lo-fi, retro-ness of it through a nostalgia filter? All this and more on this week's episode!

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

It is currently in its 26th (ish) season with almost 900 episodes since 1993. It is based on the Super Sentai meta-series in Japan that started in 1975 and has been running over the same timespan.
Interest in the various Power Rangers series has been relatively constant since 2004 though it has had some ups and downs and is on a bit of a downward trend right now.
There are almost 6000 fan works related to Power Rangers on Archive Of Our Own (about ⅓ Gen, ¼ F/F, and ¼ M/M)
The Power Rangers subreddit has about 20k followers.

First Impressions

T:

I couldn't tell you exactly when I started watching the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers… and I also couldn't tell you exactly when I stopped (though I feel like it was just before Zeo… so not long). I loved it; I think my parents still have a VHS of the first episode that was purchased from somewhere (that's right, legit, and occupying the WHOLE VHS). I imagine it had a lot to do with the general interest in karate, ninjas, martial arts, giant robots, and underneath it all… Japan? Plus, it didn't hurt that I felt I could relate to the Blue ranger, and that the show aired just before (and just after school) at an influential time in my life (middle school). I remember going to the movie (with Ivan Ooze) and enjoying it… but I don't know why I stopped watching it either.

Z:

I remember Power Rangers hitting the small screen at the time in my life when I still only had 4 channels at home. As a result, I never really got into it. But, my slightly younger cousins living in the city with their whopping tens of channels were all about the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. I remember seeing a few episodes with them, but even as a child of 8, something about the aesthetic pushed me away from the show rather than bringing me into it. The Super Mario Super Show with its Legend of Zelda cartoon (another piece of media exclusive to visits to my city-dwelling relatives) was way more interesting to me then.

Famous Last Words

What did we have to say about next week's topic, Boku No Hero Academia / My Hero Academia with only our first impressions?

G:

Is it the new DBZ? Is that ok?

T:

Are there fans working on the in-universe science of the show?

Z:

Does anyone like Mineta?

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: [nick@thenickscast.com](mailto

View Details

This week, we take a departure from our regular fandom discovery and examination, and instead, travel to a bold, familiar new (old?) world. More importantly, we give a small taste of an exciting new podcast we'll be launching in May!

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

What is Livestream for the Cure?

They will be live for 40 hours from the following times (all are EST):

May 17th: 10:00 AM to 2:00 AM

May 18th: 10:00 AM to 2:00 AM

May 19th: 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Let's make this the biggest

View Details

We chat with special guest friend Sid about his over twenty years of convention experience, including how conventions have changed, positive experiences, and dealing with WTFery.

If you want to learn more about Victim Services of Waterloo Region, check out https://vswr.ca/, or donate now.

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but in specific...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

Every week, Fanthropological delivers over an hour of fandom-related "fanalysis" covering a different fandom every week and giving you hard data, history, special guests, and, of course, speculation!

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Credits

ReMix: Chrono Trigger "Door to the End of Time" by Blake Perdue from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

Description

In 2013, two short years after it first appeared on the internet, Vaporwave was declared "dead". And yet, it still lives and has spawned a brood of micro-genres (Simpsonwave, Zeldawave, Glo-Fi, Mallsoft) in 2019. And what about the fans? Somehow, we try to tackle what this music is and figure out the people behind it.

Episode Outline

Topics: What is Vaporwave?, Is it a joke?, An internet micro-genre that seems to be constantly changing, Earnestness versus irony, pretentious art ideals versus memes

First Impressions

Z:

When I first stumbled across Vaporwave, I was shocked by how evocative of some sort of nostalgia it was. Which is strange because I never was much of a mall rat, or spent a lot of time in places that played heavy muzak. And yet, there's a strange atmospheric quality to the music that reminds me of listening to a warbly radio from the bottom of a swimming pool -- which is still weird because I have never done that before in my life.

T:

I know next to nothing on this. I assumed that Vaporwave was some obscure genre of music that was facet of a facet of some genre I still couldn't pin down.

G:

I thought it was a fun meme thing where everything looks bad intentionally.

Observations

We really got caught up on the question of whether any of this stuff was earnest or just an enormous joke. Z especially took up the former position, saying (perhaps a little tongue in cheek) that Vaporwave is all about being a postmodern look at postmodern irony. G and T, on the other hand, kept pretty firmly in the "nah, in 2019 this is more of a meme" camp.

Conclusions

In the end, all three of us admitted to enjoying Vaporwave of some form or other (future funk, the first few albums, Hong Kong Express). T and Z in particular noted how they found the genre much more immediately emotionally evocative than a lot of other music, while G admitted to really getting into the philosophy, narrative and symbolism that can be found in the genre. But, none of us became hardcore Vaporwave fans after our limited exposure to the genre -- so go ahead and give the Macintosh Plus (aka Vektroid) album "Floral Shoppe" a listen!

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

What is Livestream for the Cure?

Since 2017, Nick and Justin of the Epic Film Guys have dedicated a block of time each year to livestream the

View Details

Description

To expand on our episode on Tabletop Gaming, G & Z sit down with Caleb & Christian from the Trailblazer Network (home of Pathfinder Academy and Trailblazers) to talk about how they got started with Pathfinder over D&D, their experiences as both players and GMs and some of the controversies that tear the community asunder.

Their podcasts can be found over at https://www.tblazer.net/ and wherever fine podcasts are heard!

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Credits

All music and sound for this week's episode was provided by Nick Green!

View Details

This week on the show, the Nicks take a look at the fate that's befallen Digimon & its fans! Is it always doomed to trail in the shadow of Pokemon or is it underappreciate genius ahead of its time??

Fandom Facts

Digimon has spawned 7 anime series, 16 movies, 8 manga series, 43 video games, and a collectible card game.
There was a point in history where Digimon was more popular that Pokemon… in North America at least. In February of 2001, it took the number two rating slot among kids 6-11 (Pokemon was third). Similar, but unconfirmed: Digimon was Fox's most popular kids show (even more than Power Rangers)
The series was only expected to last 13 episodes: "Digimon was just supposed to be a series of half-hour commercials for the toys. Specifically, the Digimon cartoon was to be released in tandem with the PlayStation game Digimon World. But when the show became unexpectedly and wildly popular on its own, more episodes were quickly ordered. In a twist, the Digimon device faded into history, the games did okay, and the show ended up being the franchise's legacy."

First Impressions

Z:

I remember watching a bit of the initial Digimon anime alongside Pokemon and Monster Rancher. I got into Pokemon because of the games, I enjoyed Monster Rancher because of how the story seemed to resemble a lot of what I'd seen of that era's JRPGs' stories. But Digimon always struck me as being somehow more episodic than either of those shows, despite having episodes-long, standalone arcs. I think I just didn't appreciate the ensemble-style show that Digimon was.

What little I saw of the games I inevitably compared to Pokemon. Which was pretty much all I could do since I never had a Playstation back in the day, and so never could play the Digimon games to begin with.

Overall, my impression then (and now) is that Digimon was the result of a rival company seeing Pokemon's success and wanting to copy it.

T:

I don't think that I'd thought that Digimon was a knock-off until I got older, and even then, it was mostly ironically. I remember watching the first season or two when it aired, and even coming home on a Friday after school to see it and other anime premiere on YTV's "The Zone". I definitely saw some of the third season and of Digimon Frontier, but at that point I wasn't watching the show with any regularity so I couldn't follow it at all: It was a lot harder to follow than Pokemon,especially if you didn't catch the episodes in order.

I don't think I was as attached to the franchise because all of the monsters were so different, and there wasn't anything to latch on to (no types, no memorable names with lots of Japanese references, no stats)... the characters I could get a lot more, and I definitely remember having a crush on Mimi, Sora, and Kari (Season 2… actually, most of their Season 2 incarnations). I want to say that I felt like I could relate to Tai and Matt's relationship (reminded me of a friend and I's)… but I think more realistically I could relate to Izzy.

I might have had a friend that had a digimon in elementary school at the end of the Tamagotchi craze.

Famous Last Words

What did we have to say about an upcoming episode's topic, Vaporwave with only our first impressions? \

G: Is vaporwave a joke?_ \ _

T: What is vaporwave, and why do any of us know about it?_ \ _

Z: Are there currently any artists working in the vaporwave space that explicitly state that? Many subgenres exist around it, and I'm curious if anyone specifically calls out the association.

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but in specific...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at [Fanthropological.com](h

View Details

Description

We return to Hogwarts to chat with the Real Weird Sisters about why Harry Potter is so important to fandom in general and still so popular. This episode is a follow up to our (very) early episode about the series here.

And who are The Real Weird Sisters?

Hailing from Bozeman, Montana, Alice and Martha, grew up reading, rereading, and re-re-reading the Harry Potter series. Alice, who was seven when Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was published, estimates that she has read the series' first book over 75 times! Although Martha's tally isn't quite as high, she would like to clarify that she was a mere toddler when Alice first started reading the books, so she was doomed to forever be six years behind.

Both sisters have made local news for their Harry Potter fandom. Alice was interviewed for a newspaper in 2005 after she read Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince overnight, and Martha and her friends were on TV in 2011 while in line for the midnight premiere of Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Throughout their lives, Alice and Martha have shared a close and common bond in Harry Potter. Now that they are adults and living in two different parts of the country (Chicago and Montana), they have decided to broadcast their love for Harry Potter to the world in weekly podcasts about what they see as the greatest literary masterpiece of our time.

Episode Outline

This week on the show we talk about...

the importance of the series growing up with the fans;
fans' feelings about post-Harry Potter releases;
the importance of the series' characters;
divisions in modern Harry Potter fandom;
if and how the fandom continues to grow; and
the influence of Harry Potter on YA and on the Sisters themselves

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Credits

ReMix: Mega Man 2 "Flash Man and the Sorcerer's Stone Man" by Deedubs from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sounds in this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

Fandom Facts

Relative to Mushrooms (general), not a lot of folks are looking up information on magic mushrooms (Psilocybin), or even mycology and are getting more interested in mushrooms over time
There are at least five different subreddits on mushrooms, all tackling a different aspect of mushrooms (identifying mushrooms, psilocybin, anything mushrooms, etc.), the largest being r/mycology (but just by a few thousand)
In _Star Trek: Discovery_ there is a character, Lieutenant Paul Stamets, who is an astromycologist and is named after a real U.S. scientist of the same name who is investigating how mushrooms might be able to save the world in different ways (e.g. treating disease, cleaning up oil spills)
...His obsession with mushrooms started at age 19 where he ate an entire bag of magic mushrooms.
Only about 5% of the world's fungi are thought to be identified

First Impressions

Z:

Ever since I had a mushroom dipped in ranch dressing at some sort of party when I was a kid, I've enjoyed their texture. And, as I tried things like portabellas, and shitake, and cremini, and beech mushrooms, I found that there was a whole world of mushrooms out there. So, when it came to mycology, my impression was that people interested in it were either foodies looking to explore perhaps the most varied, unprocessed, vegetarian/vegan(?) food, or scientists classifying them.

T:

I put mycology up there with philatelists and numismatists; something that you can go quite deep into, but that I know nothing about. I've heard bits and pieces about it (pressings, how the mushroom responds to metal, etc.) and I know friends with an interest in wild mushrooms (not for use as a drug, but as general survivalist interest)... but beyond that, it's mostly been an unknown (popularity-wise) known unknown.

Famous Last Words

What did we have to say about an upcoming topic, _Digimon_, with only our first impressions? \

G: How do fans of Digimon feel about it being diet Pokemon?_ \ _

T: What is it about Digimon that helped it stand above some of its contemporaries?_ \ _

Z: Do fans of Digimon hold any sort of grudge against fans of Pokemon? Have any Digimon fans proposed a blending of the two? Is there a fan-approved crossover?

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

Every week, Fanthropological delivers about an hour of fandom-rel

View Details

We're locked in again for another 60ish minutes to better understand fans of escape rooms, this time with escape room enthusiast Errol (Room Escape Divas). A follow-up to our previous episode on Escape Rooms.

Episode Outline

Topics: Escape Rooms, Puzzles, Escape Room Industry, Social Gaming, the future of Escape Games, Puzzle Solving Strategies

Where can you find Errol?

He can be heard on Room Escape Divas as well as producing a multitude of articles & information at The Codex!

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but in specific...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

Every week, Fanthropological delivers over an hour of fandom-related "fanalysis" covering a different fandom every week and giving you hard data, history, special guests, and, of course, speculation!

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Credits

All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

After more than 40 years, what keeps fans interested in the band (and why on earth is there convention for them)?

Episode Outline

Topics: RushCon, Female fans in Progressive Rock, Ayn Rand, Fan Loyalty, Geddy Lee, Lyricism

First Impressions

Z:

This is difficult for me to really pin down. I've been a Rush fan since high school, maybe since I had an internet connection at home. My earliest memory of encountering the band was downloading their stuff song by song from early music sharing websites and things like Limewire and Kazaa. I also remember making a website all about the band in a high school computers class and getting 100% on it. But, at least speaking to the topics we tried to focus on in this episode, I never knew the band had a convention, and I always figured that the fandom wasn't any more heavily male than any other band; I remember talking to someone on the Carousel magazine staff at the university of Guelph about Rush and hearing her talk about getting high with her high school math teacher at a concert. Rush is for everyone, man!

T:

I actually have very little to say about RUSH. I know that Geddy Lee REALLY hits the high notes, they sing about Tom Sawyer, and something about Trees? Also, Z really loves them.

Observations

Conclusions

Famous Last Words

What did we have to say about an upcoming episode's topic, mycology, with only our first impressions? \

G: Is the danger aspect a deterrent or an attraction?

T: What does stanning look like in mycology fandom?

Z: In this day and age, is mycology more or less exclusively something run by hipsters?

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

Every week, Fanthropological delivers over an hour of fandom-related "fanalysis" covering a different fandom every week and giving you hard data, history, special guests, and, of course, speculation!

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Credits

ReMix: Mega Man X "The Zero Sacrifice" by Vig from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

The Office is a phenomenally popular show and fans can't seem to get enough, even after its 9 seasons ended in 2012. Is it the best show ever made or a moment in time that's shown itself to be problematic?

Episode Outline

Topics: The Office, Sitcoms, Long-Running Shows, Problematic Characters, Feel-Good Shows, Cringe Comedy

First Impressions

Z:

Honestly, this wasn't a show that I thought about much when it was first airing and I'd hear people talking about it. I'd watched the UK version of Life on Mars around that time, and after hearing about how it had been butchered in its American adaptation, I was skeptical about the US The Office's quality.

This impression only strengthened after I binged my way through the UK version of the show, and was completely and utterly impressed by just how hilarious it was while centring on Ricky Gervais' utterly despicable and inept David Brent. There was no way an American adaptation could take this witty and dry show and make something good -- plus there was no way that American audiences would have the patience to make it through the lead's eventual, though rocky, transformation into a caring, compassionate human being.

But, here we are, covering this ongoing fandom on the show, so I must've been wrong about some aspect of the show...

T:

I mostly have seen the Office in gifs and memes (either referencing the show or involving the show), so I got the impression that the Office is kind of like the Simpsons or flossing in that it's just something that people have experienced and use a shared cultural reference.

I don't know of any die-hard fans, and it doesn't seem like the sort of thing that folks are super passionate about, but sort of passively love? Also, it seems pretty cringey and I'm not super a fan of that style of humour.

G:

The cringiest thing on TV, where everything being a bummer and having awkward resolutions was the order of the day. Didn't really ever see where the 'heart' came from, let alone people watching it multiple times.

Some Observations

The show's setting is psychologically comforting and neutral and the way that it finds humour in mundane situations leads people to watch and feel calmed/destressed
According to Google Trends the show's popularity has beaten out rival shows (Parks and Recreation, How I Met Your Mother) in recent years
Dwight Schrute's character arc could be the best in American TV
People who like the office are likely to be those who want to have control over others

Conclusions

Z is going to watch the whole dang series
T might watch another episode or two, but the show didn't really get its hooks into him
G has already watched the series once, and would rather just go back and re-watch Parks and Rec

Famous Last Words

What did we have to say about next week's topic, Rush, with only our first impressions?

Z: In fans' opinion… how does Clockwork Angels stack up to 2112?

T: How much of Rush fandom is about Rush vs Prog Rock?

G: I know a lot about the band… they seem to have a lot of fans… have they continually collected fans, or did everyone just show up around Tom Sawyer and aged?

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but specifically...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on [F

View Details

The explosive growth of fortnite is undeniable, but is it because it's the latest battle royale / minecraft mashup, or because it is a place where folks (especially kids) can actually hang out?

Episode Outline

Topics: Fortnite, Video Games, Youth Culture, Growing Up, Battle Royale Games, Sandbox Games, Third Space, Society

First Impressions

Z:

I first encountered Fortnite in some graffiti on a telephone pole outside of a local high school. It simply read "Fortnite Forever," and my first thought was "either that's a new game, or a terrible speller really loves talking about two week spans of time." So my first impression of the fandom was that it's mostly younger people (mostly high school-aged). Also, after running across some youtube videos about the game in my day-to-day, I guessed that It's probably the 2nd big gaming trend to hit the generation that went through elementary school with Minecraft (which was released in 2009, popularity peaked July 2013 (at which point someone in grade 9 in 2018 would've been in grade 4, which, from my impressions of Minecraft's audience, would be, though maybe on the younger end, within its range)). As per the game itself, my impression is that it's basically PUBG plus building mechanics with a friendly and approachable cartoony style and sense of humour.

T:

To be honest, I didn't think much of it. I'd heard about kids getting addicted to it in schools (and it being highly disruptive in classrooms), and that it was the latest Battle Royale game du jour, and had assumed it was full of a bunch of tweens and teens screaming over voice chat. I was intrigued when I would hear about things like Thanos and "the Meteor" in game… but it all just seemed like a sort of cash-cow milking gamers sort of technique. Especially given that it and PUBG weren't that far apart (and there were lots of games of that ilk showing up around the same time).

Famous Last Words

G: People watch The office endlessly in the background; why not Parks and Rec (aka a better show)?

Z: Is there any 'the office' cosplay?

T: Like MASH… will the Office stand the test of time?

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but in specific...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on (https://youtube.com/thenickscast)
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

Every week, Fanthropological delivers over an hour of fandom-related "fanalysis" covering a different fandom every week and giving you hard data, history, special guests, and, of course, speculation!

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Credits

All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

It's season 10 and well past our 100th episode! Why not celebrate by looking at fans... of Fanthropological?

We cover trivia of all 99+ episodes in an all-out battle to knock-the-other-Nick-out... or at least see who is the biggest Fan in Fanthropological.

Sources

ReMix: Sonic the Hedgehog "Gotta Start from Somewhere" by Jorito, Hank "The Spank Tank" Jankerson, Trev Wignall, The Nikanoru from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
ReMix: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening "OMG Mr. Write" by nelward from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
ReMix: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time "Subterranean Kamikaze" by Juan Medrano, zircon from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
ReMix: EarthBound "Bus!" by Shadow from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
ReMix: Street Fighter II: The World Warrior "Go Home and Be a Family Man" by Norrin_Radd from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy
ReMix: Sonic the Hedgehog 3 "Tight Finale" by Jivemaster from http://ocremix.org used under ocremix.org content policy

View Details

What do you do... when the work you love is created by a racist? Or when a work is misogynistic? We dip our toe into the new criticism to talk about the role between creative works, their creators, and fans in fandom... and hopefully aren't problematic ourselves along the way!

It's the holidays, which means we are taking a break, AND making time to plan for a great new season! Next season starts next week with a 100th episode extravaganza!

All this in 20 minutes or less!

Sources

Opening music, "Diggin' til the Very End" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

View Details

Do fans really vote with their dollars, in terms of endorsing creator behaviour? And can fans just enjoy a thing without projecting criticism (positive or negative) onto it? We're going to try to argue one way or the other (well, we'll definitely succeed at the arguing part).

It's the holidays, which means we are taking a break, AND making time to plan for a great new season!

All this in 20 minutes or less!

Sources

Opening music, "Diggin' til the Very End" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

View Details

Where is the fandom today, and would they even want a MASH reboot? What would that even look like? We're giving you the best care anywhere (as far as a podcast goes) on this week's episode!

*Please consult with your physician for any actual medical care you may need. We are not doctors.

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

MASH is an American war comedy-drama television series that aired on CBS from 1972 to 1983. It was developed by Larry Gelbart, adapted from the 1970 feature film MASH, which, in turn, was based on Richard Hooker's 1968 novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors. The series, which was produced with 20th Century Fox Television for CBS, follows a team of doctors and support staff stationed at the "4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" in Uijeongbu, South Korea, during the Korean War (1950–53). The show's title sequence features an instrumental-only version of "Suicide Is Painless", the original film's theme song which was popular enough to become the UK's best selling song hitting number 1and staying for 3 weeks in May/June of 1980. The show was created after an attempt to film the original book's sequel, MASH Goes to Maine, failed. The television series is the best-known of the MASH works, and one of the highest-rated shows in US television history. — Wikipedia - MAS*H (TV series)

Search Data:

While it is unclear how popular MASH has been since its initial release in the 1970s, we do have some data from Google Trends as far back as 2004. Surprisingly, while interest in the show was on a downturn until December 2014, the show has recently enjoyed a slight upward trend in interest, with some notable spikes in February 2015 (Release on Netflix), January 2017 (Release on Hulu), and March 2018 (More episodes released on Hulu).

The top ten countries for MASH, by search volume, are as follows: Albania (By a _large_ margin), Czechia, Slovakia, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Romania, Norway, and Sweeden.

Fan Demographics:

From a very rough self-selecting sample of folks on reddit, we were able to get some data on what today's fans of MASH look like... in terms of age at least. Through some quick javascript math on the thread "What is the average age of the MASH viewer?, we get the following data of the approximately 100 data points:

Max age: 54
Mean age: 28.2
Median age: 27
Mode age: 30
Min age: 10

Other than that, data is scarce... other than this tidbit from Mental Floss:

Seventy-seven percent of the people watching television in the United States on the night of Monday, February 28, 1983 were watching the two-and-a-half-hour series finale, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.” That was 121.6 million people. A company only had to pay $30,000 to run a 30-second commercial when MAS*H got started in 1972. For the series finale, a 30-second spot cost $450,000. — Mental Floss - 17 Things You Might Not Know About MAS*H

Fanac Fast Facts:

On the fan works archive Archive Of Our Own, there are just over 1000 fan works related to MASH:
Top three categories: M/M (528), Gen (352), F/M (208)
...Almost all, of which, are related to the TV series (i.e. there isn't a prominent overlap with other fandoms, though there is overlap)
Top three characters: Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce (793), B. J. Hunnicutt (434), Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (248)
Top three relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce (233), "Trapper" John McInt

View Details

Why do people care so much about whether or not wrestling is fake? And what is it about pro wrestling that reels fans in? All this and more on this week's episode with our own resident expert, G!

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

What did we have to say before doing the preparation for this week's episode?

G: < Abstained >

T: Why do people enjoy watching bad wrestling?

Z: Wrestlers are pretty great show people, performing for the back of the room... have there been wrestlers that were not fans before they got into it (or ever during)? Is every pro-wrestler a fan?

Guest(s): Statement

Main Discussion

Topics covered in this episode: TBD

Famous Last Words

Our chance (and yours, if you're watching on twitch.tv/thenickscast) to have some (in)famous last words about next week's topic before we've done any prep work! Next week, we'll be talking about the fans and fandom of _M.A.S.H._!

T: Is this another fandom that is going to die out? Is the fandom still alive?

G: Would fans like to see M.A.S.H. rebooted?

Z: When the show was running, how did fans get together?

Where can you find us?

Pretty much everything we do is something/thenickscast, but in specific...

If you're looking for this podcast (Fanthropological), you can find it at Fanthropological.com or on different podcatchers including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and many others!
You can join us for the live recording of the podcasts and participate (or catch us when we're playing some games) at twitch.tv/thenickscast
Keep up-to-date with our latest goings-on on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, all @thenickscast
We also occasionally create extra content about fandom including convention coverage and interviews on YouTube.com/thenickscast
We have some fine merchandise available at shop.thenickscast.com (and we'd love your support!)
If all else fails, you can email us: nick@thenickscast.com

What is "Fanthropological"?

Every week, Fanthropological delivers over an hour of fandom-related "fanalysis" covering a different fandom every week and giving you hard data, history, special guests, and, of course, speculation!

We cover topics spanning the gamut of anime, manga, comics, video games, comics, movies, books, television, and, in general, geek culture.

Credits

All other music and sound for this week's episode were provided by Nick Green!

View Details

How does such a small franchise maintain a strong fanbase almost thirty* years later? And just what is it about fuzzy pickles and odometers that reel people into the games in the first place?

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

The Mother series ... consists of three role-playing video games: the 1989 Mother for the Famicom, the 1994 Mother 2, known as EarthBound outside of Japan, for the Super NES, and the 2006 Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance. Written by Shigesato Itoi and published by Nintendo, and featuring game mechanics modeled on the Dragon Quest series, the Mother series is known for its sense of humor, originality, and parody. The player uses weapons and psychic powers to fight hostile, everyday objects, aliens and brainwashed people. Signature elements of the series include the lighthearted plots, the battle sequences with psychedelic backgrounds, and the "rolling HP meter": as player health ticks down like an odometer (damage doesn't instantly subtract HP), players can outrun the meter to heal before dying. While the franchise is popular in Japan, in the United States, it is best associated with the cult following behind EarthBound. — Wikipedia - EarthBound

Names

Sometimes fandoms have a definitive name (e.g. "Whovians") other fandoms... struggle. Here are some of the names that the community has come up with:

Starmen
Motherheads
Momma's Boys
Mother Lovers
EarthBounders
Boundies
Eagleandians

Search Data:

In a surprise twist, unlike most of the fandoms that we have covered on the show, EarthBound fandom has been almost constant (it's only decreased a little bit since 2004). The most notable spike in interest occured in October 2008, which likely coincides with the release of the unofficial English fan translation by the StarMen.net community.

The top ten countries for _EarthBound_, by search volume, are as follows: Japan, United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Chile, Jordan, Australia, Mexico, Philippines, and Sweden.

The top ten countries for the _Mother_ series, by search volume, are as follows: Indonesia, United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Singapore, Pakistan, and Australia.

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

What did we have to say before doing the preparation for this week's episode?

T: I want to know more about starmen.net

G: Is anyone drawn to EarthBound because of it's contemporary, American-ness?

Z: Itoi has gone on record to say that there will be no more Mother games... are fans making continuations of the series since there will be more more official releases?

Main Discussion

Topics covered in this episode: TBD

Spotlight? The Minch Foundation

A Charity for People Like Us

You are a successful businessman. People owe you a hundred thousand dollars or more. But when have you ever taken time out to give back to your community?

— The Minch Foundation

A division of Golden Aloysius Heavy Industries, you might know them for the EarthBound Bash or their Strategic Partnerships Enabling Network Dynamics (S.P.E.N.D.) awards presented at Camp Fangamer most recently awarded in 201X to Bill Gate, Elong Musk, and Mr. Uber.

Spotlight?! Camp Fangamer / EarthBound Baaaash!!

There _was_ (is?) a cool event related to EarthBound, but it may be defunct? It's hard to find permanent information. In 2014, there was an event called EarthBound Baaaash!! which raised over $20k for Speak your Silence, a charity "to inspire people to prevent sexual abuse

View Details

The Nicks dive deep into personal nostalgia (that's good), the divide between fans (that's bad), the different shows that the Simpsons has been (that's good), and more for this long running (that's bad) media franchise! Can I go now?

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

The Simpsons is a long running animated TV show, spanning 27 seasons over as many years, and counting (As of Dec 2016). It revolves around the lives of a supposedly average American middle class household; Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie.

Over the years, The Simpsons' cast grew from the original five family members into over a hundred unique characters, along with numerous cameos. — Fanlore - The Simpsons

Created by Matt Groening, _The Simpsons_ debuted as a series of shorts on the _Tracy Ullman Show_ in 1987 and since then has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon spanning hundreds of episodes and many comics, video games, and so much more. It is the longest running TV show in history and airs in over 180 countries. "The series is a satirical depiction of working-class life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture and society, television, and the human condition" (Wikipedia).

Search Data:

Using Google Trends data, there is about as much search data available as there is missing, since it starts back in 2004. That being said, search interest in the show has been on a slow decline since approximately May 2010 (despite being relatively stable from 2004 - 2010). The show has had a particular spike in interest in July 2007 (_The Simpsons_ movie), but otherwise, no major peaks in interest.

The top ten countries for _the Simpsons_, by search volume, are as follows: Argentina, Lithuania, Czechia, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Colombia, and Slovakia (Canada is 27th; United States is 42nd).

Fan Demographics:

There is lots of data available about viewing habits and ratings... but not so much about the fans themselves. An article from the L.A. Times in 1990 has some interesting tidbits though:

Fifty-six percent of kids 2-11 and more than 50% of youngsters 12-17 tuned in "The Simpsons." What's more, 50% of men 18-34 and 42% of men 18-49 also watched Bart Simpson and his animated family.

The figures for women fans of "The Simpsons" were slightly lower but still impressive--41% of females 18-34 and 36% of those 18-49 watched the show's fall premiere.

Among folks 50 and older, there was almost no "Simpsons" audience: 8% of the men and 6% of the women.

As well, we know that folks see the show mostly positively even after its long run, even against other contemporaries like The Big Bang Theory and Family Guy with 56% positive opinion (compared to 23% negative opinion). We also know that there have been less viewers, less awards, less top ten episodes, and not a lot of representation (by the numbers)... but none of that is about the fan demographics, unfortunately.

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

What did we have to say before doing the preparation for this week's episode?

T: What is the fandom like now compared to the beginning? Or in the mid 90s?

[// Didn't really find anything on this; moreso found things about watching the show then, or how the show change

View Details

How does the Alien cinematic universe fit together (and do fans care... about Predator)? How important is Ripley to the series? Is feminism an important part of the series? All this and more as Jaime of Perfect Organism, an Alien Podcast, helps us to better understand the fandom around the Alien films!

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Alien is a science-fiction horror media franchise centered on the film series depicting Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) and her battles with an extraterrestrial lifeform, commonly referred to as "the Alien".

Produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox, the series began with Alien (1979), directed by Ridley Scott. It was followed by three sequels, Aliens (1986), Alien³ (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1997), directed by James Cameron, David Fincher, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, respectively. Scott also directed a prequel series, composed of Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017).

The series has led to numerous books, comics, and video game spin-offs. The Alien vs. Predator franchise combines the continuities of the Alien franchise with the Predator franchise, and consists of two films as well as varying series of comics, books and video games. A video game called Alien: Isolation was released in 2014 to generally positive reviews. — Wikipedia - Alien

Search Data: Interest in the Alien franchise is down a little bit since 2004, but is relatively stable and oddly periodic. There have been outsized spikes in search volume starting August 2004 (_Alien vs. Predator_), December 2007 (_Alien vs. Predator: Requiem_), February 2010, February 2013 (_Aliens: Colonial Marines_), October 2014 (_Alien: Isolation_), and May 2017 (_Alien: Covenant_).

The top ten countries, by search volume, are as follows: Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Spain, Peru, Mexico, El Salvador, Paraguay, Germany, Ecuador (Canada is 31st, United States is 34th).

Fan Demographics:

One source, BrandWatch, has some data specifically around online audiences interested in _Alien: Covenant_.

_Gender_: 80% male (49% more likely to be male than the general twitter audience), compared to 20% female (57% _less_ than the general twitter audience)
_Interests_: 25% Interested in movies (553% more likely than general audience), 21% interested in books (150% more likely than general audience), 19% interested in games (134% more likely than general audience)

Fanac Fast Facts:

Archive Of Our Own has over 1000 fan works related to the Alien series:
Top 3 Categories: F/M (35%), Gen (31%), M/M (25%)
Top 3 Characters: David 8 (34%), Ellen Ripley (19%), Walter (Alien: Covenant) (13%)
Top 3 Relationships: David 8/Walter (Alien: Covenant) (8%), Daniels/Walter (Alien Movies) (7%), Daniels (Alien: Covenant)/Walter (Alien: Covenant) (6%)
...Most of which are only involved with the existing Alien properties

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

What did we have to say before doing the preparation for this week's episode?

T: What do fans think about Prometheus? Which do they dislike more, _Alien: Resurrection_ or _Prometheus_?

G: Alien Quadrilogy... What's the deal with that? Is there a sense of which is more beloved, Alien or Aliens?

Z: Within the fandom ... is there an enduring love of Metroid?

Jessica: If Jonesy had his own spin-off movie what would it be about?

Main Discussion

View Details

Does Pinball really go back to the 1700s? Why the resurgence recently? And is it more about playing, collecting, or building? We've got special guest, Jessica, from the Pinball Podcast to help us out!

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Pinball is a type of arcade game, in which points are scored by a player manipulating one or more steel balls on a play field inside a glass-covered cabinet called a pinball table (or "pinball machine"). The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible. Many modern pinball machines include a story line where the player must complete certain objectives in a certain fashion to complete the story, usually earning high scores for different methods of completing the game. Points are earned when the ball strikes different targets on the play field. A drain is situated at the bottom of the play field, partially protected by player-controlled plastic bats called flippers. A game ends after all the balls fall into the drain a certain number of times. Secondary objectives are to maximize the time spent playing (by earning "extra balls" and keeping the ball in play as long as possible) and to earn bonus games (known as "replays"). — Wikipedia - Pinball

Search Data:

Interest in Pinball has been on the decline since 2004, but has been stable since around 2015. However, since pinball has existed in some form since arguable the 1700s or 1800s... this isn't a lot of data to work with.

The top ten countries for pinball, by search volume, are as follows: Hungary, France, Chile, Belgium, Croatia, Netherlands, Australia, Serbia, Germany, Uruguay (Canada is 13th, United States is 16th).

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

T: Why has there been a revival of pinball in the last decade?

G: Is there another pop culture touchstone apart from Tommy? Was there a Fonz of pinball?

Z: How do these pinball fans feel about digital pinball?

Vrai: How did the connection between pinball places and bars happen?

Main Discussion

Topics covered in this episode: TBD

Spotlight: Project Pinball

Headquartered in Bonita Springs, Florida, Project Pinball Charity is a registered 501(c)(3) organization that places pinball machines in children’s hospitals to provide recreational relief to patients, family members, and hospital staff. We have been donating and maintaining pinball machines since 2011, and have since become a nationwide organization with pinball machines in hospitals across the United States. We provide all the equipment, parts, supplies and the regular maintenance at no cost to the hospital. ... We have donated 39 pinball machines to 35 different hospitals in 18 different states.

— Project Pinball - About

Spotlight: Belles and Chimes Pinball

Belles & Chimes is an international network of inclusive women's pinball leagues run by women, for women. The organization was founded

View Details

What happens when you take strong subtext, immortal beings, and over forty years of writing? It's not fanfic, but it is a fascinating history of the Vampire Chronicles fandom!

History and Origins:

The Vampire Chronicles is a series of novels by American writer Anne Rice that revolves around the fictional character Lestat de Lioncourt, a French nobleman turned into a vampire in the 18th century.

— Wikipedia - The Vampire Chronicles

The book series encompasses 16 separate novels (including crossovers) from 1976 to 2018, and has been adapted into films—Interview with the Vampire in 1994, starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, Christian Slater, and Kirsten Dunst; and The Queen of the Damned in 2002—and as of July 2018, it was announced that a TV series adaptation of the novels is in development by Hulu.

Search Data:

Interest in _The Vampire Chronicles_ has been on a slow decline since 2004. The series enjoyed a small lift in interest around November 2009 which buoyed interest in the series for several years afterwards until July 2018 where interest spiked again (most likely due to the Hulu's announcement).

The top ten countries differ slightly depending on whether or not you're looking at the entire series, or _Interview with the Vampire_:

_The Vampire Chronicles_: Spain, Romania, Hungary, Mexico, Chile, Philippines, Uruguay, United States, Poland, Venezuela (Canada is 13th).
_Interview with the Vampire_: Mexico, Russia, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Hungary, Poland, Chile, China, Latvia (United States is 20th, Canada is 23rd).

Fanac Fast Facts:

Archive of our own has almost 1000 works related to the Vampire Chronicles
Top 3 Categories: M/M (657), Gen (215), F/M (103)
Top 3 Characters: Lestat de Lioncourt (566), Louis de Pointe du Lac (485), Armand (Vampire Chronicles) (243)
Top 3 Relationships: Lestat de Lioncourt/Louis de Pointe du Lac (429), Armand/Daniel Molloy (119), Armand/Louis de Pointe du Lac (56)

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

What did we have to say before doing the preparation for this week's episode?

T: How much is Vampire Chronicles responsible for the vampire trend in movies, tv, etc.?

G: How much actual history is threaded through the Vampire Chronicles?

Z: The fandom seems fairly curativ

View Details

Are you ready to give up your mundane life and explore a world of unimaginable possibilities, all while learning the values of friendship and becoming a pirate (possibly with some wacky abilities but definitely a quirky crew)? We're not _quite_ there, yet, but we _are_ talking about the fans and fandom of this beloved show, _One Piece_.

Plus, we have special guest, Greg Werner (from the One Piece Podcast) to navigate us all the way to the Grand Line, and beyond!

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

One Piece is a long-running shounen manga series created by Oda Eiichiro (Odacchi to his fans) that is serialized in Weekly Shounen Jump. The story chronicles the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a boy who gained a rubber-like body after eating a cursed fruit as a young child, and his quest to find the One Piece and become the Pirate King. Along his journey, he fights many villains, makes new friends, and finds his nakama, most of whom join his crew, the Strawhat Pirates.

— Fanlore - One Piece

Since the first volume was released in 1997 (the same year as the Fifth Element, StarFox 64, and Final Fantasy 7, for reference), an additional 89 volumes have been released, over 850 episodes of the anime, 13 movies, 45 games (including GameSpy's "GBA Platformer of the Year" in 1995)... like, a lot of stuff. Lots.

Search Data:

One Piece has been increasing in popularity up until around January 2016. After that, it starts to decrease in popularity but is still more popular than in 2004. Another interesting occurrence is a spike (and drop in) in interest around October 2010.

The top ten countries for _One Piece_, by search volume, are as follows: Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Phillipines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Morocco (Canada is 43rd, United States is 49th).

Fan Demographics:

We managed to grab demographics from a few different sources.

...One of which comes from the One Piece Podcast itself (circa 2016). In a survey with almost 700 respondents, this is what the data looks like:

Age: The largest group is folks 21-25 (42%); 15-20 (32%); 26-30 (16%)...
Gender: 76% male; 23.6% female; 0.4% other

Not demographic data, but some interesting data nonetheless:

Only 4% of participants do not read the manga. 13% do not watch the anime.
25% of participants do not participate in the fan community

In 2011, NHK (a Japanese TV channel) had also conducted a survey of readers of the manga, which gives a slightly different set of age data... which doesn't exactly line up:

< 18 (12%), 19-29 (43%), 30-49 (32%), 50+ (13%)

Fanac Fast Facts

Archive Of Our Own has over 12000 works for One Piece.
Top 3 Categories: M/M (6149), Gen (3624), F/M (2809)
Top 3 Categories: Monkey D. Luffy (5149), Roronoa Zoro (4694), Vinsmoke Sanji (4318)
Top 3 Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Vinsmoke Sanji (2038), Monkey D. Luffy/Trafalgar D. Water Law (917), Roronoa Zoro/Sanji (882)

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Due to a scheduling conflict, there are no famous last words for this episode. Sorry!

Main Discussion

Topics covered in this episode: TBD

Spotlight: One Pace

One Pace is a project aiming to match the One Piece manga more accurately than Toei's anime adaptation. We cut out filler scenes, reaction shots, padded sequences, and re-order scenes to stay truer to Goda's manga.

— One Pace - About

Famous Last Words

Our chance (and yours

View Details

When you find yourself in a universe (or franchise) that's constantly expanding, filled with horrifying zombie aliens, a religious war, and ancient alien technology (and even more ancient-er aliens)... it's time to sit back, read a million books, and learn about the lore, universe, and fandom of Halo!

...And we couldn't be in better hands as Krysta of Halo: Podcast Evolved guides us through the vast lore that is in store!

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Halo is a military science fiction first-person shooter video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed and developed by 343 Industries, a subsidiary of Microsoft Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and an alliance of aliens known as the Covenant. The Covenant, led by their religious leaders called the Prophets, worship an ancient civilization known as the Forerunners, who perished in combat with the parasitic Flood. The central focus of the franchise builds off the experiences of Master Chief John-117, one of a group of supersoldiers codenamed Spartans, and his artificial intelligence (AI) companion, Cortana. Other characters, such as Noble Six from Halo: Reach, are also introduced in the series. The term "Halo" refers to the Halo Array: a group of immense, habitable, ring-shaped superweapons that were created by the Forerunners to destroy the Flood. They are similar to the Orbitals in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, and to a lesser degree to author Larry Niven's Ringworld concept.

— Wikipedia - Halo (franchise)

The game franchise has been running since 2001, and in that time over 65 million copies of the 13 games have been sold, grossing almost $3.4 billion (not counting the books, comics, live action films and miniseries, and anime).

Search Data:

By search data, interest in the Halo franchise has been on a slow decline. Comparing to other first-person shooters, it's possible that this is in part due to more competition. Interest in the game mostly spikes around the release of new games.

The top countries for Halo, by search volume, are as follows: Mexico, Columbia, United States, Australia, Canada, Guatemala, New Zealand, Panama, Puerto Rico, United Kingdom.

Fan Demographics:

This week, we have an assortment of data from different sources. The most comprehensive we found was this survey from r/halo with over 1300 results:

_Gender_: Mostly male (96.2%; female 3.8%)
_Age_: Mostly 18-24 (61.8%); 15-17 (22%); 25-34 (14%)
_Employment_: Mostly students (51%); Employed full-time (22.1%); Employed part-time (13.7%)
_Ethnicity_: Mostly white / caucasian (79%); Spanish / Hispanic / Latino (6.7%); Asian (4.6%)
_Marital Status_: Mostly single, never married (86.7%); Living with partner (6.2%); Married (5.2%)

Regarding age data, there is this thread from the Halo Waypoint forums (number of participants is not stated):

1% - Child (5-8)
3% - Young Teen (9-13)
41% - Teenager (14-19)
41% - Young Adult (20-29)
13% - Adult (30-64)
1% - Senior (65+)

And a different source, T3CHNOCIDE's Demographic Survey Results (over 250 respondents), which seems to corroborate age and gender data:

_Age_: Mostly 14-17 (50%); 18-21 (25%); 22-30 (12.5%)
_Gender_: Mostly male (90%); other / no answer (7.5%); female (2.5%)

Fanac Fast Facts:

Archive Of Our Own has [over 600 works related to Halo](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Halo%20(Vide

View Details

What happens when you find yourself in a beautiful world as a silent protagonist and a non-verbal story? You _might_ end up getting into a "games as art" discussion with a special guest Nick! We're talking about fans of the works of Team ICO (i.e. ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian)!

Fortunately, we have Nick Suttner, author of the Boss Fight Books book on the subject to help us out!

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Team Ico was a Japanese video game development studio led by game designer Fumito Ueda. It was part of Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio's Product Development Department #1, and had developed the games _Ico_ and _Shadow of the Colossus_, both for the PlayStation 2. The team was also initially responsible for _The Last Guardian_ before Ueda's departure in 2011 and the formation of a new company taking over development in 2014. Their games are usually characterized by minimalist storytelling and gameplay, an atmospheric use of bloom and high dynamic range rendering (HDR) lighting, and use of fictional languages. Their products are frequently cited as examples of video games as an art form.

— Wikipedia - Team Ico

Search Data:

Based on worldwide search data, it looks like the biggest peaks of interest in the games has already passed. _Shadow of the Colossus_ is by far the most popular of the games and has had spikes in interest around October 2005 (its release date) and again in February 2018 (remake of the original). Interest in _The Last Guardian_ similarly spikes around its release date: December 2016.

The top ten countries, by search volume, are as follows for the different games:

_Shadow of the Colossus_: Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Japan, Argentina, El Salvador, Canada, Uruguay, Mexico, Spain (United States is 11th)
_The Last Guardian_: Chile, Brazil, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, Norway, Puerto Rico, Portugal, United States, New Zealand

Famous Last Words: Last Episode

G: Were fans thrilled to have the game featured in Adam Sandler's _Rain over me_?

T: What are the odds of any of the Team Ico characters showing up in the new Smash?

Z: Is there a fan-made concept album where each track represents one of the Colossi you fight in the game?

Alicia: Do you like games?

Main Discussion

Topics covered in this episode: TBD

Spotlight: Nomad Colossus (Youtube)

_Shadow of the Colossus_ first came out in 2005. Since then, millions of people have played the beloved PS2 game, driven by its lonesome charm, moved by its mysterious ending. But one man never stopped playing, as a result, he's found stuff that the game's creators never intended anyone to see.

The player in question is Michael Lambert, and he's been excavating Shadow of the Colossus for the last four years on his Nomad Colossus YouTube channel. He's used glitches, external software exploits, and excursions into the bowels of SOTC's game code to extensively map the hidden places, unused ideas and unheard music tucked away in the game's hidden corners. With the hours he's spent inside the game, it's entirely possible that Lambert—along with the secret hunters Dark0ssX, Pikol, WWWArea who mentored him—might know Shadow of the Colossus better than lead creator Fumito Ueda and the other men and women who created it. — Kotaku - Meet the Hacker Who's Spent Six Years Inside Shadow Of The Colossus

Famous Last Words

Our chance (and yours, if you're watching on [twitc

View Details

SOMEbody once told me this podcast's gonna roll me. I ain't the sharpest ogre in the swamp. Er, we're trying to find out what's under the various layers of the Shrek fandom. Memes? Sincerety? More memes? Is it infinite?

PLUS, we have special guest Alicia Kraft of the Ogrecast to help us out!

Episode Outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

The Shrek franchise traces its origins back in 1990 with a picture book titled _Shrek!_ by William Steig. It wasn't until 1995 that the first film was put into active development:

"Every development deal starts with a pitch and my pitch came from my then kindergartner, in collaboration with his pre-school brother. Upon our second reading of Shrek, the kindergartner started quoting large segments of the book pretending he could read them. Even as an adult, I thought Shrek was outrageous, irreverent, iconoclastic, gross, and just a lot of fun. He was a great movie character in search of a movie."

— Wikipedia - Shrek

The Shrek films follow the (mis)adventures of Shrek (played by Mike Myers), Donkey (Eddie Murphy), and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and subversions of fairy tales and pop culture as developed by DreamWorks animation.

The first film was eventually produced and released six years later in 2001. It has since had a re-shrek-table three sequels (with a fifth movie planned for an unscheduled release date), two holiday specials, a spin-off film (with another spin-off in the works), a Netflix series based on the spin-off, several short films, almost thirty video games, _and_ a broadway musical.

Search Data:

Using Google Trends as a measuring stick, Shrek's popularity is mostly focused around the releases of the different films and is otherwise fairly constant.

The top ten countries for Shrek, by search volume, are: Bulgaria, Moldova, Armenia, Albania, Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, Latvia, Puerto Rico, and Azerbaijan (Canada is 30th; United States is 36th).

Fanac Fast Facts:

There are over three hundred fan works related to Shrek on Archive Of Our Own...
About 50% is categorized as M/M (and about 25% as F/M)
Most works stay in universe, but there biggest crossovers are with _Bee Movie_ (20 works), _Sonic the Hedgehog_ (17 works), and _Harry Potter_ (16 works)
The top three characters in works? Shrek (73%), Donkey (16%), and Fiona (8%)
More surprising, the top three relationships? Fiona / Shrek (4%), Donkey / Shrek (3%), Shrek / _Reader_ (2%)

Main Discussion

Topics covered in this episode: TBD

Spotlight: Shrek Saber

Do you like rhythm games? Do you like VR? What if you were playing a rhythm game that was just 83 minutes of Shrek? Well, that's what this is! You can now download a custom song which is effectively _the entire Shrek movie_ as a beat saber track. Sure. Why not.

Spotlight: Shrekfest

Shrekfest is the ultimate experience for Shrek-heads of all ages, currently gearing up for it's fifth year! Free admission, live music, and an outdoor screening of the 2001 masterpiece. Not to mention the games and prizes, highlighted by our infamous onion eating contest. So come dressed as your favorite Fairy Tale creature, bring a fold-out chair and we'll see you at the swamp!

— Shrekfest - About

The page looks like it came out of a 2000-era geocities page, complete with Smash Mouth's all start playing (as a MIDI) in the background. I don't know if it will run again in 2019, but if you happen to be near Madison, Wisconsin around Labour day week

View Details

Long ago in a distant land, we, the Nickscast, reminisced about the changing landscape of anime fandom from time immemorial to the present, and, in particular, the rivalry of subtitled and dubbed anime... and why it was never about either format.

We're back with new content and a new season starting next week!

All this in 20 minutes or less!

Sources

Opening music, "Diggin' til the Very End" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

View Details

When you've got nothing else to argue about, why not be pedantic on the internet? For once, T and Z are not arguing against each other but instead, trying to dig into the etymological and psychological distinction between Anime fan and Otaku. G avoids bringing up Japanimation... crap.

We're taking a short break between seasons, but the content still keeps coming!

All this in 15 minutes or less!

Sources

Opening music, "Diggin' til the Very End" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

View Details

What kind of obscure lore will we unearth about Sonic "the" Hedgehog (Or is it Sonic "Maurice" Hedgehog)? Only time will tell, unless you're too slow! Fortunately, we have special guest Matt (AKA SonicMTD) to help us out!

And that wraps up Season 8! Join us in a few short weeks as we return with the beginning of Season 9! What changes will occur? How rad will our beards be? Do people say rad anymore?

In any case, the episodes will keep on coming, they just won't be live until we're back. So until next time... we'll see you next time!

Where can I learn more about Matt (AKA SonicMTD)?

If you'd like to hear more from Matt or check out his work, you're in luck!

His YouTube: https://youtube.com/SonicMTD
His Twitter: https://twitter.com/SonicMTD
His Facebook: https://facebook.com/SonicMTD

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Sonic the Hedgehog is a media franchise created and produced by Sega. It is primarily a video game franchise, centering on a series of speed-based platform games. Sonic, the protagonist, is an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog with supersonic speed, capable of reaching the speed of sound. Typically, Sonic—usually along with some of his friends, such as Tails, Amy, and Knuckles—must stop antagonist Doctor Eggman's plans for world domination.

The first game in the series, released in 1991, was conceived by Sega's Sonic Team division after Sega requested a mascot character. Its success spawned many sequels and helped Sega become one of the leading video game companies during the 16-bit era of the early 1990s.

While the first Sonic games were side-scrolling platform games, later games expanded into other genres, such as Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games. The series had sold over 80 million physical copies by June 2011, and grossed over $5 billion by 2014. As of 2017, the series has shifted 360 million units, including software package sales and mobile game downloads. The franchise has also been spun out into other media, including cartoons, anime, and a comic book series recognized as the longest running based on a video game by Guinness World Records. — Wikipedia - Sonic the Hedgehog

Search Data:

Based on search data, Sonic the Hedgehog has been slowly declining in popularity since 2004. Strangely though, there was a swell of interest from 2004 'til the present peaking around August 2009.

The following is a list of top ten countries for _Sonic the Hedgehog_ (by search volume): Australia, United States, India, United Kingdom, Philippines, Germany, Indonesia, Sweden, Canada, Switzerland.

Fan Data:

We managed to find a few different fan surveys that had been conducted. From the unofficial Sonic the Hedgehog survey with over 300 responses, we have some data points:

Top three games: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (24.9%), Sonic Adventure 2 (15%), Sonic 3 & Knuckles (14.6%)
Bottom three games: Sonic Boom - Rise of Lyric (31.5%), Sonic 06 (19.9%), Shadow the Hedgehog (7.5%)
Favourite character: Sonic (29.6%)
Least favourite character: The Deadly Six (32.7%)
Favourite vocal theme: Live and Learn (20.9%)

And from the subreddit (unclear how many responses):

_Gender:_ 9 Men to every 1 woman who responded
_Age:_ Folks age 14 to 23 make up 80.7%. Average age was 19.5
_Introductory game:_ The original trilogy (39.4%)

Fanac Fast Facts:

FanFiction.net has over 30 000 Sonic the Hedgehog Fanfics. Sadly, that data is hard to break down, but fortunately Archive Of Our Own has [over 2000 fan

View Details

What if you had one chance, one shot to talk with a super-fan about Sailor Moon fandom and how it lead to moving across the globe from to Japan? Well, you'd be in the position Nick T is in as he chats with Jason, author of _Tuxedo Unmasked_ to get a better understanding of what Sailor Moon fandom is like, and what life as a fan is like in Japan!

Where can I learn more about Jason and _Tuxedo Unmasked_?

I’ve been a fan of _Sailor Moon_ since the late 1990s (1997, to be exact) and have been passionate about the series and characters ever since. I’ve run multiple websites (and fanfiction archives) dedicated to the series over the years, but unfortunately university and work life took over and I fell out of all that for several years and just “being a fan” had to take a back seat.

However, with the new release of the web-based series _Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Crystal_, I’ve started re-reading all the old manga and watching through the old anime, and really wanted to dig deep into all those questions that were left unanswered. I realized that making this in-depth analysis into the history of – and stories behind – _Sailor Moon_ was my chance to (finally?) make use of my degree in Japanese history and occupation as a Japanese translator. — Tuxedo Unmasked - About

If you want to learn more about Jason and his work, you can check out:

Tuxedo Unmasked: https://www.tuxedounmasked.com/
On Twitter: @t_unmasked
On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tuxedounmasked

Sources

Opening music, "Sailor Moon" by Nospoonkid used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA

View Details

Could it be that Bob's family is... DEAD?! Probably not, but fan theories are just part of chronicling an obsession as we talk with Bob's Burgers experts Jen and Briddany about fans of, well, Bob's Burgers!

Next week, a blue streak speed by... what fandom could we be talking about to wrap-up the season?

Where can I learn more about Pod's Burgers?

If you want to know more about Jen and Briddany's "podcast chronicling an obsession", you're in luck!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Bob's Burgers is an American animated sitcom created by Loren Bouchard that premiered on Fox on January 9, 2011. The series centers on the Belcher family - parents Bob and Linda, and their children Tina, Gene, and Louise - who run a hamburger restaurant. The show was conceived by Bouchard after he developed Home Movies. It is produced and distributed in association with 20th Century Fox Television. ... In 2013, TV Guide ranked Bob's Burgers as one of the top 60 Greatest TV Cartoons of All Time. The series has been nominated for several awards, including the Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program seven consecutive times, winning in 2014 and 2017. — Wikipedia - Bob's Burgers

Search Data:

Based on Google Trends data, _Bob's Burgers_ is probably more popular now than it ever has been (though interest has leveled off a bit). There was a huge spike in interest in January 2011 (when the show premiered), and wasn't as popular again until around January 2014 (Possibly related to the release of the 3rd season on DVD, though that occurred in May 2014). The most interest in Bob's Burgers occurred around October 2017, which happens to correspond with the season eight premiere.

The top ten most popular countries for Bob's Burgers, by search volume, are: United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, Sweden, South Africa, Norway, and Singapore. - [// Big drop off between Canada (75) and Ireland (46) and United Kingdom (38) to Sweden (18)]: #

Fast Facts:

FanFiction.net has over 200 Bob's-Burgers-related fanfics; Archive Of Our Own has almost 200)
Top 3 Categories: F/M (45%), Gen (31%), M/M (17%)
Top 3 Characters: Louise (71%), Tina (61%), Bob (59%)
Top 3 Pairings: Louise / Logan Bush (19%), Louise / Regular Sized Rudy (13%), Tina / Zeke (12%)
According to some research of Nielson data via The Wrap, viewers of _Bob's Burgers_ are among the least wealthy of primetime TV watchers (median income of $48 800 USD annually). _Modern Family_ and _Parks and Recreation_ viewers were among the most wealth (median income of $81 000 USD annually). For reference, the US median income is just under $60k
Bob is most likely less wealthy than fans of the show: Fan's estimate his income to be about $44k

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Does anyone like Jimmy Pesto? Why? - [// Def saw some stuff about him being the best villain; also a fun fan theory about him being gay and jealous of Bob]: #

How do the fans feel about most of the voice cast being men (even though the cast is fairly balanced)? - [//Lots of criticism of this, actually]: #

View Details

This would have been a podcast about a great delinquent kid who grows up with friendship and fighting and the underworld... except we died? We have special guests, The YuYu Hakushow joining us this week to talk about the fans, fandom, and the 90s attitude of, well, Yu Yu Hakusho!

Next week will be Un-brie-lievable as we talk about fans of Bob's Burgers (with the hosts of Pod's Burgers, Jen and Briddany)!

Where can I learn more about Joe and Patrick?

If you want to here more from Joe and Patrick, especially about Yu Yu Hakusho, you're in luck! You can check out their bi-weekly show at yuyuhakushow.podiant.com, follow them on Facebook (@theyuyuhakushoow) or follow them on Twitter (@theyuyuhakushow)!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Yu Yu Hakusho ... is a manga series written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi [also known for Hunter x Hunter, and the husband of Naoko Takeuchi, writer and illustrator of Sailor Moon]. The series tells the story of Yusuke Urameshi, a teenage delinquent who is struck and killed by a car while attempting to save a child's life. After a number of tests presented to him by Koenma, the son of the ruler of the afterlife Underworld, Yusuke is revived and appointed the title of "Underworld Detective", with which he must investigate various cases involving demons and apparitions in the human world. The manga becomes more focused on martial arts battles and tournaments as it progresses. Togashi began creating Yu Yu Hakusho around November 1990, basing the series on his interests in the occult and horror films and an influence of Buddhist mythology.

The manga was originally published in _Weekly Shonen Jump_ from 1990 to 1994, and the television series aired from 1992 to 1994 in Japan (and was later licensed and released in North America in 2001, airing on Cartoon Network).

_Yu Yu Hakusho_ has sold over 50 million copies in Japan alone, the animated series won the _Animage_ Anime Grand Prix for best anime in 1994 and 1995, has spawned two animated films, a series of original video animations (OVAs), audio albums, video games, and other merchandise.

Search Data:

Based on search data from Google Trends, Yu Yu Hakusho is a lot less popular now than it was in 2004 (but interest hasn't changed much since 2006, and given the air time of the show isn't suprising either).

By search volume, the top ten countries interested in _Yu Yu Hakusho_ since 2004 are: Philippines, Japan, Brazil, Hungary, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Dominican Republic, and El Salvador (United States is 15th, and Canada is 30th).

Fast Facts:

FanFiction.net has over 20 000 fan works for _Yu Yu Hakusho_, Archive Of Our Own has about 1600 fan works:
Top 3 Categories: M/M (43%), F/M (34%), Gen (29%)
Top 3 Crossovers: InuYasha (8%), Harry Potter (4%), Naruto (3%)
Top 3 Characters: Kurama (55%), Hiei (50%), Yuusuke (43%)
Top 3 Pairings: Hiei / Kurama (19%), Yuusuke / Keiko (9%), Kurama / Yuusuke (6%)

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Are fans waiting for a revival or did they move on to other shonen titles?

What's the most common pairing in fic? Of those characters, what's their canonical relationship? What does that say about the fans?

Do fans consider it to be passed or over? Do fans have an underdog mentality or a Napolean complex about it?

Michael

Add some collectible ghosts and demons and th

View Details

Will fans of this classic SNES gem be lost to Lavos, or will they endure, like Gaspar at the end of time? Where does Chrono Cross figure into the whole situation? Fortunately, we know someone who wrote the book (well, _a_ book) on the subject: we're talking with Michael P. Williams, author of _Chrono Trigger_, about fans of... well, Chrono Trigger!

Next week, it'll be the (smile) bomb, as we talk about fans, of a certain popular shonen 'sho' from the 90s!

Where can I learn more about Michael P. Williams?

If you want to learn more about Michael's work, your best bet is to check out...

His book, Chrono Trigger, published by Boss Fight Books (now available in audiobook form)!
Boss Fight Books where he does a lot of editting
The Boss Fight Books twitter, @bossfightbooks (Yes, there is a trend here)

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Chrono Trigger is a Super Nintendo JRPG released in 1995. It was developed by Square (notable for such other games as Final Fantasy) and its so-called "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi (the creator of the Final Fantasy Series), Yuji Horii (creator of Enix's popular Dragon Quest series), and Akira Toriyama (an artist well known for his work with Dragon Quest and his ongoing manga / anime series: Dragonball, among other things). It also featured music composed by Yasunori Mitsuda (the _Chrono_ series, Mario Party, Xenosaga) and Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy).

To put it succinctly: The game follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe... that they will never personally encounter.

It has since been released and re-released multiple times with the SNES and Playstation versions shipping over 2.65 million copies, and the Nintendo DS version having sold over 790 000 copies more than a decade later.

Search Data:

Interest in Chrono Trigger has definitely dropped since the earliest data we have from Google Trends (2004). There was a huge spike in interest in November 2008 (the Nintendo DS re-release of the game), and to a much lesser extent in March of 2018 (corresponding to the unexpected Steam release of the game).

The top ten countries, by search volume, are as follows: Japan, Chile, Canada, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, United States, Dominican Republic, Phillipines, and Taiwan.

Size of Fandom:

Based on a few data points:

The original game has sold more than 2.6 million copies
The DS version sold over 500 000 copies
The Chrono Trigger subreddit has about 6600 subscribers

It's hard to guess, but there are probably hundreds of thousands of Chrono Trigger fans?

Fast Facts:

According to a thread on r/truegaming by GICN, Chrono Trigger has a self-reported completion rate of 66% (slightly above the overall self-reported average of 63%). Steam global play stats reports that only 10.4% have completed the game
Chrono Trigger has only about 150 fanfics on Archive Of Our Own
Most of which are Gen (about 56%)
The most referenced fandoms, other than Chrono Trigger, are Final Fantasy VII (about 10%), Chrono Cross (about 10%), and Final Fantasy VI (about 10%)

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Has anyone written a musical about Chrono Trigger?

Is anyone out there who has attempted to write Chrono Trigger into the Final Fantasy

View Details

Can you hear, our heart beat? No? Well, turn up the volume to hear us (and special guest, Nikola, of YOI Wednesdays) talk about fans of Yuri!! on ICE!

Next week, we'll be talking with a guy who literally wrote the book (well, _a_ book) on Chrono Trigger, Michael P. Williams, to talk about fans of Chrono Trigger!

Where can I learn more about YOI Wednesdays?

Would you like to learn more about Nikola and YOI Wednesdays? You're in luck!

Nikola's Twitter: @notgneissatall
YOI Wednesday Twitter: @yoiwednesdays
YOI Wednesday Podcast: soundcloud.com/yoiwednesdayspod

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Yuri!!! on Ice is a 12-episode anime series following Katsuki Yuuri in his competitive figure skating career. The series is produced by MAPPA, directed by Yamamoto Sayo [_Michiko and Hatchin_, _The Woman Called Fujiko Mine_, some episodes of _Samurai Champloo_ and _Space Dandy_] and written by Kubo Mitsurou. — Fanlore - Yuri!!! on Ice

Search Data / Growth:

_Yuri on Ice_ had a huge spike in interest between October 2016 and December 2016 (which coincides with the release of, at the time, the only season of the anime). Interest in the show has been pretty consistent since then, though not nearly as popular as during that period.

The top 10 countries for _Yuri on Ice_, by search volume, are as follows: Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Philippines, Chile, Singapore, Russia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Hungary (Canada is 16th, United States is 18th, and Australia is 22nd).

Looking at redditmetrics for the YOI subreddit, the subreddit reached 5000 subscribers in under a month, but growth has been pretty flat since then.

Fan Demographics: - From a fan survey run by KykyElric, we do have some data about some of the over 2000 respondents:

_Age:_ The most populous group was ages 19-29 (36.2%), followed by 16-18 (31.3%), then folks 13-15 (23.4%). Put differently, more than half of those surveyed were under the age of 18
_Gender_: The largest group was people who identified as female (79.1%), followed by male (5.3%), 'still figuring it out' (4.3%), and genderfluid (4.1%)
_Sexuality_: The largest group identified as heterosexual (33.2%), followed by bisexual (22.7%), and pansexual (11.8%)

There are also some bits of data:

_Favourite character_: Viktor Nikiforov (35.1%), Yuuri Katsuki (31.3%), Yuri Plisetski (15.4%)
_Favourite ship_: Viktuuri (89.3%)
_Sub vs. Dub_: Sub (77.8%), Either (18.8%), Dub (3.4%)
_Ice skating interest pre/post:_ Converts (41%), Interested - No change (37.6%), Uninterested - No change (11.7%)
_Fan contributions_: Fan art (35.4%), Theories (28.7%), Memes (27.8%)
_Favourite non-main-character skater_: Mari Katsuki (Yuuri's Sister, 47.3%)

Fanac Fast Facts:

_Yuri!!! on Ice_ has almost 30 000 fanfics on Archive Of Our Own...
Top Three Ratings: Teen and up (32%), General Audiences (28%), Explicit (19%)
Top Three Categories: M/M (89%), Gen (9%), F/M (5%)
Top Three Tags: Fluff (25%), Angst (10%), AU (8%)

What did we discuss?

What do you wish people knew about FANDOM?
What is the best part of of being a fan FANDOM (e.g. in terms of participation within the fandom, opportunities, feelings)?
What is the worst part of being a fan of FANDOM (e.g. in terms of perceptions, bad elements of the fandom)?
Where do people meet to talk about the fandom? Is it centralized

View Details

You find yourself in the not so distant future; it's a place just a bit different, but in ways you hadn't imagined, and its where you will spend the REST OF YOUR LIFE. ... Alright, we're not all speculative fiction writers, but we do have a special guest, Jen Frankel, to join us to talk about the fandom around it!

Next week, we were born to make history... and talk about fans of Yuri!!! on ICE (with special guest, Nikola, of YOI Wednesdays).

Where can I learn more about Jen Frankel?

If you want to hear more about Jen Frankel and the work she does, why not check out some of the following:

Her website: jenkfrankel.com
Her podcast: JFRRS
Her twitter: @jenfrankel

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Judith Merril, Canadian author, editor, and activist, defined speculative fiction in 1966: “… stories whose objective is to explore, to discover, to learn, by means of projection, extrapolation, analogue, hypothesis-and-paper-experimentation, something about the nature of the universe, of man, or ‘reality’…”

— DIYMFA - Defining Speculative Fiction

Speculative fiction is an umbrella genre encompassing narrative fiction with supernatural or futuristic elements. This includes, but not limited to, science fiction, fantasy, superhero fiction, science fantasy, horror, utopian and dystopian fiction, supernatural fiction as well as combinations thereof. ... In its English-language usage in arts and literature since the mid 20th century, "speculative fiction" as a genre term is often attributed to Robert A. Heinlein. In his first known use of the term, in ... 1947, Heinlein used it specifically as a synonym for "science fiction"; in a later piece, he explicitly stated that his use of the term did not include fantasy. However, though Heinlein may have come up with the term on his own, there are earlier citations ... ... In the 2000s, the term came into wider use as a convenient collective term for a set of genres. However, some writers, such as Margaret Atwood, continue to distinguish "speculative fiction" specifically as a "no Martians" type of science fiction, "about things that really could happen."

— Wikipedia - Speculative Fiction

Search Data:

Based on google trends data since 2004, speculative fiction is on the rise! Around 2008, interest seems to have picked up until about 2015 where interest levels off and follows an oddly periodic pattern.

(Interest in _Science Fiction_ dwarfs interest in speculative fiction, but, interestingly enough, is on the decline, by comparison.)

The top ten countries for _Speculative Fiction_, by search volume, are as follows: Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Latvia, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan (Canada is 26th, United States is 28th).

Fan Demographics:

We couldn't find any demographics about fans, but we did come across some data from Tor UK's author submissions:

Out of 503 submissions, 32% came from female writers
Historical / Epic / High-Fantasy: 33% Women, 67% Men
Urban Fantasy / Paranormal Romance: 57% Women, 43% Men
Horror: 17% Women, 83% Men
Science-Fiction: 22% Women, 78% Men
YA: 68% Women, 32% Men
Other: 27% Women, 73% Men

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Is the distinction between speculative fiction and genre fiction substantial?

Is speculative fiction a label from author

View Details

How exactly does one find themselves sitting on a toilet in Japan, looking back on a life of Sailor Moon, Akira Toriyama, and Chrono Trigger?

We have quite the story to tell as Nick G and Greg talk about growing up as a fan of Chrono Trigger, its influence on Greg's life, and a little bit about Dragonball, Final Fantasy, and Akira Toriyama along the way!

Where can I learn more about Greg Werner?

If you want to learn more about Greg Werner and his work, you can check out:

YouTube: ochimusha108
Twitter: @ochimusha108
One Piece Podcast: onepiecepodcast.com
One Piece Official Website: one-piece.com/special/greg

What is the Race Against Time (IV)?

Now in its fourth year running, the Race Against Time is an annual charity marathon to raise money for the Alzheimer Society of Canada by beating the SNES classic, Chrono Trigger, as many times as possible in 24 hours. This year, the event is running every week until August 11 and 12 for the main event (see website for detailed schedule).

Alzheimer's is a terrible disease that slowly robs those afflicted of their memories, and, eventually, their very sense of being. We are racing to help preserve those memories of loved ones and for a cure to stop it once and for all!

All donations go directly to the Alzheimer Society of Canada.

You can donate right now at raceagainsttime.io/donate!

Sources

Opening music, "Diggin' til the Very End" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA

View Details

We got a stereo, you just got to turn the knob and baby we'll go as far as we can... but we're not garbage men. This week, we have special guest, Matthew Tyler Di Leo (aka SonicMTD) to help talk us through the fandom of Scott Pilgrim... fans.

Next week, we have Jen Frankel, author of the Undead Redhead series to chat with us about fans of speculative fiction!

Where can I learn more about Matt?

If you'd like to hear more from Matt or check out his work, you're in luck!

City in Wires, his band
His YouTube
His Twitter
His Facebook

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Scott Pilgrim is a series of graphic stories by Bryan Lee O'Malley. The series is about Canadian Scott Pilgrim, a slacker and part-time musician who lives in Toronto, Ontario and plays bass guitar in a band. He falls in love with American delivery girl Ramona Flowers, but must defeat her seven evil exes in order to date her.

The series consists of six digest size black-and-white volumes, released between August 2004 and July 2010, by Portland-based independent comic book publisher Oni Press. It was later republished by Fourth Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins. Full-colour hardback volumes, coloured by Nathan Fairbairn, were released from August 2012 to April 2014.

A film adaptation of the series titled Scott Pilgrim vs. the World starring actor Michael Cera in the title role was released in August 2010. A video game adaptation developed by Ubisoft for PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade was released the same month.

— Wikipedia - Scott Pilgrim

Search Data:

As far as Google trends data goes, Scott Pilgrim looks like a flash in the pan, and the movie is a lot more popular than the graphic novel series. There is a huge spike in interest (on either graph) around August 2010, then a long tail into the present.

By country, for the graphic novel series, the top ten countries for search volume are: Iceland (by a large margin), Mexico, Chile, Puerto Rico, United States, Philippines, South Korea, Paraguay, Australia.

By country, for the movie, the top ten countries for search volume are: Mexico, Chile, Canada, Puerto Rico, United States, Russia, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom.

Size of Fandom:

Based on a few data points...

According to Oni press, in 2010, and after 6 years, Scott Pilgrim's final volume, _Finest Hour_ had sold over 1 million copies in North America alone (Comicsbeat)... so, presumably that gives about one million as one possible estimate
It has over 300 000 ratings on IMDB
It has over 12 000 subscribers on the Scott Pilgrim subreddit
There is a discord server, _Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Discord_ which has over 400 members

... so it's probably fair to say that there are _tens of thousands of fans_.

Fan Demographics:

Looking at the ratings from IMDB, we can get an extremely loose sense of the demographics (for the movie at least):

Age: Predominantly folks between ages 18-29 (38%) and 30-44 (37%)
Gender: Predominantly male (68%) as compared to female (15%); data is missing for other genders

Fast Facts:

There are about 150 Scott Pilgrim works on Archive of Our Own
During its opening we

View Details

Take part A1-2 and add part D3-5, then turn the middle part top-wise?? This week, we're talking about the world of Gundam plastic models, AKA Gunpla, with special guest, Lauren Orsini—_The Otaku Journalist_ and author of _Gunpla 101_!

Next week: Are you hearing voices? Animal noises? The creme-de-la-creme? The feminine abyss? I'm not sure what any of that means, but we'll be hear to talk Scott Pilgrim with a special guest!

Where can I learn more about Lauren Orsini?

If you want to learn more about Lauren, you can follow her on Twitter, or read about more of her work on The Otaku Journalist, _Gunpla 101, or the Gunpla 101 twitter!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

While doing the research for this week's topic and unearthing the history of Gunpla, we inevitably were lead to our guests on words. From Gunpla101.com's "the History of Gunpla":

Mobile Suit Gundam, the first Gundam series ever, aired in 1979.

Less than a year later, the first Gunpla kit appeared. And for the past 30 years, people of all ages have continued to enjoy this unusual hobby. ... - The word “Gunpla” was coined at the same time as the first kit. Like “cosplay,” it’s a Japanese amalgamation of two English words—“Gundam” and “plastic,” as in “plastic model. English speakers will interchange this with “Gundam models,” but we usually say Gunpla because it’s shorter. - The first Gunpla, released in July 1980, cost just 300 yen, or about $3. Obviously, it was a kit for making the very first Mobile Suit Gundam model. - The earliest Gunpla kits, released between 1980 and 1989, are nothing like the Gunpla we build today. Instead of snapping together, you had to glue them together with cement. Even trickier, they were all one color, and you’d need to paint them first! You’d get a rigid, hardly poseable model for your reward. Today these are called FG (First Grade) kits. - The first High Grade was released in 1990 and cost 1000 yen, or about $10. As would become a tradition, the first model of any grade was the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Today High Grade is synonymous with “cheap and easy,” but in 1990 it was considered a more detailed, poseable grade of Gunpla. - The first Master Grade was released in 1995 and cost 2500 yen, or about $25. It is the first time the original Mobile Suit Gundam was named correctly, as the RX-78-2. The grade was originally designed to be used for a select number of models to commemorate Gundam’s 15th anniversary, but the popularity of these more accurate models is why they’re still being manufactured to this day. - The first Perfect Grade Gunpla appeared in 1998 and cost 12,000 yen or about $120. Today’s Perfect Grades make this look cheap, often topping $200 or more. Perfect grades come in 1/60 scale and include so much detail that they can take weeks to build. They may even come with wiring for LEDs or other electronic features. ... - The first Real Grade showed up just recently, in 2010. It was designed to be a step up from High Grade in terms of realism, without being as complicated as a Master Grade.

Search Data:

Looking at some of the Google Trends data since 2004, Gunpla has gained some popularity, and is relatively stable in terms of search volume having grown by 50% since 2004. There appears to be some precipitating event around September 2013 where interest picked up quite a bit, possibly in relation to _Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin_ being released in North America? It's unclear.

[// Gundam build fighters - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun

View Details

How does a TV show from Japan influence the lives of the folks watching them? It might just lead you to starting a symphony! Nick T has the opportunity to talk with Bobbie Lee Crow III, the artistic director of iconiQ and the conductor of SeraSymphony and his experiences growing up as a fan of Sailor Moon and how that fused with his love of music. You can also find out how Sailor Moon helped him get into college!

Where can I learn more about Bobbie Lee Crow III?

Conductor, composer, and cellist Bobbie Lee Crow III has worked alongside singer-songwriter Blake Pfeil, ABC’s X-Factor finalist Khaya, Academy Award-winning director Tom Hooper, Japanese pop singer KIYOTAKA, and Tony Award-winner Patina Miller. His music credits include composition for the webseries How to Make It Big and the musical The Tale of Murasaki, score preparation for the film Denial, and performance on the Primetime Emmy-nominated series Elementary. An avid anime fan, Bobbie is the founder and Artistic Director of the anime, cartoon, and video game chamber ensemble iconiQ The Soundtrack Orchestra. He currently works at multi-award-winning composer Howard Shore’s music publishing company.

— SeraSymphony

If you want to learn more about Bobbie Lee Crow III and his work, you can check out:

The SeraSymphony: http://www.serasymphony.com/
iconiQ The Soundtrack Orchestra:
YouTube: iconiquestra
Facebook: @iconiquestra
Twitter: @iconiquestra
Website: http://www.iconiquestra.org/

Sources

Opening music, "Fight! Sailor Scouts" by SeraSymphony; Music by Bob Summers; © BLC3Music Services, LLC
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA

View Details

This week, we're teaming up to get a high score with Michael Kimball as we blast into the world of... Galaga?! What is it about the classic arcade game that has held its allure for more than thirty years? And where is the fandom heading?

Next week, we move from space fighter to space _robots_ to talk about Gunpla with the Otaku Journalist, Lauren Orsini!

Where can I learn more about Michael Kimball?

You can learn more about Michael by checking out his website or perhaps even by reading his book, _Galaga_ published by Boss Fight books!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Galaga is a Japanese arcade game developed and published by Namco Japan and by Midway in North America in 1981. It is the sequel to 1979's Galaxian. The gameplay of Galaga puts the player in control of a spacecraft which is situated at the bottom of the screen, with enemy aliens arriving in formation at the beginning of a stage, either trying to destroy, collide with, or capture the spaceship, with the player progressing every time alien forces are vanquished.

— Wikipedia - Galaga

The game has been re-released and sequeled multiple times, with at least twenty different games existing in its release history including tie-in versions for popular anime _Space Dandy_ and fighting game series _Tekken_.

Size of Fandom:

Estimating the number of fans is always difficult. Using a few data points that we have:

The Galaga subreddit has about 140 subscribers
The Arcade subreddit has over 22 000 subscribers
The Retrogaming subreddit has almost 63 000 subscribers
Two remixes on OverClocked Remixes
300 000 people tuned in to watch a livestream of a Galaga tournament

Given such a wide range of values, the safest estimate probably puts the number of fans _in the thousands_.

Fast Facts:

Archive Of Our Own and FanFiction.net have about 60 fanfics combined that reference Galaga, the majority of which involve "Galaga Guy" from the first Avengers movie; even DeviantArt returns a scant almost 3000 results
The 2007 ABC series, _Lost_, features a submarine named after the game

Variety reports Galaga Chronicles is being developed by The Nuttery Entertainment, who reached an agreement with the original creators, Bandai Namco. The firm will be responsible for developing a story and characters for the Galaga series for the first time in its over 30 year history. No official word yet on where the animated series is set to land if it's completed and greenlit, but it's being reported the series and other Galaga related projects the company is working on will be cut across various platforms. The project is still very early on in development, so no release date has been given as of yet.

— Cinemablend - Galaga Might Get A TV Show, And Yes, We Mean That Galaga

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Justus

Given the age of Galaga and the fact that there haven't been that many remakes over the years... why Galaga? What is it about that game that lends itself to the longevity of the fandom?

How does the community stay together, given how small it is?

Is there an aspect to Galaga fandom that is non-competitive?

View Details

Oh no! We've been transported to another world where podcasters fight in some sort of Battle Royale (and also Z has been turned into a washing machine)?! This week, we're talking about the fascinating fandom that is Light Novel fans, with special guest, Justus R. Stone!

Next week, we'll be going to another other world... in ... space? Talking about... Galaga?!

Where can I learn more about Justus R. Stone?

Justus R. Stone is the author of the apocalyptic fiction series, The Bleeding Worlds, and has a podcast (Light Novel Podcast) and YouTube channel dedicated to light novels.

You can also find him on Twitter (@justusrstone), Instagram (@justusrstone) and Facebook (... @justusrstone).

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Light Novels are short (approximately 50 000 words), Japanese novels primarily targeted at high- and middle-school students which are often accompanied by manga- or anime-style illustrations. The "light" in the name actually comes from the lack of hard-to-read kanji (ideographic characters in Japanese).

Light novels are sort of the evolution of pulp novels and magazines in Japan: Somewhere in the 1970s, many pulp magazines had started to move away from classic-style covers towards more anime and manga style covers and including illustrations at the beginning of stories.

In the 1980s, novels like _The Heroic Legend of Arslan_ and _Record of Lodoss War_ took a hold of audience, as did _Slayers_ and the _Boogiepop_ series in the 1990s (note that many of these were turned into anime). Interest in light novels really took off in the mid-2000s with the success of the _Haruhi Suzumiya_ series.

Search Data:

By Google Trends search volume, Light Novels have become much, much more popular since 2004 and are arguably the most popular they have ever been. Since 2006, they have been on a steady climb upwards with exception to the last few years where interest has been a bit flat. There was a sharp increase in interest between February to August 2015, but we couldn't figure out why.

In terms of search volume, the top ten countries for_Light Novel_ are: Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, Phillipines, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Kazakhstan.

Fan Demographics:

Based on some data from the r/LightNovel Community Survey from 2016 (with over 1500 respondents):

_Gender_: In the subreddit, overwhelmingly male (95.6%; 3.3% female)
_Age_: Predominantly folks age 17-25 (40% 17-20 years old, 36.5% 20-25 years old)
_Location_: Most of respondents are in North America (51.1%) but many in Europe (27.2%) and some in Asia (11.1%)

Some other interesting bits of data from the survey:

Most folks come to the subreddit for Chinese light novels (57.8%), followed by Japanese (34.9%)
Respondents are predominantly lurkers (74.6%)
Most folks prefer to read by chapter (60.8%) as compared to by book (37.1%)
Most folks do not buy licensed light novels (76.4%)
Most folks do read Western books (78.4%) but do not prefer Western books to Light Novels (66.9%)

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Erica

What do you think are the qualities of light novels as a genre that makes them so interesting as reader and reviewer of light novels? (What are your thoughts about the genre as a whole, and personal interpretation of why you like them)

Why 'light' novels? Why

View Details

What has a history over a hundred years-old, goes beyond genre, and gets its name from the Japanese word for 'lily'? If you guessed yuri, you and our guest would be in good company! This week, we had special guest Erica Friedman to help us wrap up the season and educate us on the fascinating world of yuri... for the revolution of the world?!

Next week, it's season eight; what changes will we have in store?! One thing that won't change is that we'll have a new episode, this time with Justus R Stone talking about fans of light novels!

Where can I learn more about Erica Friedman?

If you want to learn more about Erica Friedman's fantastic work on yuri, you're in luck!

The Yuri New Network (now with podcast!): okazu.yuricon.com
YuriCon: yuricon.com
Facebook: @yuriconalc
Twitter: @okazuyuri

And, you can help support the continuation of that work by becoming a patron of her work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/okazu

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Yuri, or Girls' Love, is a genre of manga, anime, and other Japanese works involving lesbian relationships. It can focus on the romantic or sexual aspects of the relationships (or both). The word itself literally means 'lily', a common Japanese feminine name, and may be derived in parallel to the pre-existing association between the word for rose ('bara') and gay men.

...And of course there's a lot of history, which is why we have Erica to help us out!

Search Data:

Interest in Yuri has been relatively constant since 2004 with some slow growth. Most spikes in interest appear to be erroneously associated with the genre: a spike in December 2016 most likely corresponds to the finale of _Yuri!!! on Ice_, for example, as does a spike in August 2011 referring to cosmonaut _Yuri Gagarin_.

A quick comparison to Yaoi puts Yuri as just under half as popular but with similar trends.

In terms of search data by country, the top ten are: Japan, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, South Korea, Cambodia, Phillipines, Malaysia, and El Salvador (Canada is 30th, and United States is 32nd).

Fan Demographics:

Based on a fan survey conducted by Floating into Bliss in 2017, we do have some rough data from its almost 700 respondents.

Gender: A plurality identified as women (47.19%), but fairly equal representation of those identifying as men (44.31%) with the remainder identifying as non-binary / other.
Sexuality: Of the women who responded, 96.04% listed their sexuality as something _other_ than heterosexual (compared to 23.38% of men)
Age: The mode age group is 21-25 (though, 16-20 and 26-30 are also fairly represented)

Other neat facts from this survey include:

Most responses came from Twitter (and there was a higher proportion of responses from women than men on Twitter; a higher proportion of men responded from Reddit)
Most respondents prefer to read Yuri manga (55.39%) vs watching anime (16.97%) or visual novels (4.46%). 18.56% don't care about which medium.
The vast majority (84.9%) read both original and fan works
Over 80% enjoy shipping, and over 50% enjoy shipping but don't see it as a key aspect of their enjoying Yuri.
Over 40% read both pornographic and non-pornographic content and have no preference for which

The survey also lists favourite manga by groups... so I would highly recommend checking out the survey!

A slightly different survey from the International Anime Research Project also happened to ask about interest levels in Yuri (and other genres). Of the 300+ respondents (~54% identifying as ma

View Details

Is this action, adventure, or... romance? Whatever genre this is, its definitely a podcast, and T and Z are at each others throats defending some very (unimportant) opinions about what genres are and if they're still needed (they are not).

All this in 30 minutes or less!

Sources

Opening music, "Diggin' til the Very End" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA

View Details

It turns out... we had a lot to say about Disney theme parks, so enjoy part two (I guess it _isn't_ such a small world after all)!

Next episode, we have our finale, talking about fans of Yuri with Erica Friedman!

Where can I learn more about Tyler?

Tyler happens to run his own podcast, Ride Rehab, where he and his co-hosts put themselves in the role of Disney imagineers (i.e. the folks that make rides) and figure out how they would update different attractions at Disney! You can find lots of details about that via Twitter or Instagram both @RideRehab.

And, if you haven't got enough of Tyler, you can check out his personal art (as he _is_ a comic artist and illustrator): tylermannart.com or @TylerMannArt on Twitter.

Episode outline

The Verdict

T is in. Originally wasn't thinking it would be interesting... but a lot more interested after hearing Tyler talk.

G is in. In it for the dole whip.

Z is in. Intrigued by the immersiveness on offer.

Tyler is in. You can take the experience to as much of a level as you want to.

This week's spotlight

DisneyBound

DisneyBound is meant to be inspiration for you to pull together your own outfits which work for your body and wallet whether from your closet or local mall.

Dreams Take Flight

Dreams Take Flight is a national volunteer charitable organization dedicated to providing the trip of a lifetime to medically, mentally, physically, socially or emotionally challenged children. With the aid of Air Canada, other national and local organizations and businesses, money is raised to make the dream a reality in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. Funds not required for its primary purpose can be gifted by Dreams Take Flight to other registered charities that benefit physically, mentally or socially challenged children and are within the policies adopted by Dreams Take Flight Canada.

Famous Last Words

This week's famous last words around next week's fandom, Yuri!

Is there a Japanese version of Tanya Chalkin's "the Kiss"?

Who is Yuri for?

What is the first canonical Yuri manga?

Tyler

What is the primary focus of Yuri (since Yaoi seems to be focussed on the seme / uke relationship)?

Where can you find us online?

We are everywhere! Most notably though, we like to hang out in a few places on social media:

If you want to be part of our podcast (or just want to check us out), we record our podcast LIVE on twitch.tv every Monday at 20:00 Eastern Time!
For all the latest updates, check us out on Facebook or Twitter
To see the latest hijinx from our conventions or even our daily lives and adventures, check us out on Instagram
For our latest convention updates, Let's Plays, and other in-real-life video, check out our YouTube channel
We're also on iTunes, and Google Play, and would love it if you could leave a review and rating!
if you want to reach us, and for some reason none of those work for you, try nick@thenickscast.com
You can check out our website; that will mostly bring you back to this stuff.
Everything is thenickscast, so if you can't

View Details

This week, special guest Tyler "Spooky" Mann joins us a special guest friend to dig into the surprisingly large and _obviously_ magical world of Disney... theme parks! How many hidden Mickeys can you find?

Plus, this episode was so long that we broke it into two parts! Be prepared for the second half!

Where can I learn more about Tyler?

And, if you haven't got enough of Tyler, you can check out his personal art (as he _is_ a comic artist and illustrator): tylermannart.com or @TylerMannArt on Twitter.

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, officially Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. and informally known as Disney Parks, was one of The Walt Disney Company's four major business segments and a subsidiary. The company was responsible for the conception, building, and managing of Disney theme parks and vacation resorts, as well as a variety of family-oriented leisure enterprises. It was founded in 1971, following the opening of Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Florida.

— Wikipedia - Walt Disney Parks and Resorts

Search Data:

Interest in Walt Disney theme parks hasn't changed much since 2004; though interest in Walt Disney World is about half the interest as in 2004, Disneyland is about the same as it was. Search data is highly periodic, with spikes occurring regularly every January and interest slowly dropping throughout the year.

There is definitely an east-west divide in the United States, in terms of interest: folks in, or east of Colorado are more likely to search for Walt Disney World than Disneyland, for example.

The top ten countries, by search volume, for Walt Disney World are: United States (by a large margin), Puerto Rico, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Argentina, Australia, Norway, South Africa, and Mexico.

Size of Fandom:

Based on the data we have:

r/disneyparks has almost 10000 subscribers
The Magic Kingdom receives over 56 000 guests per day (with park capacity around 100 000), and over 20 million visitors per year according to this quora question.
r/disneybound has about 2000 subscribers
r/WaltDisneyWorld has almost 60 000 subscribers

That puts a good rough estimate in the _tens of thousands_ (if we're talking about dedicated fans), but its super hard to say given that fans of the parks are often fans of Disney properties in general.

Fan Demographics:

We weren't able to find a lot of demographics in terms of fandom, but there are some interesting statements based on data from the park and related sources:

... the average visitor has the disposable income. The average annual household income for guests at theme parks was $86,000, according to the study. That’s twice the $43,000 that residents in Greater Orlando bring home and way above the $55,775 median annual household income nationwide, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

... The report found that 18-29 year olds are the

View Details

This week, we take a bit more of a convention-al bent, to talk about the wider world of women heroes in media with special guest, Emily Gonsalves (con chair of the Pretty Heroes convention). We talk about representation of women in comics, tv, anime and manga and a LOT more.

Next week, we continue the magic with a trip to a little place that's a small world after world: that's right, we'll be talking about fans of Disney theme parks!

Where can I learn more about Emily Gonsalves and the Pretty Heroes convention?

Pretty Heroes is a convention dedicated to showcasing strong female characters and it's the first "girl power" convention in Toronto. It started as the Toronto Sailor Moon Celebration and grew with fan demand to expand into a convention with a new name (but the same heart) featuring a variety of anime, cute items, "girly" items, and plenty of intriguing female characters. The founder and con chair, Emily Gonsalves, is a professional graphic designer and marketing manager by day, but she also used to "moonlight" as a regular reporter for the Sailor Moon focused blog "Moon Chase." You can also find Emily at other conventions running panels about Sailor Moon, art, fandom, and social media marketing. To follow her Sailor Moon related content on social media, check out Moon Chase on Facebook and Twitter and SailorMoonCelebration on Instagram. For general female character and convention fun, check out Pretty Heroes on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Search Data:

Given the broadness of today's topic, its hard to get data... but we tried! Looking at Google Trends data for _Girl Power (search term)_, _Girl Power (Topic)_, and _Magical Girl (literary genre)_ all reveal interesting results...

Interest in the _Magical Girl_ literary genre is about twice as high as _girl power_. Interest was on a slow incline from 2004 to December 2010 before spiking dramatically starting in January 2011 (Madoka Magica), then decreasing a bit (still more popular than 2004).
Interest in _Girl Power (search term)_ has been on a slow increase since 2004, whereas _Girl Power (topic)_ has been on a slow _decline_ in the same period.

The top 5 countries for the various trends, by search volume:

_Magical Girl (literary genre)_: Japan, Macau, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong
_Girl Power (search term)_: Philippines, United States, Puerto Rico, Malaysia, Australia
_Girl Power (topic)_: Italy, Sweden, Australia, Denmark, Norway

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Who was the first pretty hero?

Who was the more popular female hero of the 90s? Xena, or Buffy?

Where does Lina Inverse sit in the roster of pretty heroes?

Sara

Given that it is an empowerment fantasy for young girls, how do people feel about magical girls? What are some of the discussions around that?

This week's spotlight

Inspiring Girls

Inspiring Girls International is an organisation dedicated to raising the aspirations of young girls around the world by connecting them with female role models.

Our goals are: - Exposing young girls (10-15 years old) to the full variety of careers and options in life; and - Inspiring them to aim high

... We connect female role models and young gir

View Details

At the outset of this season, we narrowly missed the chance to have Andy on the show to talk about fans of ReBoot (as he suggested the topic in the first place!) but now, all is right with the world as G and Z dig a bit deeper into ReBoot fandom with him!

All this in... under an hour? Not bad!

Where can I learn more about Andy?

You can learn more about Andy Spiteri through his work at Zelda Dungeon! Or, you can listen to the Champion's Cast, Zelda Dungeon's podcast that comes out every week.

Haven't got enough Andy?? Check him out on Twitter: @Spiteri316

Sources

Opening music, "Diggin' til the Very End" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

View Details

This week, we need an expert to get to the bottom of the difference between yaoi and shonen-ai, for starters, as we dive into the world of Boys' Love fans (just in time for Anime North)!

Where can I learn more about Sara (Feminist Fujoshi)?

Sara is the writer and moderator of the blog Feminist Fujoshi on Tumblr and WordPress. Sara's work on Feminist Fujoshi started on Tumblr in 2013 and she has even done some academic research on the subject!

If you want to check out more of her work, you can find her on Twitter @blusocket and soon on Anime Feminist!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

In English, often abbreviated BL. Written as BL or ボイズラブ in Japanese. The manga and anime genre of fictional male homosexual romance, created for a female audience. Used interchangeably with yaoi and shounen ai in English (but not in Japanese).

— Fanlore - Boys' Love

Search Data:

Based on the search data, interest in the literary genre of "Yaoi" is, generally, up. There was a wave of interest that appears to have started in 2011, peaked in Summer of 2015, then has been on a bit of decline ever since. It appears that Yaoi might be the general term that Google wraps up search terms under.

The top 10 countries, by search volume, for Yaoi, are as follows: Thailand, Phillipines, Chile, Vietnam, Bolivia, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Russia.

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Did this genre emerge simply because folks saw these elements in other stories and wanted to make a quick buck? Or was it about expressing themselves?

How much BL is sports manga?

Is there a golden standard for "this is the best BL manga" OR is it getting better as time goes on?

Dan

Is there a distinction between Yaoi and Boy's Love? Why has the terminology changed?

Ari

I really like Love Live? Where are the boy bands? Are there boy idols?

Raph

"hewwo i'm 5 wats yaoi"

The Verdict

G is in. Gravitation struck him like a lightning rod.

T is in. Going to check out some of Sara's recommendations. Wants to feel things!

Z is in. Standing in front of the door to BL. Wants to open the door to vulnerability.

Sarah is in. Complex genre with a really rich history! There's probably something for everyone, but you might have to dig.

This week's spotlight

Yaoi North

Yaoi North was originally created in 2004 by Bishounen Hideto and Gryvon, after a discussion in Anime North 2004’s yaoi panel about the need for an East Coast version of Yaoi-Con. A few months later, Hideto and Gryvon approached the Anime North staff with the idea of Yaoi North, a one-room event inside Anime North similar to the J-Rock room. They were given the go, and from there Yaoi North was born. Hideto pulled Chris in as staff to do artwork for us while Gryvon grabbed both Matan and Covarla as her lackeys, originally having Matan run Gay Sex 101 and Covarla check IDs. Yaoi North 2005 was the first run of the con. The majority of the programming was taken over by viewings, but a number of staple panels grew out of this year - namely Crossplay 101, World History of Homosexuality, and the ever-popular Gay Sex 101, which ran over its original one hour timeslot to become the longest running panel in con history.

— Yaoi North - About Us

Famous Last Words

View Details

If elected, T will ensure that all fans, no matter what they believe, will be able to walk around with Dakimakura in public, without being ridiculed. If Z is elected, only the true fans will be allowed to follow their manifest destiny in the world of fandom. G eats a sandwich. Pandemonium ensues? This week, we're talking about how far fandom has (or hasn't) come into the mainstream and what any of that means!

All this in 20 minutes or less!

Sources

Opening music, "Diggin' til the Very End" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

View Details

This week, there's no need to use a Phoenix Down because we are ALIVE, and talking about the fans of the Final Fantasy series! The iconic music, characters, stories, costumes... whatever it may be, it has left a lasting mark on the RPG and video game worlds for the decades since its introductions, and we get into all of that with some special guest friends of ours, Dan and Ari!

Next week, just in time for Anime North, we're talking about fans of Boys' Love with Sarah of the Feminist Fujoshi!

Where can I learn more about Dan and Ari?

You might remember Dan and Ari from our super-cut of Super MAGFest 2018 and his panel on the music of Final Fantasy. You can check out more of their work online:

_Ari_

_Dan_

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Final Fantasy is a science fiction and fantasy media franchise owned by Square Enix. Despite having fifteen numbered games, 135 million copies of the various games sold, and well over 40 different sequels, spin-offs, and other properties, the game acquired its moniker in 1987 due to the game designers' belief that Square was going to go bankrupt (according to Nobuo Uematsu, composer of many famous _Final Fantasy_ tracks).

Though most of the numbered games are stand-alone stories in different settings with different characters, there are many recurring plot themes, game mechanics, and character names (e.g. Plots center on a group of heroes battling a great evil while exploring the characters' internal struggles and relationships).

Search Data:

The Final Fantasy series has had a dramatic decrease in interest since 2004. The series is about a tenth as popular as it was back in 2004. There are spikes in interest in September 2005 (The release of _Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children_), March 2010 (_Final Fantasy XIII_), and December 2016 (_Final Fantasy XV_).

The top ten countries, by search volume, are as follows: Phillipines, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Canada, Malaysia, South Korea, United States, New Zealanda, Spain.

[// Also gives us some interesting data on most searched By topic:

XIII-2
Dissidia
Brave Exvius
Lightning Returns XIII
XV

By query: XIV XIII-2 Dissidia A Realm Reborn (XIV) Type 0 Exvius ]: #

Fan Demographics:

We actually managed to find a survey from 2015 with some data! Though it is skewed towards whoever responded on r/FinalFantasy, Tobzzen has us covered with almost 5000 responses:

_Age:_ 21 to 30 years old (47%), 18 to 20 years old (42%) — a very narrow age range
_Gender:_ Male (82%), Female (16%), Other (2%)
_Location_: >50% North America, >30% Europe
_Employment Status:_ 60% studying or working
_Gaming Status:_ 95% had more than 4 years of computer gaming experience; >25% had more than 16 years experience
_Game Playing Time:_ 53% played on average 3-6 hours per day; >10% played more than 10 hours per day

Fanac Fast Facts:

Archive Of Our Own has [over 28 000 works related to the Fi

View Details

Everything that lives is designed to end. We are perpetually trapped in a never-ending spiral of life and death. Is this a curse? Or some kind of punishment? I often think about the god who blessed us with this cryptic puzzle...and wonder if we'll ever get the chance to kill him.

— Nier: Automata

Uh... we're talking about Nier this week, and hopefully we don't dive too far down the existentialist rabbithole. Plus, we've got special guest Sarah (aka SMZeldaRules) as our resident Nier-ologist to get us through it all.

Next week, we'll dive into that long-running and epic fandom: Final Fantasy fans (with special guests, Dan and Ari)!

Where can I learn more about SMZeldaRules?

Do you like Cosplay? Perhaps Video Games? Good news! SMZeldaRules is a huge fan of both! If you want to follow her work, you can find her on...

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smzeldarulesartandcosplay
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smzeldarules/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/smzeldarules
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/smzeldarules
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/smzeldarulescosplay

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Nier... is actually a complicated game series to explain. It is definitely most well-known because of the 2017 entry in the series, _Nier: Automata_, but technically that is a sequel to the less popular _Nier_ (2010), which itself is a sequel to Ending E of _Drakengard / Drag-On Dragoon_ (2003). I think I've got that right.

Speaking just about _Nier_ and _Nier: Automata_ (for the moment), the games are set in the far future where Earth has been left in a state of decay. _Nier_ focussed on the character of the same name attempting to find a cure for an illness, the Black Scrawl, and the sequel focusses on a combat android, 2B, in the midst of a proxy war between androids and machines created by otherworldly invaders. Did we mention it gets complicated?

Both _Nier_ and _Nier: Automata_ were written by the eclectic Yoko Taro. And combined have sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide.

Search Data:

Given the complicated nature of the series, I looked up _Drakengard_, _Nier_, and _Nier: Automata_. The data is very spiky, but generally interest has gone up since 2004 (although most interest has been since March 2017 - approximately the release date).

Since _Automata_ has the most data, we used it for looking at interest by region. The top 10 countries, by search data: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Philippines, Moldova, Malaysia, Russia, Puerto Rico.

(_Nier_ data is pretty similar in terms of top five, but Canada makes an appearance at 6th and Australia at 10th)

Size of Fandom:

Looking at the data we have from a few sources:

There are almost 31 000 subscribers on r/nier
Metacritic has over 2700 user ratings for Automata
Nier: Automata has sold over 2 million copies by March 2018 It's fair to say that there are tens of thousands of dedicate fans of Nier.

Fanac Fast Facts:

Archive Of Our Own has about 400 fics related to the Nier series:
... Most of which are F/M (224)
... Most of which have no crossover
... Most of which involve 2B (296) or 9S (280)
In a 'best girl' survey on the Nier subre

View Details

What if you were listening to the latest episode in Dolby Surround 11.1 (that's right, this one goes to 11.1)!? Well, probably nothing, but we're sure someone out there would care. This week, we're talking about ~~the highest~~ super high definition displays, and unearthing why folks care so much about 4k resolution!

All this in 20 minutes or less!

Sources

Opening music, "Diggin' til the Very End" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA

View Details

This week's episode will be interrupted by a number of spectacular, linear tracking shots, all filmed with a delightful sepia-esque duotone filter. Oh, and Bill Murray will be there... probably? That's right, we're talking about the works of Wes Anderson (and fans of his work)!

Expecting LEGO? There was a bit of a scheduling mixup. Try again later.

Next week, we have special guest, SMZeldaRules to talk about the complex and fascinating world of the _Nier_ games!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Wes Anderson is an American film director, producer, screen writer and actor known for his peculiar visual and narrative style. His films and himself have been nominated for (and have won) many different awards. He has directed 9 feature length films since 1996.

Anderson is regarded by many as a modern-day example of the auteur. He has received consistent praise from critics for his work, and three of his films—The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Grand Budapest Hotel—appeared in BBC's 2016 poll of the greatest films since 2000.

— Wikipedia - Wes Anderson

Search Data:

Interest in Wes Anderson is very spiky, but overall interest in him has been lifted since about January 2012. Most notable spikes include October 2007 (_The Darjeeling Limited_), June 2012 (_Moonrise Kingdom_), March 2014 (_The Grand Budapest Hotel_), February 2015 (BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, _Grand Budapest Hotel_), and April 2018 (_Isle of Dogs_).

Top countries, by search volume: United States, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, Australia, United Kingdom, Sweden, Italy, Norway, Singapore.

Size of Fandom:

Based on a few data points:

There are over 12 000 subscribers on r/wesanderson
Bottle Rocket has over 60 000 ratings on IMDb
There are over 220 000 subscribers on r/AccidentalWesAnderson
Moonrise Kingdom has over 270 000 ratings on IMDb

It's safe to put the number of fans somewhere in _the low hundreds of thousands_

Fan Demographics:

We did manage to get some demographic information... in a bit of a roundabout way. YouGov has a page for Wes Anderson, and by reading some of the source code and information on the page, we can get a very rough idea compared to 'competitors':

_Age:_ A lot younger than competitors
_Gender:_ A lot more female than competitors
_Politics:_ A lot more left leaning than competitors

If we look at a bit more general data like the ratings data from IMDb for Moonrise Kingdom, we can get a loose idea of age and gender (admittedly, skewed by general cinema-goers):

_Gender:_ Predominantly male (63%)
_Age:_ Largest group is aged 30-44 (37%) followed by 18-29 (35%)

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Whoops! Due to a scheduling conflicts, last week's famous last words about Lego don't apply to this week's episode... on Wes Anderson.

The Verdict

G is in. Is his favourite director.

T is out. Might watch some of the other movies.

Z is in. Not a big a fan as G... not quite.

This week's spotlight

Not so much a spotlight as an interesting (if ill-thought out) homage to Wes Anderson films.

Sammy the Explorer

Charities HurleyH20 and SurfAid Sumba decided to promote their clean-water charity project with a video shot in the style of filmmaker Wes Ander

View Details

This week, we're talking about the who, what, and why of Chiptunes! A few parts music theory, a few parts video games, and a lot of speculation!

Next week, Nier, far, wherever you are, we know that your heart will be... drifting out in space, ready to take down aliens? We'll be talking about the Nier series!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Chiptune (also known as chip music or 8-bit music) is a style of synthesized electronic music which is made for a programmable sound generator (PSG) though the term is also often used for music made in the _tracker_ format, which is intended to sound like PSG-created music. This music is often composed from 'simple' wave forms such as pulse waves, square waves, triangle waves, and sawtooth waves.

Although real-time synthesized has been possible since as early as 1951, it wasn't until the golden age of video arcade games (late 70s and early 80s) that chiptune music began to appear in video games (and by extension, reach the masses). Of particular note, artists such as Yello Magic Orchestra had started sampling video game music in the late 70s which had a major influence on music that would later come in the 8- and 16-bit eras.

Various advances in computing, such as frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis), MIDI, and sample-based sound synthesis furthered chiptune music up until the end of the 1980s where chiptune music declined in popularity until a resurgence in interest in the mid-2000s with mainstream music leveraging the artform again (for example, _Girl_ by Beck, or _On Top_ by the Killers).

We could likely have a whole episode on the history of chiptunes...

Search Data:

Interest in Chiptune is probably about the same as the oldest data we have from 2004. As mentioned in the history, the mid-2000s did see an increase in chiptune music, from 2004 until the height of interest in August 2010 (possibly related to Kesha's best-selling single of 2010, _Tik Tok_). Since then, interest has been on a slow decline to 2004 levels.

The top 10 countries, by search volume, are as follows: Sweeden, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Denmark, United States, United Kingdom, Japan.

Size of Fandom:

Based on a few data points...

The chiptune subreddit has over 22 000 subscribers
Anamanaguchi released their album _Endless Fantasy_ (and then some) on Kickstarter with over 7000 backers and over $250 000 USD
DJ Cutman has almost 9000 followers on Facebook
Ben Briggs has over 12 000 subscribers on YouTube

It's safe to say that there are probably tens of thousands of fans of chiptunes.

Fan terms:

There are some terms that are not exactly fan terms, but more generally musical / technical terms:

_Sample_: a digital sound file of an instrument, voice, or sound effect
_Note_: the frequency a sample is played at, like an instrument (e.g. _C_, _C#_, _G_)
_Track / Channel_: a space where a sample is played back at a time. Some hardware limits the number of channels available, and modern trackers often have an unlimited number of channels.
_Pattern_: a group of tracks that represents a full section of a song
_Order_: part of a sequence of patterns that defines the layout of a song
_Fakebit_: Poorly defined, but often referring to music that is written that is possible to be performed on a particular sound chip, but may have been written on modern hardware
_Riptunes_: A more extreme version of Fakebit; music that uses chiptune sounds without regard to whether or not the piece could b

View Details

This week, we don't want to hold down the B button as we talk about fans of retrogaming with special guest, Mike, from Lost Without Translation!

Next week, we'll be continuing the feel-good beeps and boops to talk about Chiptunes!

Where can I learn more about Mike?

Mike is an avid collector, but _also_ part of a YouTube channel that reviews and runs retrospectives on games... without an English translation. If you want to check out their work, visit YouTube.com/lostwithouttranslation!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Retrogaming is the playing or collecting of PC, console, and arcade video games; usually these games are for systems that are obsolete or have been discontinued. To make a distinction, it can broadly be broken into vintage retrogaming (i.e. on the original hardware), emulation retrogaming, and ported retrogaming.

Whether or not they go by the name _retrogamers_, _classic gamers_ or _old school gamers_, one thing is clear: there is not a ton of agreement on what constitutes the 'retro' in retrogaming (though the first usages date back to 1997 with the RetroGames video game store, and 1998 with the emulation website retrogames.com).

Some commonly used definition include:

Consoles from the 70s, 80s, and 90s
"Anything older than the consoles that came out when I was younger"
"Anything that doesn't work with my TV"
Anything before the 6th generation (e.g. Nintendo Gamecube, Sony Playstation 2)

Search Data:

Based on the search data, interest in Retrogaming has been on the upswing since around October 2012 after generally being on the decline (and in general, dwarfs interest in video game collecting). The most notable spike in interest is probably December 2017 (Christmas after the release of the SNES mini), though it isn't very dramatic.

The top 10 countries, by search volume, are: United Kingdom, Japan, Ireland, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Greece, United States, Netherlands, France.

Fan Demographics:

From a 2017 demographic survey on the RetroGaming subreddit. Of the over 600 respondents:

_Age_: The largest group was people ages 25 to 34 (42%)
_Years Playing_: The largest group was people who had played for 26 to 30 years (23%) but its worth noting that only 1.7% of respondents had been playing video games for five years or less
_Top five retro platforms_: SNES (71%), NES (57%), Genesis (47%), N64 (40%), PlayStation (38%)
Most prefer to _play on original hardware_ (59%)

Worth noting, the top five platforms more or less line up with Game Stop's survey of PowerUp Rewards members (all five platforms were in their top 10).

From earlier this year, Ipsos Connect's GameTrack consumer survey also has some nugget about European retro gamers:

41% of retro gamers believe that older games are better than current ones (23% disagreed)
66% like to revisit games from their youth
38% stated that classic games are never as good as they remember

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Classic rock still means music from 70s... is retro gaming the same? Does retrogaming expand as time goes on?

What more is there to retrogaming fandom than collecting?

Why do people bother making their own NES or SNES carts (as in, new games)? Why do they go that extra mile?

The Verdict

G is in. Still loves the SNES, loves retro-style ga

View Details

"I come from the Nickscast. Through conventions, people, and cities, to this place - Fanthropological. My format, Co-host: To state and investigate. To learn about my new found friends, their hopes and dreams, and to defend them from their enemies. ... They say _the chat_ lives outside the podcast and inputs text for pleasure. No one knows for sure, but I intend to find out!"

Uh... yeah. We're talking about fans of ReBoot (the animated series). Next week? Retrogaming!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

ReBoot is a Canadian CGI-animated action-adventure television series that originally aired from 1994 to 2001. It was produced by Vancouver-based production company Mainframe Entertainment, Alliance Communications and BLT Productions. The series follows the adventures of a Guardian named Bob and his companions Enzo and Dot Matrix as they work to keep the computer system of Mainframe safe from the viruses known as Megabyte and Hexadecimal. It was the world's first ever half-hour, completely computer-animated TV series. ...

A reimagined, live-action/CG-animated series, ReBoot: The Guardian Code, was announced in 2015 and is slated to premiere on Netflix worldwide (excluding Canada) on March 30, 2018. YTV will later broadcast the series sometime in June 2018.

— Wikipedia - ReBoot

Search Data:

Considering that the show aired until 2001, _Google Trends'_ usual 2004 limit on data almost works in this case! Interest in the show has been mostly flat, or arguably on a very slow decline. There have been some notable spikes in interested around July 2007 (likely due to the announcement of a potential trilogy of films), May 2008 (Countdown to the launch of a webcomic, _Code of Honor_), December 2010 (Possibly due to the rights being acquired for a full DVD release) and February 2018 (The announcement of _ReBoot: The Guardian Code_ with a release date).

The top ten countries, by search volume: Canada, Philippines, South Africa, Kenya, United States, Pakistan, New Zealand, Croatia, Puerto Rico, and Singapore.

Size of Fandom:

Some of the notes on ReBoot in fanlore mention it as a microfandom: a source with some interest beyond a single fan, but perhaps not with a specific community or fansite, or without a lot of fanworks.

That being said, we can still give a rough estimate of the size of the fandom based on a few different data sources:

There are over 4000 ratings on IMDB
The ReBoot subreddit has over 1600 subscribers

With so few data points, and the new series not being released yet, it's hard to estimate the size of the fandom. A rough estimate would be in the low _tens-of-thousands_.

Fanac Fast Facts:

Archive Of Our Own has almost 90 fanworks related to ReBoot
Did you know that Gillian Anderson was in an episode of ReBoot?
The show only had 4 seasons, totaling 48 episodes, and the delay of seasons three and four was partly caused by Mainframe entertainment's work on other TV shows
Over 30 different established computer games are featured throughout the series

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

How much non-nostalgic interest is there in the series?

Is there a reboot fan convention?

Is there another country where Reboot was and is popular?

The Verdict

Z is in. Missed

View Details

Out of all the games on all the consoles in all the world, this one walked onto mine. This week, we're talking about the re-release of the remastered _Secret of Mana_! Why did Square Enix release it over its contemporaries? And what's the deal with video game re-releases anyway?

All this in 20 minutes or less!

Sources

"Ringing Phone Sound" by Mike Koenig used under CC BY 3.0
Opening music, "Diggin' til the Very End" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA
Ending music, "Bounty Hunter" by Dj CUTMAN used under CC BY-NC-SA

View Details

This week, we make sure that everything is cleared by the ethics committee before we talk about SCP-001. That's right we're talking about fans of the SCP Foundation!

...And that's it for this season! Main episodes will be back in two weeks, but stay tuned because next week we have a special introduction to the podcast, our first regular minisode!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

The SCP Foundation (Secure, Contain, Protect) is a fictional organization launched in 2008 that is the subject of web-based collaborative writing project of the same name. Stories from the project often describe situations that violate natural law, and are written in an academic, scientific writing style. The series of stories started with SCP-173 on 4chan's paranormal _/x/_ board.

The SCP Foundation has hundreds of different stories about various SCPs and the SCP Foundation itself, and has also inspired many spin-off works such as _SCP - Containment Breach_.

Search Data:

Interest in the SCP Foundation follows a strange trend. From 2004 to January 2012, interest was on a steady decline. However, after that point there was a sharp increase in interest followed by a mostly upward trend in interest with spikes in May 2012 (Possibly Markiplier playing _Containment Breach_ ), August 2014, and April 2017 (Series IV opens up?).

The top 10 countries, by search volume are: Japan, South Korea, Poland, United States, Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan.

Fan Demographics:

Fortunately, the SCP Foundation website holds an annual community survey. Here are some interesting demographics and data points from the over 6000 responses for the 2017 survey.

_Age_ : The largest group is those 15-19 (~ 50%), then 20-24 (~ 21%), and under 15 (~ 11%)
_Gender_ : Predominantly male (~ 81%), with some female representation (~ 10%), and some smaller populations present as well (e.g. 1.9% non-binary, 1.1% agender, 1.6% genderfluid)
_Language_ : Predominantly English (~ 75%), but many languages represented
_Country_ : Predominantly United States (~ 55%) but representation from many different countries

Some other interesting notes about the fandom:

Most found out about the SCP Foundation via Markiplier (~ 16%), one of the SCP games (~ 12%), another Youtube channel (9.9%) or a referral (9.9%) - The SCP Foundation adhere's to the International System of Units

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Z Is there a writer who is at least internet famous who got their start with the SCP Foundation?

G How influenced is it by pop culture?

T Are they supposed to be creepy?

EFG Nick Time travel creepypasta.

The Verdict

Z is out. Cool concept… but have a hard time with initial disappointment that they aren't _all_ creepy. G is in. "This is the creepypasta that I want to read." T is in. So much diversity of concept!

Famous Last Words

This week's famous last words around _next week 's_ fandom, ReBoot!

G How much non-nostalgic interest in the series?

T Is there a reboot fan convention?

Z Is there another country where ReBoot was and is popular?

Where can you find us online?

We are everywhere! Most notably though, we like to hang out in a few places on social media:

If you want to be part of our podcast (or just want to check us out), we record our podcast LIVE on twitch.tv every Monday at 20:00 Eastern Time!
For all the latest updates, check us out on Facebook or Twitter
To see the latest hijinx from our conventions or even our

View Details

For a limited time only*, you can check out this week's episode IN SMELL-O-VISION as we talk about fans of fad foods! Plus, we've got a special guest: Nick H of the Epic Film Guys and RestauRant podcast!

Next week, we're closing out the season with a callback to the first episode. We'll be getting our D-4 classification to learn about the world of the SCP Foundation!

* Only at participating locations

Where can I learn more about EFG Nick and the Epic Film Guys?

Epic Film Guy Nick has been in love with film and filming for as long as he can remember. When he’s not listening to Justin’s lisp, he is focused on his two sons, fiancee, and working on his own screenplays. Other interests include beer and playing music.

— Epic Film Guys - About Us

To find out more, check out:

The Epic Film Guys podcast
The RestauRant podcast
The Epic Film Guys on Twitter and Facebook
Nick H on Twitter: @thedraylives

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Search Data:

We had no idea how to even broach this topic; what is the search term for fad food? What we learned is that interest in the McRib, for example, dwarfs interest in search terms like 'fad food' or 'hipster food'. If you remove that, there is a noted increase in interest in 'hipster food' and decrease in interest in 'fad food' since 2004 (though overall, fad food is the more popular search).

The vast majority of results come from countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Is there a fad food fan out there who collects wrappers (or similar)?

What was the first fast food restaurant to have a secret menu?

Are there people who collect and preserve fad foods? If so, how do they do it?

The Verdict

T is out. Fad food fans are not a thing. G is out. Not tailgatin' in a McDonald's parking lot. Z is out. Not chasing down fad foods. EFG Nick is out. Can't... no. Just eat something else. McRib is garbage.

This week's spotlight

Ronald McDonald House Charities or in the US

Ronald McDonald Houses provide families of sick children with a home to stay at while their child is being treated at a nearby hospital. Ronald McDonald Family Rooms also provide a comfortable place for families to rest and recharge, right inside hospitals. And through Ronald McDonald Care Mobiles, we help to bring basic medical care to vulnerable communities. So families can stay together and kids can heal better.

Famous Last Words

This week's famous last words around next week's fandom, SCP Foundation!

Is there a writer who is at least internet famous who got their start with the SCP foundation?

How influenced is it by pop culture?

Are they supposed to be creepy?

EFG Nick

Time travel creepypasta.

Where can you find us online?

We are everywhere! Most notably though, we like to hang out in a few places on social media:

If you want to be part of our podcast (or just want to check us out), we record our podcast LIVE on twitch.tv every Monday at 20:00 Eastern Time!
For all the latest updates, check us out on Facebook or Twitter
To see the latest hijinx from our conventions or even our daily lives and adventures, check us out on Instagram
For our lat

View Details

This week's episode is gr-r-reat, probably because we can see why kids love the swirl of Nicks in every bit of this week's episode... on Breakfast Cereal fans!

Next week, we'll have special guest friend, EFG Nick, to talk about fans of fad foods!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Breakfast cereal is a type of food, often made of grains and eaten as the first meal of the day (in Western society, at least). Cereals are often fortified with vitamins, lack the vitamins needed for a healthy breakfast, _and_ are often high in sugar. In 1970, there were only 160 different kinds of cereal in the US; in 2012, there were almost 5000.

Breakfast cereal actually shares its history _way_ back with indigenous North Americans who had found a way to make ground corn palatable (later, called "grits" or "hominy")... though it never gained a foothold in the northern US. Apparently, there was a group of food reformers who wanted to cut back on excessive meat consumption at breakfast (including Seventh-day Adventists, who made the food reforms part of their religion).

Flash forward a bit to the end of the 19th century with a certain John Harvey Kellogg, son of an Adventist factory owner, medical superintendent, _and_ masturbation rehabilitator. The institute he worked at often had wealthy industrialists visit for recuperation and they were accustomed to egg, ham, sausage, fried potatoes, coffee... and so on; at the facility, they found abstinence and a vegetarian diet. Kellogg experimented with granola, which eventually lead to Cornflakes, the archetypical breakfast cereal. Later, Charles W. Post (a patient at Kellogg's sanitarium), impressed by the all-grain diet, began experimenting on his own and eventually introduced Grape-nuts.

...But there is a lot of history. Too much for me to get through. Read it for yourself on wikipedia.

Search Data:

Would you believe that we are in the middle of a slow growth in interest in breakfast cereal? While there was a decline in interest from 2004 to about 2008, it seems that interest is slowly on the rise again.

The top 10 countries by search volume: Poland, United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Singapore, South Korea, Norway, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand.

Fanac Fast Facts:

There are over 1000 fanfics when searching for cereal on Archive of Our Own
Frankenberry caused a strange health epidemic in the 70s... because kids were eating a lot of the cereal leaving their stool discoloured
There were some really racist and weird cereal mascots, like So-hi and a creepy clown for "Rice Krinkles" (later, Cocoa and Fruity Pebbles)
Cap'n Crunch has a backstory

Taken from the official website as well as commercials and official social media posts, Crunch Island, located in the Sea of Milk--a magical place with talking trees, crazy creatures and a whole mountain (Mt. Crunchmore) made out of Cap’n Crunch cereal--is the birthplace of Cap'n Horatio Magellan Crunch.

— Odyssey - 4 Strange Things You Never Knew About Your Favorite Breakfast Cereals

[Last Episode's](http://fanthropological.com/e/wonder-woman-l

View Details

This week, in honour of International Women's Day, we're talking about an important fandom in the DC Comics universe. We're talking about that founding member of the Justice League, goddess, and Ambassador-at-Large of the Amazon people: Wonder Woman!

And can you spot the swirls of cinnamon and sugar in every minute of next week's podcast? We'll be talking about fans of ... Breakfast Cereal?

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Wonder Woman is a character in the DC Comics universe and is a founding member of the Justice League. Her official title is Princess Diana of Themyscira, Daughter of Hippolyta but when blending into society outside of her homeland, she adopts the identity _Diana Prince_. She has several heroic abilities including superhuman strength, speed, durability, and longevity, accelerated healing factor, flight, and possesses a variety of interesting technology such as the Lasso of Truth, indestructible bracelets, and a tiara that she often uses as a projectile.

Originally developed in 1941, she was created by American psychologist William Moulton Marston and artist Harry G Peter, and was heavily influenced by Olive Byrne, Marston's lover, his wife, Elizabeth Marston, and early feminists.

Wonder Woman has been depicted in various media including the 1975 TV series, many animated series, and most recently, the 2017 movie.

Search Data:

Strangely, the most search data seems to be around Diana Prince rather than her superheroic name. That being said, interest in the character had been almost flat (slight increase in interest) until approximately 2016 when there was a much more noticeable increase in interest (and notably, with the release of the 2017 movie as well).

The top ten countries, by search volume, are: Puerto Rico, Brazil, Phillipines, United States, Singapore, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Taiwan, United Kingdom.

Fan Demographics:

Looking at Facebook data, Brett Schenker dug into fans of Wonder Woman to draw some interesting data:

Overall, men made up about 52% of the population in the various countries, but accounted for almost 57% of the Wonder Woman fans
Most female Wonder Woman fans: South Korea (72%)
Most male Wonder Woman fans: India (88%)

Fast Facts:

Archive of Our Own has over 800 fan works related to Wonder Woman
The majority of which are categorized as F/M (471)
The _vast_ majority deal with DC universe
Top 3 pairings: Diana / Trevor (247), Diana / Bruce Wayne (69), Diana / Steve Rogers (57)

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

As we found in the Barbie episode... is there a Wonder Woman fan who strives to look like Wonder Woman (to the extreme)?

Is Wonder Woman more popular with men, or women? At what point did she lose her bizarre weaknesses (and was that influenced by the times)?

Are there fans out there who see Wonder Woman as an American patriotic symbol? If so, how does that work?

The Verdict

T is in. Hope is a very powerful motivator... and Wonder Woman has a lot of hope. Z is out.

G is in. Will probably investigate some of the recent titles.

View Details

We've no room for dead parrots, flying circus, silly walks, or arguments... or do we? This week, we're talking about fans of that iconic English comedy group that are definitely not snakes: Monty Python!

Next week, we'll be travelling to Themyscira to learn about fans... of Wonder Woman!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Monty Python (or _The Pythons_) were a group of British comedians for formed a surreal comedy group and created their own sketch comedy show, _Monty Python's Flying Circus_ which first aired on the BBC in 1969. The group consisted of six members, who you may know from many different works: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. As a group responsible for their own comedy writing and performances, they went on to create many different work including at least three movies (_Holy Grail_, _Life of Brian_, _The Meaning of Life_), 5 years of their television program, and several specials and other live performances.

Their influence on British comedy has been apparent for years, while in North America, it has coloured the work of cult performers from the early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. "Pythonesque" has entered the English lexicon as a result.

— Wikipedia - Monty Python

Search Data:

Looking at search data for Monty Python, interest in Monty Python has been on the decline since 2004. The most dramatic change was between 2004 and 2010, but has otherwise been quite slow (and mostly flat). Nonetheless, there have been some spikes in interest in July 2014 (_Monty Python Live (Mostly): One Down, Five to Go_), November 2013 (a reunion to pay for legal fees for _Spamalot!_), and October 2009 (_Monty Python: Almost the Truth - The Lawyer's Cut_).

The top ten countries for Monty Python, by search interest, are: United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Czechia, Canada, Poland, and Finland.

Size of Fandom:

Given the age of the works of Monty Python, it is quite difficult to get an accurate assessment of the size of the fandom as we are well past the time of their zeitgeist. That being said, here is the data that we have:

The Monty Python Subreddit has over 7500 subscribers
The IMDB page for Monty Python and the Holy Grail has over 400 000 ratings

We were unable to collect any other data, so a rough estimate of fandom size today probably puts it within the low millions.

Famous fan works:

It's hard to draw a line between inspiration and fan works, but in this case, one example sticks out: _Spamalot!_, a musical 'ripped off' from the movie, _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_.

Fast Facts:

Archive Of Our Own has upwards of 170 fan works related to Monty Python's works or actors (the largest of which are real-person fiction (RPF) at 86 works)

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Why does reciting a thing that you're watch make it better??

Tyler

How important is it to a fan to have grown up watching it?

Why do so many groups ape Monty Python given a lot of their appeal is their absurdity and unpredictability?

[// It turns out, I was remembering an ancient XKCD comic (#16... Jan 1, 2006). I don't think this is unique to Monty Python; at this point, we've also seen it with the Simpsons, Family Guy, etc. I think it's

View Details

This week, are we getting Rick-ity wrecked in order to learn about Rick and Morty fandom? Not exactly, but I guess that's the waaaaaaaay the news goes. We ARE chatting with Tyler Marchant (host of the Cynical Cartoons Podcast) to learn more about the fandom and the appeal of Rick and Morty!

Next week, we'll be visiting the Ministry of Silly Walks to learn more about fans of Monty Python!

Where can I learn more about Tyler Marchant?

The best way to learn more about Tyler are to check out his podcasts, Cynical Cartoons or Tynami. You can also support him on Patreon!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Rick and Morty is an American adult animated science-fiction sitcom created by Justin Roiland and Dan Harmon for Cartoon Network's late-night programming block Adult Swim. The series follows the misadventures of cynical mad scientist Rick Sanchez and his fretful, easily influenced grandson Morty Smith, who split their time between domestic life and interdimensional adventures. The series premiered on December 2, 2013, and the third season concluded on October 1, 2017. A fourth season has been mentioned, first by Harmon in a September 2017 interview, and later in the post-credits scene of the third season's finale.

— Wikipedia - Rick and Morty

Search Data:

Interest in Rick and Morty is definitely on the rise, overall (though is in a recent period of decline). It has had some huge spikes in interest, namely at the beginning of October 2015 (airing of season two premiere) and much more dramatically April 1, 2017 (Secret season three premiere) and during July to October 2017 (the remainder of season three).

The top 10 countries, by search volume, are: Canada, Australia, United States, New Zealand, Ireland, Russia, Belarus, United Kingdom, Norway, and Israel.

Size of Fandom:

Based on the data...

There are over 700 000 subscribers to r/rickandmorty (the 75th most active subreddit, according to this YouGov article)
It has almost 200 000 ratings on IMDB (and a score of 9.3 / 10)

Based on the scant data available, we would estimate the number of fans to be in the low millions.

Fan Demographics:

According to a data provided by YouGov:

70% of fans are men

44% are ages 25-34

36% make less than $30 000 annually

87% use the internet as their primary source of information

71% think that ads are a waste of time

68% consider themselves to be introverts

61% don't feel there's a sense of community where they live

— YouGov - Don't underestimate Rick and Morty fans

Fast Facts:

Archive Of Our Own has over 2500 Rick and Morty fan works
...Over 800 are rated as 'Explicit'
...Over 1300 are categroized as M/M, over 500 as F/M, and almost 500 as Gen
...The largest non-Rick and Morty fandom crossover: Gravity Falls (almost 400)

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Does the Sci-fi help Rick and Morty transcend English?

View Details

This week, T is Tanking, G and Z take Offense as they all push the payload towards the goal: Discovering what is the appeal of Overwatch, and what makes people a fan of it. Are there fans that try to embody characters when they play? Why is Hanzo maining a bad thing? How did fan's react to Tracer's girlfriend? All this and more as we dig into the fandom!

Next week, SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT: We'll be talking about fans of Rick and Morty (with a special guest)!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Overwatch is a class-based, online first-person shooter (FPS) developed by Blizzard Entertainment released in May 2016. Mechanically, the game consists of two teams of six "heroes" each working towards some objective depending on the game mode. There are over twenty heroes, each with their own unique abilities and skills broadly grouped into "offense", "defense", "tank", and "support" roles.

As far as the story of the game:

Soldiers. Scientists. Adventurers. Oddities.

In a time of global crisis, an international task force of heroes banded together to restore peace to a war-torn world: Overwatch.

It ended the crisis and helped to maintain peace in the decades that followed, inspiring an era of exploration, innovation, and discovery. But after many years, Overwatch's influence waned, and it was eventually disbanded.

Overwatch is gone… but the world still needs heroes.

Now, conflict is rising across the world again, and the call has gone out to heroes old and new. Are you with us?

— Fanlore - Overwatch

Search Data:

Looking at the search data for Overwatch, search interest in the game has been on a slow decline since about August of 2016, but still remains fairly popular. The largest spike in popularity occurred in May 2016, which likely coincides with the open beta of the game.

The top ten countries, by search volume, are: South Korea (by a large margin), Singapore, Finland, Sweeden, Norway, Canada, Australia, United States, Taiwan, and New Zealand.

Size of Fandom:

Looking at some of the data...

Approximately 1.1 million subscribers on r/overwatch
Over 138 000 subscribers on r/CompetitiveOverwatch
Almost 120 000 subscribers on r/OverwatchUniversity
As of last January, the game itself had over 25 million players

Easily, the number of fans is in the tens of millions.

Fan Demographics:

There seems to be no shortage of sites that will give details on the _characters_, but not so much on the players. For example, Overwatch Tracker offers data on hero playtime and skill rankings, and from that we can see some general data points about the _game_.

However, we're more interested in the _players_. From this thread in the Overwatch subreddit, we can get _some_ data from its over 3000 respondents:

Gender: 83.3% Male, 14.9% Female
Age: Almost 70% of respondents are under the age of 24
Frequency: Almost 50% of respondents play every day; just over 30% play 3-5 times a week

A slightly different investigation on Gender Influence in Hero Choice puts the number of female players closer to 21% (and provides some other interesting data).

Fast Facts:

Overwatch has almost 22 000 fan works on [Archive Of O

View Details

This week, we're going to be... skiing and shooting targets? That's a real thing? In the Olympics?! ANYWAY, we're talking about fans about all the Olympics: Winter, Summer, Para- you name it!

Next week, the cavalry's here! We'll be talking about fans... of Overwatch!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

The modern Olympic Games or Olympics ... are leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games are considered the world's foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating. The Olympic Games are held every four years, with the Summer and Winter Games alternating by occurring every four years but two years apart.

Their creation was inspired by the ancient Olympic Games, which were held in Olympia, Greece, from the 8th century BC to the 4th century AD. Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, leading to the first modern Games in Athens in 1896. ...

The evolution of the Olympic Movement during the 20th and 21st centuries has resulted in several changes to the Olympic Games. Some of these adjustments include the creation of the Winter Olympic Games for ice and winter sports, the Paralympic Games for athletes with a disability, and the Youth Olympic Games for teenage athletes. The Deaflympics and Special Olympics are also endorsed by the IOC. The IOC has had to adapt to a variety of economic, political, and technological advancements.

— Wikipedia - Olympic Games

Search Data:

As a fandom, Olympics fandom appears _highly periodic_, which is not surprising. The largest spikes in interest in the Olympics occurred in...

August 2004 (Summer Olympics: Athens, Greece)
February 2006 (Winter Olympics: Turin, Italy)
August 2008 (Summer Olympics: Beijing, China)
February 2010 (Winter Olympics: Vancouver, Canada)
August 2012 (Summer Olympics: London, UK)
February 2014 (Winter Olympics: Sochi, Russia)
August 2016 (Summer Olympics: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

(In order of popularity: Summer 2008, Summer 2016, Summer 2004, Summer 2012, Winter 2014, Winter 2010, Winter 2006)

It would appear that Winter Olympics are less popular, but are growing in popularity, whereas Summer Olympic popularity depends highly on the location.

In terms of interest by region, the top 10 countries in order are: China, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, Iran, Uruguay, Hong Kong, United States, Japan.

Size of Fandom:

Let's take a look at some of the data we have:

_510k_: Number of attendees to the 2016 Summer Olympics (10 500 athletes and 500 000 travellers) (People - 4,900 Medals and 6,000 Hours of TV: The Rio Olympics by the Numbers)
_9 million_: Number of tickets sold for the 2012 Summer Olympics (CNN - London Olympics by the numbers)
_3.6 billion_: Number of people expected to watch the 2016 Summer Olympics worldwide (People - 4,900 Medals and 6,000 Hours of TV: The Rio Olympics by the Numbers)

Based on these numbers, we estimate the fandom to be somewhere in the hundreds of millions in terms of size.

Fast Facts:

There _is_ a section on Archive Of Our Own for Olympics Real-Person Fiction (RPF) with over 400 works; For reference, this category is dwarfed by other sports-related RPF such as Figure Skating RPF (over 1200) and Hockey RPF (over 890

View Details

This week, we _better_ not be a afraid of no ghost, because we've got the Ontario Ghostbusters helping us to get into the spirit of Ghostbusters fandom (and bustin' makes us feel good)!

Next week, we'll be honing our routine in preparation to talk about fans... of the Olympics!

Where can I learn more about Adrianna and Brily?

Adrianna and Brily are co-presidents of the Ontario Ghostbusters. If you want to learn more about them, check out the Ontario Ghostbusters on social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OntarioGhostbusters
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ON_Ghostbusters
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ontarioghostbusters/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/OntarioGhostbusters

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

_Ghostbusters_ is a supernatural comedy franchise created in 1984 by Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, and Dan Aykroyd about a group of eccentric parapsychologists who start a legit ghost-busting business (like exterminators) in New York City. The project was initially conceived as a "Ghostmashers" (starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi) with the cast traveling through space and time ... and something about magic wands — the script was drastically rewritten after it was deemed 'financially impractical' and after the death of Belushi.

Since the first films release on June 8, 1984, the franchise has spawned a total of three movies, two television series, several video games, novelizations, comics, and is in the top 50 grossing domestic films (adjusted for inflation) of all time.

Search Data:

The search data is a bit hard to track; though there is a search topic for the Ghostbusters franchise, it has very little data compared to search data compared to the 2016 and 1984 Ghostbuster films. Even looking at just these two topics is hard to analyze the broad trend because of the massive distortion in search data around the release of the 2016 movie.

Taking a look at the data from a few different timescales, it is most likely that interest in the franchise has remained fairly flat, with the most notable spike in interest occurring in July of 2016 (release of _Ghostbusters (2016)_), and some much smaller spikes in August 2004 (_Ghostbusters: Legion_ comic, possibly), and June 2009 (_Ghostbusters: The Video Game_).

Looking at the search data, Ghostbusters is popular in most parts of the world. Inexplicably, comparing the 2016 and 1984 search interest reveals slightly different popularity when looking at regions:

_Ghostbusters (1984)_ top 5 countries by search data: Mexico, Costa Rica, Spain, Italy, El Salvador _Ghostbusters (2016)_ top 5 countries by search data: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia

The later entries start to overlap.

Size of Fandom:

Taking a look at some of the data we have, let's see what we can estimate for the fandom size:

The Ghostbusters subreddit has over 6000 subscribers
The GBFans Forum has over 29 000 members (with over 9000 online at once)

That probably puts the size of the fandom (depending on your measure of fan-ness) somewhere in the ten thousands of fans.

Fast Facts:

Looking at Fanfics, there are over 2600 Ghostbusters fanfics on Archive Of Our Own

Most are _General Audience_ (900+) or _Teen and Up_ (800+)
The top three categories: F/F (1800+), Gen (500+), M/M (100+)
The top three fandoms: Ghostbusters (2016) (2000+), The Real Ghostbusters (300+), Ghostbusters I & II (100+)
The top three characters: Jillian H

View Details

What's 6 foot tall, has no face, an is RIGHT BEHIND YOU?! We don't know, but we heard a story from a friend of a friend of ours... but that doesn't matter because this week, we're talking about fans of that unique online horror phenomenon, Creepypasta (and hopefully, we don't get too scared)!

Next week, we take on a definitely less creepy fandom (with special guests from the Ontario Ghostbusters), Ghostbusters fans!

Share this week's episode:

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

History and Origins:

Creepypasta is a kind of online horror fiction that crosses over many different fandoms, and takes its name from the internet term "copypasta" (where something would be copy-pasted from website to website). Creepypasta comes in many different forms from lost episode myths (for example, the Simpsons "Dead Bart" episode) or urban legends like Slender Man or Polybius. Creepypasta likely dates back to the late 1990s and early 2000s with stories like _Ted the Caver_, and gained more popularity with communities like creepypasta.com, the Creepypasta wiki, and reddit's r/nosleep (Fanlore - Creepypasta).

Search Data:

Looking at the Google Trends Data for Creepypasta and Slenderman gives us an interesting quick history. There was almost no interest at all until June 2012 where interest in both terms started rising quickly (Slenderman in particular spiked to its most interest ever in August 2012; probably corresponding to the release of Slender: The Eight Pages). Interest has been a slow decline ever since.

Looking at the search data also gives us some idea of some of the most popular creepypastas. For example _Jeff the Killer_, _Pokemon_, _Slenderman_, and _Ben Drowned_ (a legend of Zelda creepypasta).

Size of Fandom:

This week is a really challenging one to estimate. Here is some of the data we have:

_Slender: The Eight Pages_ has almost 15 000 votes on softonic and over 6 million downloads so far
The Creepypasta wiki has over 13 000 contributors
r/nosleep has over 12 million subscribers

Given that, we can probably estimate about fans in the millions, but it is tricky to narrow down creepypasta fans from general horror fans.

The Verdict

T could not nope fast enough. Nuke it from orbit.

Z is in. Still nopes hard... spine tingles, but loves them.

G is out. Hell no.

This week's spotlight

Could not find an active charity related to Creepypasta. That being said...

Ronald McDonald House

A creepypasta _about_ a charity. An unfortunate result while trying to find a creepypasta related charity.

Narrators U-nighted Charity Drive

Doesn't appear to be an active charity any more, but came about as a result of the murder of a young girl by her two friends over a disagreement about Slenderman.

Race Against Time 3.5: Secret of Mana Edition

Our (now) semi-annual charity livestream! This time, we'll be attempting to beat _Secret of Mana: Remastered_ in less than 24 hours to raise money for the Organization for Transformative Works (Fanlore, Archive Of Our Own). Details are still coming together, but sub

View Details

*various grunting / shouting sounds*

That's right, this week, we're talking about fans of that long-running much beloved Nintendo series: The Legend of Zelda! Why are fans so fixated on the timeline, and what is it exactly that reels in fans both new and old? All that and more with this week's special guest, Andy Spiteri of Zelda Informer / Zelda Dungeon!

...And that's it for this season! We'll be taking a brief holiday break and come back in the new year with all new, exciting episodes about fans and fandoms you've probably never even heard of! Thanks for listening and stay tuned!

Where can I learn more about Andy?

You can learn more about Andy Spiteri through his work at Zelda Informer / Zelda Dungeon!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

The Legend of Zelda is a high-fantasy action-adventure video game series created by Japanese game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. It is primarily developed and published by Nintendo, although some portable installments have been outsourced to Capcom, Vanpool and Grezzo. The series' gameplay incorporates elements of action, adventure and puzzle-solving games.

The series centers on Link, the playable character and chief protagonist. Link is often given the task of rescuing Princess Zelda and the kingdom of Hyrule from Ganon, who is the principal antagonist of the series; however, other settings and antagonists have appeared in several titles. The games' plots commonly involve a relic known as the Triforce, a set of three omnipotent golden triangles. The protagonist in each game is usually not the same incarnation of Link, but a few exceptions exist.

Since the original The Legend of Zelda was released in 1986, the series has expanded to include 19 entries on all of Nintendo's major game consoles, as well as a number of spin-offs. An American animated TV series based on the games aired in 1989 and individual manga adaptations commissioned by Nintendo have been produced in Japan since 1997. The Legend of Zelda is one of Nintendo's most prominent and successful franchises, selling over 80 million copies as of 2017.

— Wikipedia - The Legend of Zelda

Fandom Activity / Interest

In general, interest in the series has been on the decline, by search traffic: Until March 2017 (Release of _Breath of the Wild_), interest in the series was about half as much as in 2014. There have been some notable spikes in interest in December 2006 (Release of _Twilight Princess_), December 2009 (Release of _Spirit Tracks_), December 2011 (Approximate release of _Skyward Sword_).

Fan Demographics:

As it turns out, Zelda Informer ran a Zelda fan survey for a few years; the latest set of data from 2015 gives us something to go off of:

Gender: 74% male, 24% female, 1% other, 1% prefer not to answer
Age: Largest group of respondents was age 18-24 (49%); almost 75% of respondents were under the age of 24

Plus, some other interesting results:

First Zelda game played: Ocarina of Time (39%), Link to the Past (14%), Legend of Zelda (14%), Wind Waker (7%), Twilight Princess (7%)
90% of Zelda fans consider themselves gamers
The top three most owned consoles were: Wii (91%), Nintendo DS (82%), Nintendo 3DS (80%)
Top three most played Zelda games: Twilight Princess (93%), Ocarina of Time (92%), Majora's Mask (87%)
Worst Zelda game experience: Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love (91%)
Most important parts of Zelda games: Story (47%), Exploration (30%)
Favourite Art Style: Twilig

View Details

What if you only had 60 minutes to _escape from this podcast_? To unravel the puzzles of _Crimson Room_ or the (surprisingly) lucrative business of locking people in a room? Well, you'd probably fail (but so would we). Listen in as we talk about fans of an even more puzzling experience: Escape Rooms!

Next week, we wrap up the season with a Nickscast favourite (and a special guest) as we talk about fans... of the _Legend of Zelda_ series!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins and history:

Escape rooms, also known as _room escape_, _escape games_, _escape the room_, and so on, are physical adventure games where participants are required to solve a variety of puzzles using riddles, clues, and hints contained in the room within a fixed time limit. Sometimes, the rooms are thematically linked (e.g. a museum heist) or they can be a series of abstract puzzles with no linking theme.

The concept of an escape room is heavily inspired by the similarly named video game genre where players are required to escape a room by pointing and clicking around a room to exploit their surroundings. The earliest example of this style of game is likely the 1988 text adventure, _Behind Closed Doors_, where the player has to escape a restroom, but some better known examples might include _MOTAS_ (Mystery Of Time And Space, 2001), _Crimson Room_ (2004), and _Viridian Room_.

Arguably... fans of escape rooms are fans of this genre of video games, but that remains to be seen!

The first escape room was created in Japan by SCRAP in 2007 and the concept later spread to other parts of Asia, then Europe... then, the world! There are now almost 2000 escape rooms in the United States _alone_.

Most Active:

The concept of an escape room didn't really start to solidify until _Crimson Room_ was released as Adobe Flash freeware... which conveniently was released in 2004 (the first year where Google Trends data is available).

Examining that data, it is clear that the fandom is the most active it has ever been. While there was some spike in interest in the term around 2007, it has been on a meteoric rise ever since approximately 2015.

Size of Fandom:

Since escape rooms are more business-oriented, it's a bit harder to dig into the size of the fandom. Still, we have a few metrics we can use as rough estimators:

The escaperooms subreddit has almost 2000 subscribers
There are almost 2000 escape room companies in the US
If the average group size is 4, and each room has at least one group a week, that would be about 416 000 fans (this is likely a grossly conservative estimate)

Complicating matters is that participation does not imply fandom.

Fan Demographics:

From a variety of different surveys, we can get a rough idea of the kinds of folks who participate in escape rooms. We managed to find three surveys: Escape Room Demographic Survey (~600 respondents), Peeking Behind the Locked Door: A Survey of Escape Room Facilities (~175 respondents), and 2017 Escape Room Enthusiast Survey (~250 respondents).

Broadly speaking, these appear to be the demographics:

Gender: Roughly equal representation of male / female genders
Age: Largest category is folks between ages of 26-30. The majority of respondents are under 35 (approximately two-thirds; more or less consistent between surveys)
Most groups who participate are mixed gender (70-80%)
Largest group (48%) identify as ambiverts; 36% as extraverts, and 20% as introverts

[// TOO MU

View Details

What is it about little bits of cardboard, plastic, and wood that draw people in so much? This week, we're talking about fans of board games: AKA Board Game Geeks!

Next week, will we escape the podcast in 60 minutes or less? Probably not, but that won't stop us from uncovering the mystery of escape room fans!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins and history:

Board games are... broad, and historically date back quite a ways. Wikipedia provides a succinct description not unlike a description of life:

A board game is a tabletop game that involves counters or pieces moved or placed on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Some games are based on pure strategy, but many contain an element of chance; and some are purely chance, with no element of skill.

Games usually have a goal that a player aims to achieve. Early board games represented a battle between two armies, and most modern board games are still based on defeating opponents in terms of counters, winning position, or accrual of points.

— Wikipedia - Board game

While it is unclear what the _first_ board game was, many early games date back as far as 5000 years ago; some examples of the early board games include Senet (Egypt, ~5000 years ago), Go (China, ~2500 years ago), and Backgammon (Persia, ~5000 years ago).

Size of Fandom:

Using a few proxies of popularity, we can try to estimate the number of fans (and level of involvement of fans):

BoardGameGeek had approximately 360k registered in 2010, with 100k active per month (BoardGameGeek - Geek Analytics 2010)
The most backed board game on Kickstarter, Exploding Kittens, had almost 220 000 backers

Fan Demographics:

The demographic data we managed to obtain comes from The Daily Worker Placement. Of the almost 2400 respondents...

Country: Over 56% were from the USA
Age: 42% are 25-35, 33% are 35-44, 16% are 45+
Marital Status: 52% are married, 15% are in a relationship(s)
Gender: The majority are male, and 24% identified as female, 1.1% as non-binary, and 0.6% as trans
Education: Almost two-thirds have a bachelor's degree or higher
Tenure: Less than 25% of respondents had been playing board games for two years or less; almost half of respondents have been playing games between three and ten years

Search Data

Interest in board games is highly periodic (by search volume). Every year, around December, interest in board games spikes to the highest point in that year. That being said, ignoring the peak, it looks like board games are back on the upswing after a gradual decline in interest from 2004 to 2010, and is slowly recovering to 2004-ish levels.

Other data, like sales, suggests that growth is more substantial:

Global sales of games and puzzles have grown from $9.3 billion in 2013 to $9.6 billion in 2016, according to Euromonitor International, with expected year-on-year growth of more than 1 percent this year.

— CNBC - Millennials are driving the board games revival

The top ten countries for board games by search volume are: Canada, Estonia, Australia, United Kingdom, Poland, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Greece, and the United States.

The top five rising related topics are: Words with Friends, Pandemic, Dominion, Kickstarter, and Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Fanfics:

Believe it or not, we managed to find some board game fanfic on Archive of our own. There are approximately 100 game categories in the "other media" section of Archive of our own (including 7 for Settlers of Catan).

[Last Episode's](http:

View Details

What if all Marvel movies were only targeted at men / boys? That's a sort of weird thing that we think about as we get into this week's topic: Fans of anime and manga "for girls" (aka: Shoujo and Josei). What is the most popular shoujo / josei title? Do men read / watch it? How successful is it? All this and more on this week's episode with special guest, Caitline Moore (I Have a Heroine Problem, Anime Feminist)!

Next week, we'll overthrow a dystopian goverment (WAKE UP, MEEPLE!) and probably grow a bunch of fields to feed our family to _not_ die in some medieval time; that's right, we'll be talking about fans of board games!

Where can I learn more about Caitlin Moore?

Caitlin is the author of I Have a Heroine Problem, a blog about critically examining media (particularly, shoujo and other anime / manga) from a feminist perspective. Right now, she is running a column examining abusive relationships in Shoujo, which is on week eleven as of this writing.

She is also a contributor to the Anime Feminist as a columnist and ocassional Chatty AF (the Anime Feminist's podcast) guest.

She is also a multiple-time panelist at a variety of conventions, tackling topics such as _Awesome Women Making Anime_, _Romance and Abuse in Shoujo Manga_, _Isekai Shoujo of the 1990s_, and _Is This Feminist or Not?_

AND, if that's not enough, you can find her on Twitter: @alltsun_nodere

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins and history:

Anime and manga (animation and comics) are very broad categories of media, originating in Japan. Shoujo (_young girl_) is one of four main categories of anime and manga targeted at different groups also including shounen (for boys), josei (for women) and seinin (for men). Shoujo and josei are not so much a genre unto themselves as they are target demographics for reader/viewership.

Shoujo dates back to the earliest 20th century when magazines specifically for girls first appeared in Japan. The wide-eyed look commonly associated with shoujo dates back to early illustrations in these magazines. Until the mid-1960s, men vastly outnumbered women in terms of mangaka, and between 1950 and 1969 large audiences for manga emerged in Japan, as did a flood of young female mangaka. (Wikipedia - Shōjo manga)

Josei began to appear during the 1980s during a different manga boom when girls who grew up reading shoujo manga in the 50s and 60s wanted manga for adult women. (Wikipedia - Josei manga)

The history of shoujo and josei would be an episode in itself, so we'll leave it at that for now!

Broadly, shoujo _tends_ to focus on romance and interpersonal relationships, and includes titles that you may know of like _Revolutionary Girl Utena_, _Sailor Moon_, _Fushigi Yuugi_ and _Ouran Host Club_. Josei _tends_ to focus on slice-of-life stories and more realistic relationships (as compared to idealized ones) and includes titles like _Kuragehime / Princess Jellyfish_, _Loveless_, _Paradise Kiss_, and _Honey and Clover_.

Most Active:

Anecdotally, it would be easy to say now-ish is the time that Shoujo and Josei fandoms are most active with shows like Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Sailor Moon Crystal, and the boom of Josei titles being released in North America.

...And Google Trends data would mostly support that hypothesis. Interest in Shoujo and Josei manga by search volume had been mostly flat since 2004 until around 2013 where interest starting creeping up, with some large peaks a

View Details

What exactly is the significance of gel, and what is it that ties together a series that shares only two words (Tales of)?? This week, we're talking about fans of the _Tales of_ series (e.g. Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Zestiria, Tales of Berseria) with special guest (and Maple Gel Con organizer) Jesi McMulkin!

Next week, we'll be demystifying the world of anime and manga fans a bit as we discuss fans of josei and shoujo... or in layman's terms, anime and manga "for women and girls".

Where can I learn more about Jesi McMulkin?

If you enjoyed listening to our special guest, Jesi, and want to learn more about the _Tales of_ series, you should definitely checkout Maple Gel Con in Burlington, Ontario!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

The _Tales_ or _Tales of_ series is a video game series that has been running since 1995 with the release of _Tales of Phantasia_ on the Super Famicom. While there are sixteen main titles, many spin-offs, manga, anime, and audio dramas, the different entries in the series are fairly independent of each other and are mostly linked by their similar gameplay style (in particular, the "Linear Motion Battle System"), and its anime/manga art style. In English-speaking regions, it is generally seen as a niche series but is in the top-running for RPG series in Japan (behind Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest).

Most Active:

By Google search volume, interest in various Tales-series games has been on a slow decline, with the most interest in the game series occuring between 2003 and 2004 (corresponding to the releases of _Tales of Symphonia_ and _Tales of Rebirth_).

Size of Fandom:

One estimate for the size of the fandom would be the number of games sold:

As of December 2013, the series has sold 16 million units worldwide.

— Wikipedia - Tales (series)

This gives us at least some watermark of the dedication of fans, and puts the rough number of fans at something like one million fans (16 million units over 16 games = 1 million fans per game).

Another metric might be the "Tales of" festival in Japan. The seventh such festival in 2014 managed to draw out over 22 000 fans over two days to fill the Yokohama Arena.

Also worth mentioning, the Tales of subreddit boasts an impressive ~11 000 subscribers.

Fan Demographics:

We weren't able to get numbers on fan demographics. A rough estimate, in Japan, at least, from the 2014 Tales of Festival:

Far from the stereotype of a game otaku sausage party, the crowd at the 2014 event is almost exclusively female. "Players of the Tales of series are 70% male and 30% female in Japan, but for events like this it's about 90% female," series producer Hideo Baba tells me at the end of the first day. "Women tend to be more interested in the story and the characters, while men are more interested in the games themselves and messing around with game hardware. So when their favorite game character appears on stage, the sound of screaming female fans is really something."

— IGN - WHY 90% OF FANS AT TALES OF FESTIVAL ARE FEMALE

Around the world:

The top 10 countries for search volume around the "Tales of" series are: Japan (by a large margin), Phillipines, Singapore, Puerto Rico, Canada, Malaysia, Hong Kong, France, South Korea, and Indonesia.

Famous fan works:

Arguably, the fan translation of "Tales of Phantasia" by DeJap:

"I bet Arche ***** like a tiger"

— TVTropes - Tales of Phantasia

Fanfics:

According to Archive Of Our Own, there are approximately 4500 fanfics related to the Tales of Series (the majority

View Details

We had the chance to sit down with Devin Hutchinson (General Manager) and Myles Hilliard (Head Chef) at the Watchtower Restaurant, a local geeky restaurant, to talk about their experiences with Tabletop RPGs and the gaming community. What is it like as a fan of Tabletop RPGs?

If you want to learn more about the Watchtower Restaurant, check out...

Their website: http://www.watchtowerrestaurant.com/
Their Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/watchtowerkw/
Their Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WatchtowerRestaurant/

And if you want to know why we're talking about Tabletop RPGs, check out our original episode on the subject.

Where can you find us online?

We are everywhere! Most notably though, we like to hang out in a few places on social media:

If you want to help us to create more amazing fannish content, become a patron on Patreon; even as little as a dollar a month pledge really helps us out!
If you want to be part of our podcast (or just want to check us out), we record our podcast LIVE on twitch.tv every monday at 20:00 Eastern Time!
For all the latest updates, check us out on Facebook or Twitter
To see the latest hijinx from our conventions or even our daily lives and adventures, check us out on Instagram
For our latest convention updates, Let's Plays, and other in-real-life video, check out our YouTube channel
We're also on iTunes, and Google Play, and would love it if you could leave a review and rating!
if you want to reach us, and for some reason none of those work for you, try nick@thenickscast.com
You can check out our website; that will mostly bring you back to this stuff.
Everything is thenickscast, so if you can't find us, go on your social network and search for that!
... You're still looking for ways to reach out? You can also use the hashtag #fanthro on Twitter!

What is "Fanthropological"?

How did you read this far without asking this question?!

Fanthropological is an anthropological (ish) podcast where we bring the fan's-eye view to you! Each week, we take a look at a different fandom, dig up interesting background, trivia, and history, and try to get to why it is that people are a fan. We also try to highlight good causes related to that fandom, and find interesting things that fans have created to share those to the world. Each episode is about an hour. Ish.

Who is "The Nickscast"?

We are the Nickscast! Three products of late-80s / early-90s pop culture who love exploring fandom and everything geek ... who also happen to have been best buddies since high school, and all happen to be named Nick. Yes, we are super creative. Dare we say, the most creative.

Ahem

We are Nick Green, Nick Terwoord, and Nick Zacharewicz: We started the Nickscast as a labour of love, and as a place to entertain and to discuss our love of fans and fandom, and all that is shiny and interesting in that realm. It's what lead us to start our first podcast, our satellite podcasts, Fanthropological, and so much more.

We want to help others learn more about different fandoms, and to create empathy with other fans: We dream of a world where other fans aren't "those Weird-o's", but just folks with different tastes. A world where fandom is full of discourse and analysis, and there are plenty of tools and resources to help. Fans building communities to do good in the world. Because everyone's a fan.

Credits

Special Thanks

View Details

This week, _Arya_ ready for our look at fans of Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire! We are! _And_ you definitely don 't learn Dothraki to enjoy it! Plus, we have a special guest from the award-winning A Podcast of Ice and Fire, Amin!

Next week, we'll be keeping the fantasy setting (sort of) to talk about one of the most popular RPG series in Japan; we'll be talking about fans of the _Tales_ series of video games!

Where can I learn more about Amin?

If you want to learn more about Amin, you should definitely check out the aforementioned A Podcast of Ice and Fire; they even provided us with some slides from their panel at San Diego Comic Con (which we brought up in this week's episode)!

You can also find him on his other podcasts, The Bastards of Kingsgrave, which covers anime, manga, western animation and other pop culture, and Vassals of Kingsgrave!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Introduction, Origins, and History:

Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television adaptation of George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" epic fantasy novels. For the purposes of the fandom, we'll be referring to both of them interchangeably.

_A Game of Thrones_ , the first volume in the series, was written in 1991 and published in 1996. Since then, four other volumes have been released, with a total of seven volumes planned. The series follows the adventures of a wide cast of different characters of the continents of Westeros and Essos. Though there are many different perspectives, the books and TV show follow three main plot lines: an epic war among several families for control of Westeros; the rising threat of the supernatural _Others_ to the north; and "the ambition of Daenerys Targaryen, the deposed king's exiled daughter, to assume the Iron Throne" (Wikipedia - A Song of Ice and Fire).

The books have sold over 60 million copies worldwide, has been translated into 47 different languages, have been adapted into comics, card games, board games, and video games (and the television show, of course). The television show (which first aired in 2011) has won 38 Emmies, is the most pirated TV series every year since 2012, and an unnamed episode was downloaded over 4 million times (roughly equal to broadcast viewers) (Wikipedia - Game of Thrones).

Fandom Origins:

While no doubt fans of the series existed when the books were initially being released, fandom started buzzing closer to the announcement of the cast of the TV show (early 2011).

Most Active:

The fandom is most active now. Almost definitely now. Game of Thrones has never been as popular as it is today, according to Google Trends data.

More than any other fandom we've observed to date, the data is highly periodic (i.e. it spikes whenever a new season is released) and each spike, for the most part, is higher than the last. If you look at the chart, there is a very clear upward trend in interest.

Size of Fandom:

Using some of the data we have on hand, it is possible to get a few different estimates:

60 million (assuming every book purchase is a new fan) - 12 million (assuming every fan buys a full set of books)
Almost 9 million views (based on the season 6 finale)
Over 8 million (assuming all broadcast views and pirated episode downloads per episode are unique)
Over 4 million (assuming episode downloads or broadcast view as a rough proxy)

Regardless of how you estimate, there are

View Details

This week, we're (_rolls d20_) talking about fans of miniatures, monsters, magic and mayhem (and much much more); we're talking about fans of Tabletop RPGs! What is it, exactly, about these fictional worlds that draw people in, and why are they becoming so popular?

Next week, we'll have special guest, Amin, of a Podcast of Ice and Fire joining us to talk about fans of the Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire series!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) have a long and storied history starting with wargaming... which itself has its roots in even older strategy games like Chess (which originated from Chaturanga, an ancient Indian game). Chess gave way to variants of Chess, which gave way to more modern wargames like Kriegsspiel (literally "war game" in German; used for training German and Prussian armies)... which eventually gave way to games like Chainmail, the precursor to Dungeons and Dragons — the archetypical tabletop RPG.

Depending on how you want to measure history, that puts the origin of Tabletop RPGs somewhere between 1974 (the first published edition of Dungeons and Dragons) and the 6th century AD. For our purposes, we'll use Dungeons and Dragons as the origin of Tabletop RPGs.

Most Tabletop RPGs use some set of rules (that vary in complexity) where participants describe their character's actions (different from wargaming where each participant takes the role of military). Sometimes there are dice. Sometimes there are lots of tables. Sometimes pen and paper are necessary. There is a _lot_ of variation.

And is no shortage of gaming systems, like Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulu, GURPS, BESM, Vampire: The Masquerade, or Shadowrun, to name a few.

Most Active:

Given that Tabletop RPGs are a class of games that have existed since the 70s, it is a bit harder to get an idea of the popularity and activity of them over time. Using Google Trends data for Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Warhammer 40k, and War gaming gives us some approximation though. Dungeons and Dragons was probably most popular around the time of its 'moral panic', but using the data we have, it has been on the decline since 2004 (most popular period)... but is back on the upswing since approximately 2012.

Around the world:

The top 10 countries searching for Dungeons and Dragons, but the same Google Trends data, are: Canada, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Sweeden, and the United Kingdom.

Size of Fandom:

It is extremely hard to estimate the size of the fandom given how loosely we've defined it. That being said, it can still be estimated:

In _What happened to Dungeons and Dragons?_ it is estimated that 20 million people have played the game
Obsidian Portal, a site where you can create your own campaign online, has over 100 000 campaigns
Roll20, a popular tabletop gaming tool, had a sample size of over 73 000 players for its Q1 2017 industry report
Attendance at Gen Con (the largest Tabletop Game convention in North America) had over 60 000 attendees in 2016

Fan Demographics:

We came across several fan surveys, all of which seemed limited. The most recent one, which we stumbled upon via the RPG subreddit, had some demographic information in its 307 responses (you can find the survey here).

Age: Most gamers were between 18-25 (42.3%); the second largest group was folks ages 26-35 (39.7%)
Gender: The majority of respondents (88.3%) identified as male, with 9.8% identifying as female
Tenure: The largest group of respondents have been playing for 11-20

View Details

This week, you're all gonna be in this experimental film! Provided, of course, that you're a fan of They Might Be Giants (TMBG) (and are OK with film being... tape? Nevermind). What is it about this quirky musical group that has kept fans interested for over 30 years?

Next week, we'll put on our robes and wizard hats to talk about fans of tabletop RPGs!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

They Might Be Giants (often abbreviated as TMBG) is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a duo, often accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG expanded to include a backing band.

— Wikipedia - They Might Be Giants

TMBG is known for having an unconventional, experimental kind of music, has released 19 studio albums (including _Flood_ which has been certified platinum), has created theme music for several television shows, and has produced children's music.

Think you haven't heard of them? Try one of the following:

Boss of Me (theme song of _Malcolm in the Middle_)
Dog On Fire (opening theme of _The Daily Show with Jon Stewart_)
The theme song for _Oblongs_, and _The Wrong Coast_
Birdhouse in your Soul, Istanbul (Not Constantinople), and Particle Man

Most Active:

Given that They Might Be Giants has been a band since the 1980s, it's not surprising that the Google Trends data shows a pretty low amount of interest over time. To be fair, unlike many of the fandoms we've covered, interest in TMBG was already quite low in 2004. There was a huge spike in interest in July 2004 which corresponds to the the release of their album _The Spine_, and some smaller bursts of interest probably related to different album releases. Interest now is about 1/10th of the interest from 2004.

Size of Fandom:

They Might Be Giants has sold over 4 million records. Given that information and their 19 studio albums, a rough estimate of fans would give us between ~200 000 and 4 million.

A different (much lower estimate) that gives an idea of the dedication of fans might be the _They Might Be Giants Instant Fan Club_:

The Instant Fan Club returned for 2015 with an announcement in November 2014. There were initially 2,500 subscriptions available, which were meant to be available until January 5, 2015. All 2,500 spots were filled by December ... In addition to the regular level of membership ($98) and the Super-President tier ($250) introduced in 2012's fan club, the 2015 IFC offers a third option "for folks on a budget", Dial-A-Song Direct ($30).

— this might be a wiki - They Might Be Giants Instant Fan Club

TMBG has over 330 000 likes on Facebook, over 65 000 followers on Twitter, and over 2200 subscribers on r/tmbg.

Around the world:

From the Google Trends data again, most fans of They Might Be Giants hail from English speaking countries: By and large, fans are from the United States, but there is also some interest in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and New Zealand.

Did you know that...

TMBG is the unofficial band of the TV Tropes Wiki?
Melissa Joan Hart (_Clarissa Explains It All_, _Sabrina: The Teenage Witch_) got a job because of TMBG:

"I actually got the job for Clarissa Explains It All because of They Might Be Giants. The producer asked me about music, and I told them I liked TMBG (instead of popular bands like New Kids on the Block). He loved it, I got the job

View Details

We start off Season 5 with a mega-blast! It's all of our hosts favourites fandoms this season starting off with fans of the Blue Bomber: Mega Man! Why haven't there been any new games lately, and how have the fans adapted? How is a game from more than 25 years ago still relevant to fans today? Tune in and find out!

Next week, we'll be doing the things a particle can and talking about two rockin' musicians (John and John) and their fans as we talk about They Might Be Giants fandom!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Rockman (also known as Mega Man, outside of Japan) is a video game franchise created by Akira Kitamura and designed by Keiji Inafune by (and owned by CAPCOM). Originally released for Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987, the franchise has over 50 games on multiple systems, and, by March 2015, over thirty million copies have been sold worldwide.

The original game follows the story of Rock (Mega), an android created by Doctor Light and his assistant, Doctor Wily. Doctor Wily reprograms Doctor Lights other robots in an act of treachery, and Rock volunteers to defend the world from Wily's violent robotic threats.

Other main series within the game's history:

Mega Man X
Mega Man Legends
Mega Man Battle Network

Most Active and Fandom Trends:

Based on Google Trends data, interest in the Mega Man series of games has been on a steady decline since Google has started tracking trend data (current interest is about one fifth of data back in 2004). The most popular point in this history is around July 2004, which likely corresponds to the release of Mega Man X: Command Mission, a turn-based RPG.

Size of Fandom:

It's especially challenging to try to get estimates on fandoms that have been on the decline for a while. To get a rough sense of scale and level of community:

The Mega Man Subreddit has over 10 000 subscribers
Mighty No 9, a game developed a sort of spiritual successor to Mega Man (and directed by longtime Mega Man director, Keiji Inafune) has over 67 000 backers
Over 30 million copies of the various games have been sold worldwide. A rough estimate taking the number of sales and dividing by the number of games (131) yields a rough estimate of over 220 000 game buyers

Famous fan works:

Mega Maker, a fan game about creating your own Mega Man levels (like Mario maker)
Mega Man x Street Fighter, a fan game that puts Mega Man (circa Mega Man 2) in stages reminiscent of the characters in Street Fighter 2 and featuring them as bosses
Mega Man 2.5D, 20XX, Azure Striker Gunvolt, The Megas, BrentalFloss... the list goes on

Fanfics and Fanart

DeviantArt has almost 100 000 works for Mega Man
FanFiction.net has over 5000 works for Mega Man
Archive of Our Own has over 700 fan works for Mega Man

The Verdict

G is in. Would like to play more Mega Man games.

T is in. 100% in.

Z is out. Would try Battle Network or Command Mission.

This week's spotlight

Mega Man-athon

What w

View Details

This week, the season finale of our whirlwind tour around the globe searching fandoms far and wide. This week, we've left the globe to ascend to the _stars_ to talk about fans... of cosplay!

Next week? Who knows! Season 6 is right around the corner.

Where can I learn more about Lumpy Space Cosplay or SMZeldaRules?

If you enjoyed our chat with these two fantastic cosplayers, you can learn more about them below!

Lumpy Space Cosplay

Instagram: http://instagram.com/lumpyspacecosplay
Facebook: http://facebook.com/lumpyspacecosplay

SMZeldaRules

Instagram: http://instagram.com/smzeldarules
Facebook: http://facebook.com/smzeldarulesartandcosplay

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Cosplay, a portmanteau of the words "costumed play", is a hobby where people, known as cosplayers, wear costumes to represent a specific character. Cosplay is quite diverse: cosplayers may create costumes, be part of photoshoots, attend masquerades, get 'into character', 'genderbend' characters, mash up known characters with other genres or intellectual property, or much, much more.

Fandom Origins:

The origins of cosplay are fascinating because of how it has changed, evolved, and traveled. The act of fan costuming predates the term cosplay: In 1939, Myrtle Rebecca (Morojo) and Forry Ackerman work some of the first fan costumes, "futuricostumes" at Worldcon 1939 (The world science fiction convention):

Morojo was the person who single-handedly brought fantasy into real physical space when she created and wore her own costume. Given modern cosplay’s intense focus on individual creativity and craft, it’s bizarre that Ackerman is the one most often credited as being the O.G. cosplayer in fan literature. Morojo, who made the futuristicostumes, deserves the bulk of the credit. To crush the next few decades of history into a single sentence: the idea of dressing up like your favorite fictional characters caught on and gained traction. After 1939, costume contests became an annual tradition at Worldcon, drawing more and more participants with each passing year.

— Fanlore - Cosplay

It wasn't until much later that the term was coined, and the coinage varies in terms of who it is attributed to. Some sources claim that "cosplay started after a Japanese fan, Nov Takahashi, attended the 1984 Worldcon in Los Angeles and reported on the costuming activity there in Japanese SF magazines" (Fanlore - Cosplay), however Nov Takahashi was using the term cosplay as early as June 1983, and there are other instances of fans in cosplay outside of North America.

In any case, regardless of the origin of the term, because of the growing popularity in Japan and things like anime and manga becoming popular in North America during the 1990s, cosplay was re-imported to North America, assumed to be Japanese in origin.

Most Active:

Google trends data gives the impression that cosplay has been increasing in interest since 2004, but has some waviness to it: Overall, interest has increased, but it we seem to be in a local lull in interest.

More than many of the other fandoms we've covered, the data is, unsurprisingly, periodic: There is a spike every year around July-ish that persists until October (which roughly corresponds to convention season).

(Google trends data was attempted using 'costume' as the search, but the data was too noisy, a much different magnitude than that of 'Cosplay', and spiked every year in October.)

Fan Demographics

In an unexpected twist, Cosplay Calamity, someone we have encountered at ConBravo!, has conducted a cosplay survey for 2017. The data is admittedly from a small sample size (just under 300 respondents), but gives us some approximat

View Details

This week, we say "anyong haseyo" as we dive into fans of Korean Pop (K-Pop)... in Brazil?? Why is it so popular there, of all places? And what is it about this unique musical style? Is it riding out the Korean Wave??

Next week, our final episode of the season, takes us to fans of something a bit more global: Fans of cosplay!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Korean pop, abbreviated to 'K-pop', is a musical genre that originates in South Korea. The term is often used to describe a modern form of South Korean pop music drawing inspiration from a range of styles and genres around the world. K-pop's origins begin in the late 1980s and early 1990s with groups such as Seo Taiji and Boys being among the earliest in 1992.

The French Institut national de l'audiovisuel defines K-pop as a "fusion of synthesized music, sharp dance routines and fashionable, colorful outfits." ... Songs typically consist of one or a mixture of pop, rock, hip hop, R&B and electronic music genres.

— Wikipedia - K-pop

There is also a ton of history about K-pop that relates to Japan, and the West, Korean Culture in general, and even _enka_... but we only have a short time to do the research, so we would highly recommend reading more about it!

Fandom Origins:

Modern K-pop idol culture began with the band H.O.T in 1996, and another generation of fans started with TVXQ and BoA which broke into the neighbouring Japanese market (and the world). However, with the advent of social media and Korean TV shows, K-pop and its fandom may just be a small part of the Korean Wave.

Most Active:

For the first time in _Fanthropological's_ history, the answer to the question "when was this fandom most active" is _now_. Since January 2004, interest in K-pop (using Google Trends as a proxy) is the highest it has ever been and has been on a huge trend upwards since approximately January 2010. Interest is still rising, those it has been less dramatic of an increase in interest since approximately March 2012 (For reference, _Gangnam Style_ debuted on Youtube in July 2012).

Fandom Demographics:

Thank goodness for fans! The kpop subreddit has conducted a census which gives us an interesting (if rough sense) of the fandom demographics of North American K-pop fans. Based on this data (and that caveat):

Age: The majority of fans are between 18-24 (61.5%), with the next largest group being fans aged 25-34 (20%) and fans aged 13-17 (15.6%)
Gender: The majority of fans from this survey are male (56%) compared to female (42.6%)
Ethnicity: The majority of fans are Asian (46%), Caucasian (44.5%), or Hispanic (8.4%)

However, a Master's student, Maur-Anne Griffonnet-Barge, conducted a survey as part of her thesis and may give a more 'global' dataset:

Age: The majority are age 19 or younger with a close second being fans age 20-29
Gender: Differing from the reddit survey, the vast majority identify as female
Ethnicity: The majority of respondents were white, with the next largest group being fans who are Asian.

While it is difficult to estimate the number of fans, the Hallyu (Korean Wave) index, gives a conservative estimate of 35 million "hardcore" fans of Korean Pop Culture worldwide and there are 60 million registered Hallyu fan club members in 109 countries. Assuming K-pop is a subset of that, it would still put K-pop fans in the millions.

Around the world:

We know that K-pop has gained some popularity around the world, but using the same google t

View Details

What is it about those high-flying, high-energy performers that get fans so worked up? And why isn't there more of this amazing sport elsewhere in the world (perhaps there is)? This week, we're talking about fans of Lucha Libre!

Next week, we'll be looking at the Korean Wave, specifically, at fans of K-pop (in Brazil)?!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Lucha Libre, literally "Free fight" in English, refers to a form of professional wrestling developed in Mexico. It is often characterized by its colourful masks, rapid moves, and "high-flying" maneuvers. Lucha libre wrestlers are known as luchadores (literally, wrestlers).

Lucha libre wrestling dates back to 1863 during the French intervention into Mexico, developed by Enrique Ugartechea (the first Mexican wrestler) from Greco-Roman wrestling. However, it probably wasn't until the 1930s with the foundation of the Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (Mexican Wrestling Enterprise) that the sport gained a national foothold.

It wasn't until the 1940s when the iconic idea of the masked wrestler entered into the sport. In 1942, a silver-masked wrestler, El Santo (The Saint) made his debut in Mexico City and won an 8-man battle royal. His career spanned nearly five decades and he became a folk hero and symbol of justice for the common man.

Fandom Origins:

Names:

Lucha Libre
Luchador
Mexican Wrestling

Most Active:

It's always hard to measure the activity of a fandom; looking at Google Trends data since 2004, the sport has enjoyed a lot of variation in popularity. It would make sense to guess that it is less popular now than towards the 1950s and 1960s (given the proliferation of media around characters such as El Santo), but even looking at the Google Trends data, there have been ebbs and flows in popularity. In particular, a rise in interest around October 2006, and again in January 2016.

Size of Fandom:

... the biggest two or three lucha libre events of the year can attract crowds of 17,000, most weekly fights see attendances of between 1,000 and 3,000 people, with tickets costing about 300 pesos.

— BBC - Mexican wrestling grapples to secure a bright future

As a rough estimate, there are probably at least a hundred thousand fans of Lucha Libre. However, there may be overlap with other wrestling fandoms.

Around the world:

Interest in Lucha Libre is likely more global than from its outset. Though the majority of interest in the sport stems from Mexico, there is a lot of interest from other tropical (and in particular, latin) parts of the world: Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Bolivia, for example.

Related fandoms:

WWE
Japanese Wrestling

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Why are masks important to Lucha Libre?

In mask, out of mask... Bruce Wayn

View Details

Our fandom journey this season takes us all the way to Japan to talk about fans of the world's most famous _virtual_ pop idol: Hatsune Miku! How did such a relatively niche thing become a global phenomenon? And who is pulling the strings??

Next week, we're off to Mexico to talk about fans of that exciting sport: Lucha Libre!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Hatsune Miku is a VOCALOID. What is a VOCALOID? A VOCALOID is a singing synthesizer application developed by YAMAHA. It was an international effort to create a synthesizer to act as a replacement singer. The original VOCALOID engine was release in 2004. Hatsune Miku was the second VOCALOID released as part of the VOCALOID2 engine and the first member of the Character Vocal Series created by Crypton Future Media Inc. Her name literally means "the first sound from the future."

She is also a humanoid persona: a 16-year-old girl with long turquoise twintails and her voice is modelled after Saki Fujita. In September of 2007, Amazon.co.jp reported over 57 million yen (Over a half-million USD) in sales for the Hatsune Miku software, and she has recorded over 100 000 songs. She has since been portrayed in many different media, and is also a Japanese pop idol, among other things.

Size of Fandom:

The vocaloid subreddit has over 15000 subscribers, and the Hatsune Miku subreddit has over 2600. The actual number of fans is probably somewhere in the low hundreds of thousands though:

She’s beautiful, she’s talented, she’s immensely popular…and she’s not real. Hatsune Miku the virtual popstar creation of Crypton Future Media in Japan, has sold out another concert. Her much anticipated second annual March 9th (39) performance was seen live by over 2000 attendees, watched by thousands more in theaters screening the concert around the country, and streamed in real time to over 160,000 fans via Nico Nico Douga. That is a level of attendance reserved for world class entertainment, and Hatsune Miku didn’t fail to deliver. Her nearly three hour show featured multiple encores, special guest appearances, and was met by fervent enthusiasm by her fans attending live in Tokyo.

— SingularityHub - 160,000+ Watch Virtual Popstar Hatsune Miku Return to the Stage (video)

Changes in Fandom:

Interest in Hatsune Miku has been steady, with a slight decline in the last few years (according to Google Trends data). There was a huge spike in interest around the time of her release (Oct 2007), and interest in her (and other VOCALOIDs) has been pretty stable ever since.

Around the world:

While Hatsune Miku enjoy fans from around the world, the most interest in her stems from Japan, and, to a lesser degree, from countries such as Taiwan, Vietnam, Chile, Hong Kong, and South Korea.

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Hatsune Miku is popular in part due to dating sims.

A portion of her fanbase does not know that she is not a real person

Are there male counterparts? Is Hatsune Miku peak moe?

[// In terms of classification, it is generally considered that "VOCALOIDs" earn their classification when: They have a VOCALOID™-powered vocal released. This includes characters from games with vocals powered by the VOCALOID™ software

View Details

This week, we're continuing our journey around the world, venturing to South Korea to up our actions per minute (APM) as we learn more about fans of Starcraft! What is it about this almost-twenty-year-old game that is still so captivating to fans? Or has it lost its allure since the sequel (and many competitors) have been released? And why is it so popular in South Korea, of all places?

Next week, we'll be heading off to Japan to learn about the world's most famous virtual idol, Hatsune Miku!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

StarCraft is a military science fiction media franchise ... owned by Blizzard Entertainment. The series, set in the beginning of the 26th century, centers on a galactic struggle for dominance among four species—the adaptable and mobile Terrans, the ever-evolving insectoid Zerg, the powerfully enigmatic Protoss, and the "god-like" Xel'Naga creator race. ... The original game [released in 1998] and its official expansion have been praised as one of the benchmark real-time strategy games of its time. The series has gathered a solid following around the world

— Wikipedia - StarCraft

Size of Fandom:

As of December 2010 (admittedly, not the most recent data) StarCraft II had sold over 4.5 million copies, and had over 2 million illegal downloads (setting a record for most data transferred by a single torrent in only three months).

By June 2007, Starcraft and its expansion, Brood War, had sold nearly 10 million copies combined (4.5 million, of which, were sold in South Korea alone).

The StarCraft reddit has over 190 000 subscribers, and the StarCraft II subreddit has over 10 000.

Changes in Fandom:

Interest in StarCraft has been on the decline with interest reaching its height in August 2010 (the release of Starcraft II), and some other spikes in (Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm's release) and May 2007 (the Blizzard World Wide Invitational hosted in Korea).

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

In the game StarCraft, there are three races you can choose: which is most popular in South Korea and why?

Is StarCraft an expression of Korea's interest in sci-fi in general (compared to China and Warcraft)?

StarCraft 2 is less popular than StarCraft 1 because it sucks.

The Verdict

T is out

G is out. Doesn't need anymore.

Z is out.

This week's spotlight

No spotlight this week. Sorry folks.

Famous Last Words

This week's famous last words around next week's fandom, Hatsune Miku!

Hatsune Miku is popular in part due to dating sims.

A portion of her fanbase does not know that she is not a real person.

Are there male counterparts? Is Hatsune Miku peak moe?

View Details

This week, we're batting our best and bowling for the fences as we talk about fans of that popular English sport, Cricket! Why is it so popular? Is it really as slow as they say? Stay tuned!

Next week, there'll be less qq and more pew-pew when we dive into fans of StarCraft!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Cricket is in some ways, not dissimilar from more familiar (to North Americans) sports such as baseball:

Cricket is a ... played between two teams of eleven players each on a cricket field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard-long pitch with a target called the wicket (a set of three wooden stumps topped by two bails) at each end. Each phase of play is called an innings during which one team bats, attempting to score as many runs as possible, whilst their opponents field. Depending on the type of match, the teams have one or two innings apiece and, when the first innings ends, the teams swap roles for the next innings.

— Wikipedia - Cricket

It is unclear when the sport began, but it is likely to have started around the middle of the 16th century and the first international matches took place in the second half of the 19th century (with the sport having grown globally as part of the expansion of the British Empire). Interestingly enough, the first international match took place between the United States and Canada (of all places) in 1844.

Most Active:

Unlike many recent fandoms we're explored, interest in cricket seems to be increasing! Google Trends indicates a slow increase in interest in the sport since 2004, with a few spikes recently corresponding to the Cricket World Cup (the largest spike happening in 2015).

Size of Fandom:

The Cricket subreddit has about 48 thousand subscribers.

In 2015-2016, the National Cricket Census of Australia recealed that over 1.3 million people play cricket (Australia has a population of about 24 million), 24% of cricketers being female.

WorldAtlas.com estimates the number of followers of cricket to be 2.5 billion (behind soccer, at 4 billion).

Around the world:

Cricket is popular around the world. The international governing body of cricket, the International Cricket Council, has 105 members representing a large part of the world. It is most popular in the British commonwealth, and, in particular, Pakistan and India.

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

~~What is the connection between the game cricket and the insect cricket?~~ Has anyone become a fan of cricket via the fifth Doctor?

Is there a rap song or concept album about the sport of cricket?

Why are people fans of such a slow game?

The Verdict

Z is in ... well, it's on the list, anyway.

T is out. Call me when there is robo-Cricket.

G is out... unless someone emails g@thenickscast.com with the best cricket has to offer. Then, maybe

This week's spotlight

Chance to Shine

Chance to Shine is a charity that teaches kids life skills and spreads 'the power of cricket'.

Famous Last Words

This week's famous last words around next week's fandom, StarCraft!

In the game StarCraft, there are three races

View Details

Oh no! We've been transported into a world _inside the computer_ where we need to defeat big bads with the help of our monster pals! That's right, we're in China talking about the world's most popular massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG), World of Warcraft! Why _is_ it so popular after more than a decade?

Next week, we're gonna get _wicket_ on you as we travel to India to talk about fans of the oft misunderstood sport, _cricket_!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

World of Warcraft is a popular MMORPG created by Blizzard Entertainment and set in the already existing _Warcraft_ universe. It was released in 2004, and the player takes on the role of a member of either the Horde, or the Alliance as one of the many multitudes of races and classes. In China, it is known as "World of Magic Beasts".

Most Active:

Interest in World of Warcraft has been on the decline, with the most interest taking place between November 2004 and September 2011 with a peak between January 2007 and January 2009.

Size of Fandom:

As of 2014, according to an article in Engadget, there were over 100 million World of Warcraft accounts.

However, a more accurate number might the number of active subscriptions: a peak of 12 million in October of 2010, and 5.5 million in October 2015.

The subreddit, r/wow has over 400 000 subscribers.

Around the world:

World of Warcraft is popular in many different parts of the world. Below are some rough estimates of number of players from different parts of the world:

China, Asian Realms: 3.2 million players

United States and Canada, North American Realms: 3.0 million players

United Kingdom, European Realms: 1.0 million players

South Korea, Asian Realms: 800,000 players

Germany, European Realms: 600,000 players

Taiwan, Asian Realms: 350,000 players

France, European Realms: 200,000 players

Russia, European Realms: 150,000 players

Australia, North American Realms: 120,000 players

Latin America, North American Realms: 100,000 players

Spain, European Realms: 80,000 players

Other, NA/EU/Asian Realms: 800,000 players

— WoWWiki - WoW population by country

Fan Activity:

There are over 200 000 results for World of Warcraft on DeviantArt, and Archive of Our Own has over 2000 fanfics related to World of Warcraft.

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Primarily popular in China because there are so many internet cafes.

...Popular in China for the same reason that they like Windows XP so much.

World of Warcraft is so popular in China because ~~Silk Road~~ Aion is a Korean game, and there's a racism thing going on there.

The Verdict

Z is out.

G is out.

T is out.

This week's spotlight

Running of the Gnomes

We were unable to find an official source for the event, but from this article from 2017:

Since 2010, World of Warcraft players have been creating hordes of pink-haired level one gnomes and running them across Azeroth to support the fight against breast cancer. This year Blizzard is giving the event a boost with special decorations, a cheering crowd and its own special quest.

The tradition of running low-level gnomes across a danger-filled continent dates back to EverQuest in the early 2000s, back before World of Warcraft came along and took over the MMO-space. It’s a high danger, low stakes sort of thrill that helps pass the

View Details

This week, we do our best to keep up with our Russian rivals as we skate (or die) to defend Canada's honour as we talk about fans of that _hot_ sport, figure skating! The _burning_ question we have is... how important is Yuri!!! on Ice to the fandom? And how popular is it anyway?

Next week, we'll be travelling to China to talk about everyone's favourite MMORPG, ~~World of Magic Beasts~~ World of Warcraft!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Figure skating, also known as _artistic skating_ in many other countries, is a sport where individuals or groups of people perform on a special type of ice skate (i.e. figure skates). It was the first winter sport included in the Olympics (in 1908) and, depending on the discipline, may include spins, jumps, lifts, throw jumps, death spirals or other elements.

Size of Fandom:

Let's take a look at the fandom funnel! By that I mean, more dedicated fans tend to put more into their expression of fandom, so we can use rough numbers to extrapolate how many fans there are. From what I was able to gather...

184, 213: U.S. Figure Skating members during the 2015-16 season

130, 000: Approximate readership of SKATING (a US figure skating magazine)

108, 264: 2016 ISU World Figure Skating Championships attendance across all sessions

— U.S. Figure Skating Factsheet

Comparatively, the largest figure skating subreddit has about 1600 subscribers.

Given that data is only from the United States, its hard to estimate, but I don't think it's unreasonable to estimate millions of fans of figure skating (in different levels of engagement).

Fan Demographics:

Using data from U.S. Figure Skating, it's possible to get some approximation of the age and gender of figure skating fans (given its 184 200 members), which is something! Transcribed below:

Overall

| Age | Members | Percentage | |:-----:|:-------:|:----------:| | 0-6 | 27 630 | 15% | | 7-12 | 64 470 | 35% | | 13-18 | 25 788 | 14% | | 19-25 | 11 052 | 6% | | 26-50 | 18 420 | 10% | | 51+ | 9 210 | 5% | | ? | 27 630 | 15% |

Male

| Age | Members | Percentage | |:-----:|:-------:|:----------:| | 0-12 | 34 998 | 19% | | 13-18 | 3 684 | 2% | | 19-49 | 5 526 | 3% | | 50+ | 1 842 | 1% |

Female

| Age | Members | Percentage | |:-----:|:-------:|:----------:| | 0-12 | 73 680 | 40% | | 13-18 | 25 788 | 14% | | 19-49 | 27 630 | 15% | | 50+ | 9 210 | 5% |

Figure skaters, then, are predominately young, and predominately female.

Though the data is a bit out of data, Sports Business Journal might have more insight into the demographics of fans in general. Again, fans are predominantly female (65%), but tend to skew older — the largest groups are folks age 50-64 (27%), 30-39 (20%), and 40-49 (19%).

Changes in Fandom around the world:

Interest in figure skating is hard to plot, but its probably on a slow decline in terms of search traffic, at least. Interest is, unsurprisingly, periodic, with a lot of interest around the winter Olympics and in December when a number of championships take place (not to mention, winter in general). The International Skating Union (ISU) Grand Prix of Figure Skating ends in mid-December, but starts in late October, so that might also be a factor.

Unsurprisingly, interest in figure skating tends to come from colder, northly countries. In particular,

View Details

This week, we interrupt our global fandom safari for a matter of dire urgency! ~~People are wrong on the internet!~~ There is a crisis that only the Doctor, the Winchester brothers, Holmes and Watson can solve (and possibly the Avengers if they aren't busy?)! That's right, this week, we're getting meta and bending the laws of time and space to talk about fans of SuperWhoLock!

Next week, we bend the laws of space and time back into place as we travel to Russia to talk about fans of that magical sport (and its fans): Figure skating!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Fandom Origins:

SuperWhoLock is, unsurprisingly, the crossover between the fandoms of Supernatural, Doctor Who, and Sherlock (with the Avengers sometimes making an appearance). The first tagged SuperWhoLock post (on Tumblr) appeared in August 2011, and the first SuperWhoLock fanfic was tagged on Archive of our own in August 2012 (though it is possible that stories first appeared as early as January 2012 elsewhere).

In SuperWhoLock’s case, this usually involves saving the world from impending apocalypse, something so serious that it only makes sense to enlist as many superheroes as possible to stop it—in this case, the Doctor and his assistants, Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Sam and Dean Winchester, and the angel Castiel.

— The Daily Dot - WTF is SuperWhoLock?

Names:

SuperWhoLockian???

Most Active:

Based on Google Trends data and Fanlore, it appears that the fandom was most popular in the summer of 2014 (in particular, mid July 2014 - The month of DashCon). Interest was maintained from June 2013 to about January 2015 before starting its downward decline again.

Where does fandom live:

Almost entirely on Tumblr

Related fandoms:

Obviously, Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Supernatural are most related to SuperWhoLock fandom. There are some parodies fandoms that exist as well:

Bee Shrek Test in the House
Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons

This week's spotlight

Organization for Transformative Works

The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization run by and for fans to provide access to and preserve the history of fanworks and fan cultures.

Where can you find us online?

We are everywhere! Most notably though, we like to hang out in a few places on social media:

If you want to help us to create more amazing fannish content, become a patron on Patreon; even as little as a dollar a month pledge really helps us out!
For all the latest updates, check us out on Facebook or Twitter
To see the latest hijinx from our conventions or even our daily lives and adventures, check us out on Instagram
For our latest convention updates, Let's Plays, and other in-real-life video, check out our YouTube channel
We're also on iTunes, and Google Play, and would love it if you could leave a review and rating!
if you want to reach us, and for some reason none of those work for you, try nick@thenickscast.com
You can check out our website; that will mostly bring you back to this stuff.
Everything is thenickscast, so if you can't find us, go on your social network and search for that!
... You're still looking for ways to reach out? You can also use the hashtag #fanthro on Twitter!

View Details

What is it about that bitter (or sometimes sweet) morning delight that makes people such a fan? This week, we're talking about fans of coffee, and if there is more to it than its magical (and addictive) effects. What is it that has folks questing for the perfect brew?

Next week, we seal the rift in wibbly-wobbly-summer-timey-wimey as we put on some classic rock (and our deerstalker hat) as we interrupt our world travelling with time travelling as we talk about fans of that fascinating meta-fandom: _SuperWhoLock_!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

There are historical accounts and there are accounts of legend of how coffee was discovered (and in a loose way, the fandom).

One legend tells the story of a 9th-century Ethiopian goatherd, Kaldi, who discovered coffee when he noticed how excited his goats became after eating beans from a coffee plant. That story did not appear in writing until 1671 and is likely apocryphal.

Another legend tells of a Sheikh Omar (known for his ability to cure the sick through prayer) who was exiled to a cave, and found the berries from a shrubbery and tried a variety of ways to prepare them. Starving, he found that boiling them worked best and he was 'revitalized', and stories of this 'miracle drug' caught on (and when he returned he was made a saint).

The first historical record of the plant comes from accounts of 15th century Yemen, where the seeds were roasted and brewed in a way similar to how we prepare coffee today. It was then used by Sufi circles to stay awake for religious rituals. By the 16th century it had reached the rest of the middle east, Persia, Turkey, and north Africa. Later, coffee was introduced to England, France (1657), and Austria and Poland in 1683 after the Battle of Vienna when coffee was captured from supplies of the defeated Turks.

In 1683, a Franciscan friar named Marciano d’Aviano stopped a Turkish invasion of Austria, and along the way, some claim invented cappuccino. The retreating Turks left behind bags of coffee beans, historians say, which the Viennese found so bitter that they added milk and sugar, creating a frothy, sweet beverage. Legend says the word “cappuccino” comes from d’Aviano’s Capuchin order, so named for their brown robes.

— I Need Coffee - The Truth About How Major Religions View Coffee

Interestingly enough, Coffee was not popular when introduced into North America (alcohol was more popular) but started to gain popularity after the war of 1812 when Britain cut off access to tea (which was also in the decline in England, and was harder to make than coffee).

...And then there's a lot more history!

It is the second most traded commodity, _after oil_.

Size of Fandom:

Probably in the millions. Looking further down the fandom funnel, there are over 160 000 people subscribed to the coffee subreddit.

Global Interest:

Coffee is popular, and continues to grow popularity over time; interest in the search term has increased sine the Summer of 2011 to today by about 50%. It is most popular in areas such as Australia, South Africa, the United States, Canada, the UK, Kenya, India, and large parts of Europe and Asia. Worth noting is that search traffic for Coffee is higher than tea although both have been increasing in popularity.

Related fandoms:

Tea

Fanfics:

There are over 30000 fanfics containing the word 'coffee', some of which are in reference to 'Coffee Shop Alternate Universe (AU)', a situation in fanfic where one of the characters is the barista and the other is a popular customer (though it's not hard to extend the idea). As it turns out, there are a lot of different AUs in fanfic, but that's not coffee related.

[Last Episode's](http://fanthropological.com/e/live

View Details

We interrupt our world-wide trip with a trip through TIME. This week, we travel back to ConBravo! 2017, to our panel where we talked about the greatest game of all time (and greatest fandom?), Chrono Trigger! Why has this game remained popular over the years? Timing? Team? Time Travel? Let's find out!

Next week, we're back to our regularly scheduled trip, and off to Turkey to talk about fans of Coffee!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

To put it succinctly: The game follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe... that they will never personally encounter.

Size of Fandom:

Towards the high-end (and based on sales), somewhere between 2.65 million and 800 000. The Chrono Trigger subreddit has about 5000 subscribers

Changes in Fandom:

Interest in Chrono Trigger, by Google Trends data, is on the decline, but there was a large amount of interest in the early 2000s, and a spike in December of 2008 (the DS version was released in November 2008).

Around the world:

Using the same Google Trends data, interest n the game is particularly strong in North America, Brazil, Chile, Finland, Sweeden, and Australia.

Famous fan works:

Numerous fan made games which have been shut down by Square Enix. One of the most is Crimson Echoes which takes place five years after the events of the original game, and ties together events between _Chrono Trigger_ and _Chrono Cross_.

Where does fandom live:

Previously, fan-sites and forums [Citation Needed]. Chrono Compendium has a community map which lists over 200 different English-language Chrono Trigger fansites and resources

Fanfics:

Fanfiction.net has over 850 Chrono Trigger fanfics (compared to over 640 for Chrono Cross), and Archive of our Own has over 120 (with 58 for Chrono Cross). There are however, over 14000 results for Chrono Trigger on DeviantArt.

Where can you find us online?

We are everywhere! Most notably though, we like to hang out in a few places on social media:

If you want to help us to create more amazing fannish content, become a patron on Patreon; even as little as a dollar a month pledge really helps us out!
For all the latest updates, check us out on Facebook or Twitter
To see the latest hijinx from our conventions or even our daily lives and adventures, check us out on Instagram
For our latest convention updates, Let's Plays, and other in-real-life video, check out our YouTube channel
We're also on iTunes, and Google Play, and would love it if you could leave a review and rating!
if you wan

View Details

We arrive in Italy, and rather than diving into a fandom, we dive into a history lesson on Italy, Progressive Rock, and its liberating love child, Rock Progressivo Italiano (RPI)! What is it? How is it different than prog rock in general? Why is its own subgenre? Some of these, an more, on this week's episode!

Next week, we'll be travelling to Turkey to talk about fans of that delicious dark beverage, coffee!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Progressive Rock (prog rock) is a subgenre of rock music developed in the UK and US throughout the mid to late 1960s (initially termed progressive pop). It is based on a fusion of styles and is an outgrowth of psychedelic bands who moved away from pop tradition in favour of different instrumentation an compositional techniques more often found in jazz, folk, or classical music.

Rock Progressivo Italiano (RPI) is a subgenre within a subgenre. Italy was generally uninterested in rock music _until_ the early 1970s when the italian prog rock scene developed.

RPI is notable as it tends to emphasize the classical rather than rock elements of the music, often including some operatic influences.

Most Active:

The fandom was definitely more active towards the inception of the subgenre. In terms of Google Trends data, search interest is quite low (with the most interest taking place in July 2004). Interest in RPI is also significantly less than prog rock (which is not in decline by comparison; interest in prog rock is mostly flat).

There is not enough data to determine any particular regionalism, but one might expect that it is popular in... Italy.

Related fandoms:

Prog Rock.

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Z: Are all of the prog rock bands in Italy fans of each other?

G: How much of Italian prog rock is taken from British prog rock? How much is taken from Italian music?

T: Who is the RPI equivalent to Phil Collins?

This week's spotlight

The Race Against Time

Now in its third year of running, the Race Against Time is the Nickscast's annual charity livestream where we work our way though Chrono Trigger, obtaining all its endings, and also raising money for the Alzheimer Society of Canada. Last year we raised over $1200 CAD, and have plans to surpass that!

This year, the event will be held August 12 through to August 13, starting at 10am ET. You can also subscribe on Twitch.tv/theraceagainsttime in anticipation of the event!

Famous Last Words

This week's famous last words around next week's fandom. We'll be talking about fans of coffee as we take our fandom cavalcade to Turkey!

Who was it that first called it Turkish Coffee? Were they Turkish or Greek (as the two are made in the same way)?

There is a ceremony / celebration of Turkish culture that involves coffee.

What are coffee fan fanactivites? ...In Turkey?

Where can you find us online?

We are everywhere! Most notably though, we like to hang out in a few places on social media:

If you want to help us to create more amazing fannish content, become a patron on Patreon; even as little as a dollar a month pledge really helps us out!
For all the latest updates, check us out on Facebook or Twitter
To see the latest hijinx from our conventions or even our daily lives and adventures, check us out on Instagram
For our latest convention updates, Let's Plays, and other in-real-life video, check out our YouTube channel
We're also on [iTunes](https://itune

View Details

Upon arriving in France, we are swept away by a mysterious man who is out to steal our riches... and our hearts! This week, we're talking about one of the first, classic gentleman thieves: Arsene Lupin! Why was he less popular than Sherlock Holmes? Where is he now (figuratively)?

Next week, we'll be on our way to Italy to listen to an inspirational movement (at the time), both progressive _and_ traditional: Rock Progressivo Italiano (RPI)!

Episode outline

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

G: Arsene Lupin is an old-timey thing and isn't relevant anymore.

Z: Why... did Japan think there would be enough of a fandom for an anime?

T: Why was _Sherlock Holmes_ so popular compared to this guy? A good guy (gentleman thief) on the wrong side of the law? That sounds like it should be more popular!

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Arsene Lupin is a gentleman thief and master of disguise, and is the creation of Maurice Leblanc (author of short stories and often described as a French counterpart to Arthur Conan Doyle). Lupin (originally Lopin, until a local politician of the same name protested) was featured in 17 novels, 39 novellas since his debut in 1905 (18 years after Sherlock Holmes), five authorized sequels in the 1970s (Leblanc passed in 1941) and many other different mediums.

While often portrayed as a force for good, Lupin tends to operate on the wrong side of the law. His stories some time take on a fantastic tone, with some stories having involved the fountain of youth and a radioctive 'god-stone'.

Fandom Origins:

Most Active:

The fandom was definitely most active towards the inception of Arsene Lupin. Google trends data indicates that there is not a lot of search traffic for the term, especially compared to some of the related fandoms. Nonetheless, there was a recent spike in interest in the term in October 2004 (2004 French crime-adventure film of the same name), May 2005 (Tales of the Shadowmen, an annual anthology of short stories that features _Lupin_ from time to time), and December 2007 (probably the Filipino TV show, Lupin, that ran from April to August of 2007).

Around the world:

Popular in France, Europe, and Asia (in particular, the Philippines and Japan)

Related fandoms:

Possibly an example of a fandom where its descendants are immensely more popular today than the original: Night Hood, Lupin III, Kamen Rider, Fantomas, Detective Conan (to some extent, with Phantom Thief Kid / Kaito Kid)

Fanfics:

There are 18 fanworks on Archive of Our Own related to Maurice Leblanc's Lupin, and 161 fanworks related to Lupin III.

The Verdict

T is in.

Z is in.

G is in.

This week's spotlight

Tiger Mask Donation Phenomenon

...Not related to Lupin, but came up as an interesting search result when looking for different charity causes. To sum up: In Japan, people were donating money to folks randomly under aliases which were popular Anime characters including Lupin III).

The Race Against Time

This year, the event will be held August 12 through to August 13, starting at 10am ET. You can also subscribe on Twitch.tv/theraceagainsttime in anticipation of the event!

Famous Last Words

This week's famous last words around next week's fandom as we travel to Italy, Rock Progressivo Italiano (RPI)!

**Z

View Details

We start season four with a bang, and a world tour, traveling across the globe and through time (not really) with special guest, Graeme of Reality Bomb! We're talking about fans of the fab four, _Beatlemaniacs_ (aka Beatles Fans). What was it about this iconic pop group that left such an impact on the musical world and its fans? We're giving you the fans-eye view!

Next week, we'll be taking the chunnel to France to talk about fans of a well-loved, but perhaps not as well-known, character: Arsene Lupin!

Where can I learn more about Graeme?

You can check out the podcast that he and Alex Kennard co-produce, Reality Bomb, a monthly, magazine-style Doctor Who podcast that focuses on the Doctor Who fandom, which just recently finished its 50th episode! You can also check out their podcast on Facebook or Twitter.

If you want to know more about the man behind the podcast, you can follow him on twitter: @graemeburk.

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960, consisting of four members: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the foremost and most influential act of the rock era. Though they broke up in 1970, the individual members enjoyed successful musical careers on their own.

John Lennon was shot and killed in 1980, and George Harrison died of lung cancer in 2001.

The Beatles are the best-selling band in history, with estimated sales of over 800 million physical and digital albums worldwide. They have had more number-one albums on the British charts and sold more singles in the UK than any other act. They are also the best-selling music artists in the United States, with 178 million certified units

— Wikipedia - The Beatles

Fandom Origins:

The fandom started to take off in 1963, and continued pass the group's break up in 1970 (public performances had stopped in 1966).

Names:

Beatlemaniacs

Most Active:

Definitely between 1960 an 1970. Today, according to Google Trends data, interest in the Beatles has been on the decline, though there was a spike in interest in September 2009 when remastered versions of their albums were re-released and again in February 2014 with _The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles_.

Fanfics:

Archive of our Own has over 1200 fanfics related to The Beatles.

This week's spotlight

The Race Against Time

This year, the event will be held August 12 through to August 13, starting at 10am ET. You can also subscribe on Twitch.tv/theraceagainsttime in anticipation of the event!

Famous Last Words

This week's famous last words around next week's fandom as we travel to France, Arsene Lupin (Gentleman Thief)!

Arsene Lupin is an old-timey thing and isn't relevant anymore.

Why... did Japan think there would be enough of a fandom for an anime?

Why is Sherlock Holmes so popular (by comparison)? Arsene Lupin is a good guy on wrong side of the law... why is _that_ not more popular?

Where can you find us online?

We are everywhere! Most notably though, we like to hang out in a few places on social media:

If you want to help us to create more amazing fannish content, become a patron on [P

View Details

This is it! We're at the season finale! And what better way to end the season than by talking about the beloved Disney franchise and its fans... maybe even a musical number? Maybe not. Given the vastness of Disney fandom (live action, animated movies, particular franchises) we just barely scratch the surface of what exactly Disney fans are!

And that's it! We'll be back again on July 28th (two weeks, as of this release) to prepare for the next season. Until then, stay tuned!

Episode outline

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Z: The people who are a part of or are waiting to be a part of the secret Disneyland club underneath main street ... the people who are part of that club are not real Disney fans.

Alternatively: Real Disney fan aren't interested in alcohol

G: Does Disney have a formal code of conduct with fans? (e.g. no dressing as characters in parks) Do they keep a distance with certain fans

T: Is it possible to not be a fan of Disney, considering its reach? What is the biggest difference between fandoms within Disney? Are there Disney fans who hate each other?

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Founded in 1923 by Walt and Roy O. Disney, the Walt Disney company has created hundreds of live action and animated television and films, and various radio, music, theme parks, and published works as well.

It established itself as a leader in the American animation industry and has only since grown from its humble beginnings during the silent film era to the extravaganza you see today.

Most popular:

With gross revenue as a measure, the most popular animated Disney movies in order are:

1 Frozen
3 Toy Story 3
4 Finding Dory
5 Zootopia
7 The Lion King
8 Finding Nemo
13 Inside Out
17 Monsters University
18 Up
21 Big Hero 6

Size of Fandom:

There are over 100 million fans across all of the Disney network's Facebook pages as of 2010. According to a less verifiable source, there are over 500 million fans over that same network in 2013.

In 2011, there were 17.1 million visitors to the Magic Kingdom in Florida — Disney's three other parks in Orlando each hosted about 10 million visitors — while Disneyland brought in 16 million attendees.

— BuzzFeed - Meet The World's Most Intense Disney Fans

Changes in Fandom:

Relative to itself, interest in Disney has been on a slow decline with a rise to a high point being in December 2006, and declining to about half as much interest around now (2017). There is significantly more interest in Disney than similar groups (e.g. Pixar, Dreamworks).

Fan terms:

ODP: Official Disney Princess
Pixie Dusters

...The kind of fans who hate Kinsey for writing this edgy guide are generally known to the fan community as Pixie Dusters, after Peter Pan's Tinker Bell and her golden magic detritus. Pixie Dusters believe wholeheartedly in the purity of the Walt Disney Company and that it represents the peak of goodness and family values; and that to sully or criticize Disney is an act of heresy, punishable by non-stop harassment on the internet.

— BuzzFeed - Meet The World's Most Intense Disney Fans

Frothers / Foamers

On the other end of the spectrum are the grumbling, get-off-my-lawn obsessives that are called Frothers or Foamers (as in frothing from the mouth) because they criticize everything Disney does for not being as good or respectful of its glory days. The time period the company is failing to honor, of course, depend on the era in which a fan grew up. No new

View Details

Raze the land and boil the sea; you can't take this week's podcast from... us? What is it about this _Joss Whedon_ franchise that has survived cancellation and a lack of conclusion? Why is it that so many are such adamant fans of this short-lived series? This week, we're talking about fans of Firefly, the aptly-named _Browncoats_!

Next week, we'll be tackling our final topic of the season: Disney fans (and its a doozy)!

Episode outline

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Tom: Why do people care about this show? I guess Nathan Fillion is cool... Why do you care so much about it? Get over it!

Z: What is the place of duelling in the world of firefly? How common is it?

G: Is it really that good?

T: Where's the second season? Why hasn't it been kickstarted?

Fandom Facts

Origins:

"Firefly" is a space Western set 500 years in the future, in the aftermath of a civil war between rebels known as Independents (or Browncoats) and a tyrannical conglomerate called the Alliance. The Independents lose the war, and under Alliance control, corporations rule openly;

— SFGate - When Fox canceled 'Firefly,' it ignited an Internet fan base whose burning desire for more led to 'Serenity'

Firefly was a Sci-fi Western show broadcast in 2002. Created by Joss Whedon, only 11 of the 14 recorded episodes were aired in its original US run on the FOX network before the show was cancelled. Due to DVD sales, the show was deemed successful enough to have a movie produced, _Serenity_.

It stars several fan favourite actors such as Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau, and the late Ron Glass.

Names:

Browncoats, "dubbed ... in honor of the doomed-but-noble Independents" in the show.

Most Active:

Firefly fandom was most active around October of 2005, which is just after the release of the movie, _Serenity_. Otherwise, interest in the show has been on a very slow decline with about half as much interest now as five years ago.

Size of Fandom:

We would estimate the size of the fandom as more than 200 000 people; After the show's cancellation, FOX released a DVD set of the show which sold more than 200 000 copies — enough to get the movie greenlit.

Fan activity:

Mostly shipping characters, as in other fandoms. During the early 2000's, "Shindigs" (informal gatherings) were popular.

Fanfics:

Archive of our own has over 5600, and Fanfiction.net has over 7200.

Are you in, or out?

T is in.

Z is out.

G is out.

This week's spotlight

Can't Stop the Serenity

Can't Stop the Serenity is a group that organizes screenings of Serenity for charity, usually Equality Now, an organization working for equality for women and girls. Since 2006, they have raised over $1 mil USD, and it is entirely run by volunteers!

We share the ideal that people should “aim to misbehave,” if it absolutely means doing the right thing. We hold true that anyone can make a difference, and no effort is insignificant. Further we believe that a government shouldn’t destroy the rights of its citizens, regardless of sex. Basically, we watch our shows, support our causes and allow our voices to be heard because we live in countries which allow us to do so. But we realise that there are other people out there who can not do what we can do.

— Can't Stop the Serenity

**[The Race Against Time](http://raceagainsttime.

View Details

What makes 007 oh-so-beloved by fans? On this week's episode, the Nickscast (and special guest friend, Tom) talk about why it is that folks are such a fan of the intruiging English spy, James Bond!

Next week, we'll be dipping our toes into the Whedonverse as we talk about fans of Firefly: Browncoats!

Episode outline

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

G: Are there people who are only interested in the books, and if so, why? What's the Tom Bombadil of James Bond films? How faithful are the movies to the books?

Z: The iconic scene of James Bond being strapped down to a lazer. Is that lifted from the books, or movie original?

T: How important is universal love of the movies? Can you love just a movie? Just one bond?

EFG Nick: Why is Hank Scorpio the greatest bond villain of all time?

Fandom Facts

Origins:

James Bond is a fictional British Secret Service agent, created by Sir Ian Flemming in 1953. Flemming wrote Bond into twelve novels and two short story collections.

Though Flemming passed away in 1964, Bond has only become more popular, starring in twenty-four films, and eight other authors officially continuing his adventures.

The first EON Productions James Bond movie, Dr. No, was release in 1962.

There are two non-canonical movies: Casino Royale (a 1967 spoof) and Never Say Never Again (a 1983 remake of an earlier Eon-produced film, Thunderball).

Fandom Origins:

The first fan club was founded in 1972 by two high school students from Yonkers, NY. In 1974, they started publishing a magazine, Bondage Quarterly, however, it and most (if not all) other James Bond zines published no fan-fiction.

Changes in Fandom:

In general, trending downward worldwide, though there are peaks around when the movies were released based on Google Trends data since 2004. It hasn't been a huge drop though, perhaps about 20%. The data is based on when it was most popular in search traffic so hard to say.

Fan terms:

The Connery-through-Brosnan universe is often called "Classic Bond" or "Classicverse". The reboot starring Daniel Craig is thus far called the "Craigverse", though once Craig is replaced a new name will probably emerge.

Related fandoms:

Indiana Jones and Jason Bourne (based on Facebook data, via Hollywood.com)

Demographics:

In a survey of US James Bond fans by YouGov...

Across all groups, Sean Connery is the preferred bond (52%); Daniel Craig (16%), Pierce Brosnan (13%), Roger Moore (10%), Don't Know (7%)
In the 30-44 Age group, Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore run a close second
Daniel Craig gets the most support from folks under 30
6 in 10 Americans claim to be James Bond fans (1 in 5 claim to be "big fans")
Bond fandom does not appear to be indicative of any particular gender, age, or political leaning

Smirnoff vodka, which had been featured in Bond films since Dr. No, was replaced with Finlandia vodka in Die Another Day. A Smirnoff representative said that the company had lost interest in the Bond audience, whose major demographic they saw as men aged 25 to 45, and that it was seeking younger, more social customers aged 21 to 29.

— Wikipedia - James Bond Fandom

Fanfics:

Looking at Fanfiction.net, there are only 12 fanfics specifically for the James Bond movies, but well over 2000 results featuring the term "James Bond". Archive of our Own has over 8000 fanfics for Bond fandom, most focussed on the movies (97%), and most focussed on the Daniel Craig movies (91%).

Are you in, or out?

G is in.

View Details

Breaking News! Were you at YetiCon? If so, you may have been a part of our live podcast: A Fanthropological View of Pokemon!

What is it that keeps a franchise going for over twenty years? Why do fans continue to flock to it? Who are the fans of Pokemon anyway?

Stay tuned, and find out!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Pokemon is a video game and media franchise that was started in 1995 by Game Freak / Nintendo video game designer Satoshi Tajiri. The franchise centers on fictional creatures called Pokemon (Pocket Monsters) which humans, known as Pokemon trainers, catch and train to battle each other for sport. The is the third best-selling video game franchise (behind Mario, and Tetris) and spans 18 mainline games, over 60 different spin-off games, an anime series that has been running for 20 years and 11 seasons, 20 different movies... there is a lot of Pokemon!

Demographics:

Obviously, the main game series has broad appeal, so it is hard to pin down.

Using data from Club Nintendo and Media Create, it looks like the average Pokemon player is male, between the ages of 19-24.

However, there are lots of other data sources. Data from Infoscout on Pokemon licensed merchandise is slightly different: the largest group being white females between the ages of 35 to 44. Also interesting is that this data shows that Pokemon purchasers are more likely to have kids, to have a college education, and to make over $80k USD.

Some data on Forbes about Pokemon GO suggests that the majority of players are age 18-29, and female by a large margin (63% vs 37%). That's 2-to-1!

Names:

Pokemon Fans, Pokémaniacs, Pokétubers (Youtube)

Most Active:

I would argue that Pokemon is more popular now than ever but perhaps it is oversaturated as there are so many different Pokemon properties.

As for trends (based on Google Trends), Pokemon popularity has been relatively flat, but is likely going up slightly since 2016 with a huge spike in interest towards the end of July 2016 (the most popular period for Pokemon searches), which happened to be the time of the release of Pokemon Go

Changes in Fandom:

The largest change in the fandom, from demographics, is that it has been skewing older as time goes on. From the Club Nintendo and Media Create data, the age group has gone from primarily pre-school to 6th grade when Diamond and Pearl were released, to 19-24 when Black and White were released.

Fanfics:

Archive of our own has approximately 9000 fanfics across all media types, with almost 5000 of those being for the main video game series.

Fanfiction.net has almost 27 000 fanfics, which I think is a general indication of the relative popularity of Pokemon and the state of the fandom in the past vs now.

Where can you find us online?

We are everywhere! Most notably though, we like to hang out in a few places on social media:

If you want to help us to create more amazing fannish content, become a patron on Patreon; even as little as a dollar a month pledge really helps us out!
For all the latest updates, check us out on Facebook or Twitter
To see the latest hijinx from our conventions or even our daily lives and adventures, check us out on Instagram
For our latest convention updates, Let's Plays, and other in-real-life video, check out our YouTube channel
We're

View Details

The Nickscast talks all things film, film fandom, cinema... you name it as they try to figure out the allure of the silver screen when they talk about Cinephiles! They are not alone in their efforts; this week, Epic Film Guys Nick joins the fray and drops some knowledge bombs about cinema!

Next week, we'll be talking about that double-oh-so-secret agent, James Bond, and his many adoring fans!

Where can I learn more about EFG Nick?

Epic Film Guy Nick lives in upstate NY and graduated from Clarion University of PA in 2010 with a degree in English (writing). While in college he studied film as part of a film studies minor and made a couple short films. He handles the sound production and editing of the show (Epic Film Guys) as well as its release and manages the twitter account @EpicFilmGuys.

You can learn more about the Epic Film Guys by visiting http://epicfilmguys.wordpress.com/about-us/

You can also find them elsewhere on the internet!

Website: Epic Film Guys
Twitter: @EpicFilmGuys
Facebook: @EpicFilmGuys
iTunes: Epic Film Guys Podcast

Episode outline

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Z: Is there a movie marathon, cited as a cinephile’s paradise, where people are encouraged to bring in multiple-course meals?

G: Is it important for cinephiles to see movies in the theatre?

T: Are cinephiles really a fandom? Isn’t that just a pretentious title for people who watch movies? Where is the culture? The shared experience and unique terminology?

Fandom Facts

Size of Fandom:

Based on data from Telefilm In Canada alone, there are over 20.3 million moviegoers. Roughly two-thirds of the Canadian population goes out to see movies, and on average sees 5.1 movies in a year.

Within this group of moviegoers, there is a group of heavy moviegoers. This group consists of 25% of all moviegoers, sees 10 or more movies per year, and makes up the majority (60%) of all ticket purchases.

Fan demographics and preferences:

Again, based on the same source, there are slightly different demographics depending on which set of moviegoers are being referred to.

Looking at all moviegoers, they are split about 51% male, 49% female, and compared to the general population, are much more likely to be under the age of 44. In particular, a lot of moviegoers are between the ages of 13 and 24 compared to the general population. 16% tend to see a movie during the opening weekend, and 25% during the opening week.

Compared to non-movie goers

They are more likely to use social media (74%)
They are more likely to watch streaming TV (61%)
They are more likely to play video games (48%)
They are less likely to read a print newspaper (15%)

In general, moviegoers consume a lot of media.

When asked about why moviegoers do not go to see a movie, the biggest reason cited was cost. In terms of theatre preferences, seating, showtimes, and theatre quality are the most important factors.

Heavy moviegoers Looking specifically at this group, the split becomes 53% male, and 47% female, and are way more likely to be between the ages of 25 and 34. 27% of this group sees the movie on opening weekend, and 35% during the opening week.

Among the top five grossing films in 2015, Jurassic World, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Furious 7 attracted majority male audiences, while Inside Out was the only top five film with a majority female audience, with 54% of box office revenue

View Details

Episode outline

Last Time's Famous Last Words

Z: In The Simpsons, when Apu lives with the Simpsons temporarily, they watch a Bollywood movie together. That movie now exists. G: Are western fans of Bollywood also interested in Indian culture in general? T: What is the most ridiculous Bollywood film that exists?

Fandom Facts

Origins:

"Bollywood" movies, more formally referred to as "Hindi cinema", are films produced as part of the larger Indian film industry. It is one of the largest film producers in India representing 43% of net box office revenue (Tamil and Teluga cinema represent 36%). It is one of the largest centres of film production in the world, and one of the biggest film industries in the world in terms of films produced and people employed.

The first silent films made in India started around the beginning of the 20th century, and by the 1930s the industry was producing about 200 films per year.

Names:

Hindi cinema fans, Bollywood fans,

Most Active:

Probably the present day; Google trends data shows a slow but gradual increase from 2005 to now with the most interest being in spikes from last year and early this year.

Size of Fandom:

In 2012, over 2.6 billion tickets were sold to Bollywood films, compared to 1.3 billion in the United States and almost 0.5 billion in China during the same period. Another source cites 4 billion tickets (Bollywood) vs 3 billion tickets (United States), but still, that's a huge upper bound.

Around the world:

There are definitely fans of Bollywood films outside of India, and outside of just Indian ex-patriots. Bollywood films are known from Egypt to Pakistan, Russia (In Soviet Russia, Indian movies were fairly common due to an Indo-Russian deal and also the fact that Hollywood was quite restricted back then), Ukraine, Poland, China, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UK, USA, Canada. They are less known in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Oceania.

“About 95 per cent of these are women,” Wessel says. “They’re drawn to the movies because German culture can be quite cold, especially for men. In actors like Shah Rukh, they see a guy who is soft, romantic, not afraid to cry or show his emotional side.”

— Hindustan Times - Take a tour to see how Indian cinema has found foreign fans

Fast facts:

In the 1970s, India cinema overtook America as the world's largest film producer and the term 'Bollywood' was coined.

— Leicester Mercury - Bollywood: 17 interesting facts about Indian cinema

A vast majority of Hindi films are still dubbed using synch-sound equipment. The reason for this is, most people have not invested in sound-proofing their studios. Given the camera noise, it is much more effective to have the actors dub in their voices later. Of course, this often ends up compromising on the quality of the films.

— MensXP - 10 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT: BOLLYWOOD

Are you in, or out?

T is in.

T will watch a Bollywood movie at some point

Z is in.

G is in.

Looking forward to some Shah Rukh Khan

This week's spotlight

Arts for India

A charity organization looking to support underprivileged youth artists in India!

While several philanthropic organizations are work

View Details

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Published between 1954-55, the Lord of the Rings is J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy story, following the adventures of Frodo and many others, hoping to stop the evil lord Sauron.

Fandom Origins:

The fandom started early on with letters being written to Tolkien about Middle-earth and the characters. In the 1960s, hippie counter-culture found some resonance with the book and helped it to become a best seller. Several fan groups started around this time: The Tolkien Society, and the Mythopeic Society, to name a few.

Anti-fandom seems to have existed since as early as 1969 when co-founders of National Lampoon authored their novel, Bored of the Rings.

Of course, there are tons of other bits of history, and the books (and fandom) have impacted music and academics alike.

Online fandom started around 1993, with newsgroups like alt.fan.tolkien and rec.arts.books.tolkien.

He wrote of a "deplorable cultus" of fandom, and stated that ""Many young Americans are involved in the stories in a way that I'm not". He was referring to the "Go Go Gandalf" and "Frodo Lives" buttons and stickers that had cropped up on many American college campuses.

Peter S. Beagle wrote that he'd once told the Professor about a young man who "thought he was Frodo," and Tolkien said "I've ruined their lives."

— Fanlore - The Lord of the Rings

Names:

Ringer (fairly recent, limited to Lord of the Rings); Tolkienist (usually refers to students of Elvish languages or fans of Tolkien). LOTRians.

Most Active:

The fandom was probably the most active when the books came out. Based on data from Google Trends, it was most popular in 2004 with small spikes around December and January in 2005, December in 2012, December in 2013, and December in 2014. Coincidentally, The Lord of the Rings movies were released in December 2001, December 2002, and December 2003, and The Hobbit movies were released in December 2012, December 2013, and December 2014.

There is some evidence to support that, in general, The Lord of the Rings is less popular now. For example, DragonCon removed its Middle-Earth programming track in favour of general fantasy programming.

Size of Fandom:

Based on sales of the book, there is an upper-bound somewhere around 150 million (as the book has sold over 150 million copies).

It was hard to find The Lord of the Rings specific conventions and conferences, but we did come across Tolkienmoot, which has been running since 2005 and has attendance of between twenty and fifty people in person, and one hundred to two hundred online.

Where does fandom live:

The fandom doesn't live in one specific place; where the fandom lives depends on whether fans are more interested in the movies, Tolkien, etc. theOneRing.net remains fairly popular.

Fanfics:

In a rare turn of events, Fanfiction.net has more entries than Archive of our own:

Fanfiction.net: Approximately 55 000 fanfics
Archive of our own: Approximately 17 000 fanfics

Are you in, or out?

T is out.

Z is out... as far as Lord of the Rings, but in for Tolkien.

G is in... on the whole.

This week's spotlight

When Dan makes Arin watch Lord of the Rings, I will donate $100 to charity. Feel free to contribute to the pool or suggest charities.

— Reddit: When Dan makes Arin watch Lord of the Rings, I will donate $100 to charity.

The Tolkien Society

The Tolkien Society is an educational charity, litera

View Details

The Nickscast wanders down a gritty alleyway, away from the bright lights and ads to jack-in to their terminals to talk about fans of cyberpunk! Is cyberpunk still relevant to today? What happened to it all? What does it mean for a work to be cyberpunk (vs transhuman) and what does it mean to be a fan of something so broad as a genre? We find out!

Next week, we'll be having a special-guest friend (and fellow Nick) join us as we talk about fans of movies, cinephiles!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction, and, as such, is hard to pin down in terms of a fandom. Sometimes it is an element of a work, and other times it is merely an aesthetic.

In the 1980s, authors like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling wrote dystopian novels set 20 Minutes into the Future, where they explored themes such as the impact of modern technology on everyday life, the rise of the global datasphere as an arena for communication, commerce, conflict, and crime, and invasive cybernetic body modifications. The heroes of these in dark and cynical stories were marginalized, disillusioned, and rebellious "punks" striving for survival against overwhelming odds, often futilely, in corrupt megacities and surreal cyberspace realms. Bruce Bethke called this Cyberpunk, and it was good.

— TVTropes - Punk Punk

It is often referred to as "a combination of lowlife and high tech".

There is no shortage of different definitions of cyberpunk

— T

Some examples of cyberpunk (or post-cyberpunk) works include:

Blade Runner
Ghost in the Shell
Neuromancer
Deus Ex
Bubblegum Crisis
Cowboy Bebop
Psycho-pass

Most Active:

According to this analysis of novels and movies released each year from 1980 to 2007 by io9, cyberpunk was most popular in the mid-90s, most notably between 1992 and 1995.

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

Matt: Will Cyberpunk 2077 be the greatest game of all time? Period. End of discussion.

... [Cyberpunk] will not be the greatest game of all time. It can't be, because Chrono Trigger is the greatest game of all time. Period. End of Discussion.

— T

Z: Have the graphics that cyberpunks make improved since the Cyberpunks documentary?

In 27 years of technology, the graphical capabilities of literally everyone improved.

— G

G: How important is the punk to cyberpunk (politically) in 2017?

Cyberpunk was a reaction to the utopian vision of the future.

— G

If sci-fi is humans with technology, then cyberpunk is humans versus technology.

— G

T: Is cyberpunk still a thing? Or is it an aesthetic?

Cyberpunk [now] is an aesthetic because the real world is horrifying!

— T

What did we discuss?

The difficulty of discussing a genre as compared to a fandom ~ transhumanism and its relation to cyberpunk ~ cyberpunk as a reaction to 1950s utopias ~ cyberpunk and rise of tech noir, digital libertarianism ~ is cyberpunk still a thing? ~ cyberpunk and the dystopia that is the modern day ~ cyberpunk as an aesthetic ~ cyberpunk and its individual, human stories ~ technology going too far ~ anti-consumerism and advertising as key piece of cyberpunk

In or out

Z is kind of in.

T: It's a boolean operation! License revoked! Z: Oh no! I'm contractually obliged to stay in!

Z will probably check out Neuromancer, and Snow Crash

G is in.

A good litmus test is how excited I get about the thing doing the research for the thing.

— G

T is in.

When I was looking at some of the things that qualify as cyberpunk or post-cyberpunk I was like, "Yeah! I am all over this!"

— T

Is t

View Details

This Nickscast are entering the spooky woods, going beneath the surface to see what's really going on in the weird world of Twin Peaks fandom! Why did it get a revival? Are there really a lot of Twin Peaks fans? We'll get the fans-eye view (and no backwards talking) on this week's episode!

Next week, we’ll be jacking-in to our new deck and diving into the world of fans of Cyberpunk!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

There's likely as much mystery surrounding the fandom as there is surrounding the show.

— T

Origins:

Twin Peaks was a cult TV series that ran for two seasons in the early 1990s created by David Lynch. It received a film prequel in 1992 (_Fire Walk With Me_), and will have a revival this month on Showtime. The story begins around the murder of a high-school homecoming queen and quickly changes to... something different entirely.

Fandom Demographics:

Hard to estimate size: The Twin Peaks festival has about 7000 followers on Twitter, and the Twin Peaks subreddit has about 24000 subscribers.

Looking at IMDB, the majority are people between ages 30-44, skewing towards male. Looking at the IMDB data, there are 120 000 ratings for Twin Peaks. To get a sense of scale, _Batman Begins_ has about 1 million ratings (as does Avatar), Disney's _the Lion King_ has about 700 000, and _the X-files_ has about 160 000.

Changes in Fandom:

Interest in the fandom has remained relatively constant (relative to the peak) according to Google Trends with some spikes since the announcement of a revival in October 2014.

One of the largest fan festivals, the Twin Peaks Festival, has attendance capped at about 200 people, though previously attendance was less than 100 people, typically. Starting in about 2012 it started to sell out, indicating there is some more recent interest in the show.

The first year I went it took, I think, over a month for the tickets to sell out. This year, it took less than a day.

— Matt

Around the world:

Fans from around the world: mostly North America, but also UK, Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy, Japan, Russia, Brazil

When you go to the [Twin Peaks] Fest they give you a pamphlet with the names of all the attendees and the countries they're from.

— Matt

Related fandoms:

X-files, Northern Exposure

Fanfics:

For the love of cherry pie, why is no one writing me Twin Peaks fic? Okay, so the series is going on 15 years old, all but passed into media oblivion, and the fan-writers have long since migrated to other series, leaving behind only stories fossilized in now inaccessible print zines, since their time was but the dawning of the Internet. But still. We're talking one of the worst cliffhangers ever inflicted on fen, with no canonical closure ever granted. I need fic. I crave it.

— Fanlore: Twin Peaks

Archive of our own has only about 450 fanfics, and Fanfiction.net also has a fairly small contingent at about 180.

Some of the fanzines that they [Fanlore] referenced were just strictly fanfic and at least two of them were like one-hundred fifty plus page fanfic novels.

— Z

The only fanfic we ever featured on our show was a slashfic between Cooper and Truman.

— Matt

My favourite little bit from the Fanlore article is "a common trope is 'fix it' fic for the second season finale".

— G

Worth noting is that David Lynch loves reading people fan theories though!

Last episode's Famous Last Words

Z: David

View Details

This Nickscast are covering an unfortunately named fandom: TransFans (Transformers fans). What is it about a franchise so tied to toys and the 80s that helps its fandom to grow and thrive today? What is its key demographic? Why did Orson Welles get involved in the Tranformers movie? And where is all the Transformers fanfic? This week, we're going to transform and roll out (to find out)!

Next week, we'll be working our way through the mysterious pines to a place thats all sunshine and roses on the outside, but suspicious and enigmatic on the inside; we'll be talking about Twin Peaks fans.

Episode outline

Last episode's Famous Last Words

Z: Why did Orson Welles agree to be in this movie?

The Transformers: The Movie was the final film to which Orson Welles contributed. Welles was in declining health during production. Shortly before he died, he told his biographer, Barbara Leaming, "You know what I did this morning? I played the voice of a toy." He elaborated, "I play a planet. I menace somebody called Something-or-other. Then I'm destroyed. My plan to destroy Whoever-it-is is thwarted and I tear myself apart on the screen." According to director Nelson Shin, Welles had been pleased to accept the role after reading the script and had expressed an admiration for animated films

— Wikipedia - The Transformers: The Movie

Z: ... I found a reddit AMA ... G: Orson Welles did an AMA?! T: From BEYOND THE GRAVE

It is his enduring legacy, and I guess Citizen Kane or something

— G

G: Why was Weird Al's Dare to be stupid included in the movie? Who thought that was a good idea?

It was used as the music for the "Junkions attack" and "Junkions become friends" scenes in the movie; the song's rampant pop-culture referencing certainly fits with the pop-culture-talking Junkions. Reportedly, it was included in the movie soundtrack because Scotti Bros. Records decided to promote acts on their label heavily, and Al (always popular with the kids) was one of the biggest. As Al himself tells it, he just got a phone call one day and said "Okay", and that was basically the last he heard about it, save the royalty checks.

— TransformersWiki - Dare to be Stupid

T: Who is the primary demographic supposed to be? Still going, can only assume it's 30-somethings.

... Michael Bay takes a weird, reverse approach with the ‘Transformers’ films: the primary target audience for these films is adults, but Bay is talking down to them as if they were children, and the humor and subject matter is exceedingly regressive.

— Screencrush - Trying to Understand the 'Transformers' Franchise: What Is the Meaning of All This?

I will stand by my words though! I'm still not sure who the important audience is.

— T

Fandom Facts

Origins:

Origins: this is actually a bit dizzying. There's a lot of different origins of Transformers.

— T

Varied. All franchises are focused on a race of transforming sentient beings with one faction, the Autobots—lead by Optimus Prime—in their struggle against the Decepticons—lead by Megatron. The reasons for the clash differ from series to series. There are at least six different universes.

Generation 1 (G1): 1984-1987
Robots in Disguise: 2001-2002
The Unicron trilogy: 2002-2006 (Armada, Energon, Cybertron)
Live-action films: 2007—present
Transformers animated: 2007-2009
Transformers prime: 2010-2013

That is a lot of just origins! I don't usually spend nearly as much time talk about the things [Transformers].

— T

Fandom Origins:

The first fan activity was probably the letters pages in

View Details

The Nickscast discuss why a man who "died" over one hundred years ago is still popular today: We're talking about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous work, Sherlock Holmes and, more appropriately, its fans, Sherlockians. How is it that one set of stories sparked so many different pastiches, re-interpretations and ever more stories? What did fandom look like in the 19th century? What does the fandom look like today? Find out on this week's episode of Fanthropological: the great game is afoot!

Next week, we’ll be talking about fans of Transformers (The robots in disguise variety). Stay tuned!

Episode outline

Fandom Facts

Origins:

The world's most famous fictional private detective; first appeared in print in 1887 (in a Study in Scarlet). The creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he is well known for his deductive reasoning, forensic science, and logic that borders on the fantastic.

Fandom Origins:

In 1897 the first "fan fiction" appears (John Kendricks' Pursuit of the House-Boat), during the time period when Holmes had been 'killed off' between 1893 and 1903.

In 1934, the Baker Street Irregulars were founded in NYC—one of the oldest and largest Sherlock Holmes organizations dedicated to the fandom.

Much later, fandom springs up around BBC's Sherlock (2010) and Elementary (2012).

Names:

Sherlockians, Holmesians

Fan terms:

Z: The hiatus is the term that fans use to refer to the period where Sir Arther Conan Doyle was not writing any new Sherlock Holmes stories between 1893 and 1903. G: Much like Harry Potter's 3 year summer, or, I don't know, the eternal wait for whenever the next game of throne book comes out.

Size of Fandom:

Certainly, Sherlock’s audience is several million greater than the 565 people who took this survey, but they provide a glimpse into an online fandom eager to express their opinions. The majority taking this survey are female, under 30, and living in the US or UK. However, if the range of respondents to this survey is any indication, Sherlock fandom is much broader based than this summary indicates.

— popMATTERS: 'Sherlock' By the Numbers

Probably in the millions, considering BBC's Sherlock had 7.5 million viewers for its opening episode, A Study in Pink, an the second series averaged over 8 million viewers. Hard to estimate because of the longevity of the character and diversity of depictions.

Fanfics:

As of April 2017...

Fanfiction.net: 3900 (Sherlock Holmes); Over 58000 (Sherlock); ~750 (Elementary)
Archive of our own: Over 100000 (Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms); Over 94000 (Sherlock (TV)); ~2000 (Elementary)

At this point, I'm sure they are like "Hey, what if Sherlock Holmes was a baker and Watson was his housewife". If that fanfic doesn't exist, please send it to nick@thenickscast.com and we will probably read it on air!

— T

Last Episode's Famous Last Words

G: What is the oldest fan work, and what was fandom like in the 19th century? T: Seriously, why so many Sherlocks? Z: Is there a small-studio web production of Sherlock Holmes?

What did we discuss?

"Pastiches" as the earliest fanfics ~ Arthur Conan Doyle's habit of rushing through his stories ~ The Great Game ~ Doylist and Watsonian perspectives to fiction ~ The blurred lines between Watson and Doyle ~ The "death" of Sherlock Holmes and its impact ~ Sherlock Holmes' popularity because of being a static / flat character ~ Holmes as a lense for the world / time period ~ Holmes as the archetype for the mystery genre ~ Sherlock Holmes outside of the Western world ~ Fandom in the 19th century

Are you in, or out?

T: ... And by that I mean are you gonna do more of the thing that

View Details

The Nickscast discuss why a show targeted towards men became unexpectedly popular with women and has continued to grow in popularity: We're talking about the SPNFamily (Supernatural fans!). How is the show so popular after even after twelve seasons? How does it differ from its peers? What keeps its fans going? We're going to eat some pie and find out on this week's episode of Fanthropological!

Next week, we’ll be talking about fans of Sherlock Holmes (BBC Sherlock, Elementary, classic; we're talking it all). Stay tuned!

Episode outline

Last episode's Famous Last Words

Z: Who is the fan favourite character and why? G: In canon, who is born first and why do fans think it is one way or the other? T: Is it just because its two hot people? Will any show about two hot people succeed? Alex: How much slash fiction is there?

Fandom facts

Origins:

An American fantasy horror series that was first broadcast in September of 2005. It follows the nomadic lives of brothers Sam and Dean Winchester, travelling the US and hunting down supernatural foes (as their father did, who spent years seeking revenge against the demon responsible for his wife’s death). It just ended its 12th season, as of this recording, and is renewed for a 13th.

Fandom origins:

Largely Livejournal (supernatural_tv)

Names:

Supernatural Family / SPNFamily

Size of fandom:

The TV series pilot has 5.6 million viewers, and episodes regularly have about 3 million viewers.

Fanfics:

Archive of our own: Over 92000 (January 2015); Over 60000 (February 2014); Over 27500 (December 2012)

What did we discuss?

A brief history of strikethrough and splintering of fandom from Livejournal ~ the Supernatural newsletter ~ Fan terms like imbroglio (vs fanwank) and real-person fiction (RPF) ~ Keeping a long running show like Supernatural fresh ~ changes in television and storytelling for long running shows ~ the cast, crew, and fandom as a tight knit family ~ charmingly flawed shows that keep trying (which is good) ~ character and fandom relationships: "Family don't end at blood" ~ Targeted at men (classic rock, killing monsters, cars) but women as biggest fans ~ Z's Supernatural boyfriend

Are you in, or out?

Z, so now that you're romantically involved with one of the Winchester brothers, are you going to continue things further?

— G

Z is in.

...As part of my research, I have to watch the first episode of this to see if its any good, to see if it holds up. And, after seeing that first episode, I can definitely say that I am in for the first five seasons.

— Z

T briefly explains the cosmology of our universe compared to that of Supernatural's

T is out.

Z, I'm going to take your 'in', I'm going to take it, and carefully toss it into the trash because I am out. I don't care if that metaphor works!

— T

At 12 seasons and still going, media fandom is too big
But T is committed to watching the pilot and the fanfiction episode. Hold him to that!

G is out.

I want to try and find these more experimental episodes and watch those. Like The French Mistake, as I mentioned, the fanfic episode, the one from the perspective of the car. LARP and the real girl ... There are few that have piqued my interest.

— G

Fans of the week

No fans of the week this week, sorry :(

This week's spotlights

Random Acts Started with Misha Collins (Castiel, on Supernatural) in 2009 asking his "minions" on Twitter to come up with ideas for a "minion stimulus" project (during the economic recession). Has since grown and and changed, but is set up to encourage folks to conduct random acts of kindness in their communities, and holds different fundraisers. In 2014, spent over $47000 USD

View Details

The Nickscast, along with special guest friend, Alex Kennard (of Reality Bomb fame), discuss the _why_ of Doctor Who fans (aka Whovians). What is it that has kept the show on the air for over fifty years, and why did it stop? What draws in new fans? We 're going to invert the polarity and go all wibbly wobbly timey wimey to find out!

Next week, we'll be talking about Supernatural fans (aka SPNFamily). Stay tuned!

Episode outline Fandom Facts

Origins: British science-fiction television programme produced by the BBC since 1963 Fandom Origins: Doctor Who fan club (Britain, 1960s), recognized by production later with Doctor Who Appreciation Society (Britain, May 1976) Names: Doctor Who fan, Whovian (older term, less common) Most Active: Unclear, but probably during the era of "New" Doctor Who (2005--present) Size of Fandom: 110 million viewers (From BroaDWcast, referencing a quote from the BBC) Fanfics: Over 73400 on fanfiction.net Over 53000 on Archive of our own (strictly Doctor Who & related fandoms)

What did we discuss?

The longevity of the show ~ Is the show for children, or adults? ~ Doctor who as an inconsistent show ~ The sheer possibility of Doctor Who storylines ~ Different types of stories within the show ~ How the show runners impact Doctor Who and the doctor ~ The non-TV Doctor Who universe ~ Curative vs transformative fandoms ~ How the doctor's regeneration impacts the story ~ A brief history of the show's hiatus ~ Tropes in Doctor Who ~ The positives and negatives of the Doctor Who Fan community ~ Christmas specials and England

Are you in, or out?

Z is in.

"Z, its perhaps a little moot because I know you are a Doctor Who fan and watch Doctor Who… so I guess you're in but say more words than that please." --G

Science fiction ideas sometime outshine bad writing or acting

G is in.

Even though the show is inconsistent, he has faith that the show will get to the good parts However, he is not involved in the fandoms; doesn't go to Doctor Who panels at conventions or to the theatre to watch the show with others More than happy to get into arguments about past or present doctors and companions being bad

T is out.

And will remain out. Doctor Who is huge; too big Likes the concept, and will still be really aware of the show and changes to the show through other fansites

Alex is in.

"Wouldn't it be amazing if I said out?" --Alex

Couldn't really say anything but in His past experiences were very similar to the Nicks: was watching the show but not participating in the fandom Went to Gallifrey (One), and was never able to resurface

"It's a fandom that kind of gets before you even know you've been got." --Alex

Fans of the week

My current magical thinking: Bad world things happened because of no #DoctorWho Now that he is coming back, the world will revert to good. --DrLatigo (via Twitter)

Alex also nomiated Peter Capaldi, a mega-fan who is now one of the doctors on the show!

This week's spotlight

The Doctor Who Society of Canada A fairly recent organization, having only been formed in 2011, growing out of the Toronto Fan Expo. Last year, it managed to raise over $50000 Canadian for four different charities, and has chapters in Toronto, Waterloo, Halifax and elsewhere in Canada (though it mostly located in Ontario). We have had a few opportunities to interview them in the past.

The Race Against Time Now in its third year of running, the Race Against Time is the Nickscast's annual charity livestream where we work our way though Chrono Trigger, obtaining all its endings, and also raising money for the Alzheimer Society of Canada. Last year we raised over $1200 Canadian, and have plans to surpass that!

View Details

We're going out with a bang this season finale as we tackle a contentious (but fascinating) fandom: Bronies (adult male fans of My Little Pony)!

What is it about the show, obstensibly for children, that draws in adults? Why does the fandom persist to this day? Why the controversy?

That is it for this season! We will be back on April 21st starting off season 3 where we'll be talking about Doctor Who fandom with a special guest!

Stay tuned!

Want to see more awesome fandom content? Become a Patron on Patreon! Find more like this: fanthropological.com Find us on social media Twitter: @thenickscast Instagram: @thenickscast Facebook: fb.com/thenickscast Youtube: youtube.com/thenickscast Email us about fandoms you want to hear about: nick@thenickscast.com

Citations "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" "My Little Pony: the Bronies who love them aren't who you think they are" ""Creating A Universe": Acceptance, Expression and Individuality Found in the U's Brony Group" "Shifting Pink and Blue Syndrome" "r/bronies - Why Do You Like My Little Pony?" "r/mylittlepony - Why Do You Watch MLP:FiM?" "r/mylittlepony - Does MLP Have an Exceptionally Creative Fan Culture? If so, why?" "My Little Pony: The Bronies Who Love Them Aren't Who You Think They Are" "Who you surround yourself with is important" "My Little Pony - Wikipedia" "5 Facts About Bronies, AKA The Adult Male Fans Of My Little Pony" "Brony Herd Census & State of the Herd Report" "Reddit: (serious) Bronies of Reddit, why do you like My Little Pony so much? What's the appeal? Is "Brony" derogatory to you?" "Quora: Why do people hate Bronies?" "Bronies for Good" "5 Hated Groups That Are Going Out of Their Way to Be Awesome" "Bronies explained: The grown men who love 'My Little Pony' aren't who you think they are" "Inside the Bizarre World of 'Bronies,' Adult Male Fans of 'My Little Pony'" "Bronies are redfening fandom - and American manhood" A Brony Tale (2014) Dir. Brent Hodge

Credits Music: All this week's music is provided by our very own G! Logo: ["Glasses"](http

View Details

Untap, Upkeep, Draw, Main, Combat, Main, End. What do these words have in common? You would know, if you were a fan of _Magic: the Gathering_ (this week's topic)! We've got a special guest friend, Kevin, to help guide us through the complex and exciting world of the Planeswalkers.

Why is _Magic: the Gathering_ so popular? Are there more than just competitive fans? What keeps players in the game after over two decades?

Stay tuned!

Citations "I am so scared about the bannings tomorrow" "How do you organize your collections?" "Tips for dealing with sexist/elitist players?" "Magic: The Gathering Fans Sign Petition to End Reserve List Policy" "Fan-Organized Magic: The Gathering Tournament Only Allows Cards From 1996" "Seahawks player pleads for return of stolen Magic: The Gathering cards; Wizards of the Coast delivers care package" "Filling in the Gaps: Fans and Fan Fiction on the Internet" "Fan Kits | Magic: The Gathering" "Magic: The Gathering Fans Sign Petition to End Reserve List," "r/MagicTCG - Why Do You Like Magic?" "Why Do You Play Magic?" "First Friday Night Magic ... awful experience. Why do people act this way? First post, be gentle" "I'd like to share a story that I think magictcg would appreciate" "What do you enjoy most about Magic: The Gathering?" "Fan "Alterists" Turn Magic: The Gathering Cards Into Amazing Art" "Fanlore: Phil Foglio" "How Magic: the Gathering became a pop-culture hit - and where it goes next" "For 'Magic: The Gathering,' Diversity Is The Marketing Strategy" "Lady Planeswalkers" ["If Magic: The Gathering Cares About Women, Why Can't They Hire Any?"](https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/if-magic-the-gathering-cares-about-women-why-cant-they-hire-an

View Details

We're compiling (notes) and choosing our favourite distro for when we talk about this week's fandom: Linux Fans!

What _is_ Linux? Why are its fans so dedicated? What is the appeal?

Stay tuned!

Citations "Does GNU-Linux have to be a "techies-only" platform?" "Christmas Gift Ideas For Linux Fans" "It's time Linux fans open their arms to closed source" "5 Things We (Secretly All) Miss About Ubuntu" "Whats so great about Ubuntu Server?" "What Is Linux? | The Linux Gamer" "Six Reasons PCs are Better with Linux" "r/linux - Why do you love Linux & FOSS?" "r/linux - Why Do You Choose Linux over Some Other Unix-Like OS?" "r/linux - Do You Think Linux Will Ever Die?" "r/linux - Why I Still Use Linux" "Linux - Album on Imgur" "r/linux - I'm Curious About Linux, Just a Few Questions if You Don't Mind!" "What Is Free Software?" "About LinuxChix" "Women in Linux - About" "50 Places Linux is Running That You Might Not Expect"

Credits Music: All this week's music is provided by our very own G! Logo: "Glasses" by Anton Anuchin used under CC BY 3.0 US "Emperor Penguin" by Felipe Perucho used under CC BY 3.0 US "Terminal" by Bernar Novalyi used under CC BY 3.0 US

View Details

Are we building a mystery? No, we're talking about Lego fans!

Who are Lego for? Is there more than just building? Is it about collecting (and making money??)?

Stay tuned!

Citations "Mechs, big ships and community: a chat with long-time LEGO fan and Mecha Builder, Mark Neumann [Interview]" "Seriously Nerdy." "Lego Fan Opens 'Brick Burger' Restaurant" "Lego to open giant playhouse for fans by Danish HQ" "What are some of the best models for introducing an adult to LEGO?" "LEGO Glossary" "History of Lego" "BrickRecycler" "Collectors Weekly - Collectible LEGO Toys, Sets, and Bricks" "The Brick Fan - About" "BrickNerd - About" "PCHLUG - Join Us" "Why Fans Are Sending the Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei Boxes of Legos" "r/lego - What Pulled You Out of Your Dark Age?" "r/lego - The Evolution of a LEGO Addict: Part 3" "How Legos Became More Violent" "Lego is a way of life for some adults" "Adult Fans of Lego: Why Lego is fun at any age" "Why we love Lego - Leading psychologist reveals the 'builder instinct' is the key to the popularity of the toy" "Adult Fan of LEGO" "Lego Certified Professionals" "The cult of Lego: why are people so in love with the colourful bricks?" "Notoriously expensive Lego prices scale linearly, remain constant over time" "I like Lego" "How to Invest in Legos and Make a Bazillion Dollars" "BrickPicker: Lego Price and Investing Guide" "10 Reasons Why We Love Lego"

Credits Music: All this week's music is provided by

View Details

If it's suds and buds you're looking for, you'll enjoy this week's cast on craft beer fans, and who better to talk about craft beer than Nick H from the Epic Film Guys Podcast!

Is it about getting drunk? Why beer? Why IPAs??

We're hop-ping to it, and getting the fans-eye-view for you!

Citations "Walmart is being sued for inventing a fake craft brewery" "THE 5 STRONGEST NATURALLY-FERMENTED BEERS IN THE WORLD" "Anthony Bourdain: Craft beer fans have gone too far" "Facebook group provides outlet for craft beer fans" "Why craft beer fans freak out when small breweries sell to big-name companies" "How Craft Beer is Disrupting Traditions | Sebastien Morvan | TEDxBrussels" "Brussels Beer Project" "Anthony Bourdain: Craft Beer Fans Have Gone too Far" "What Colorado's Craft Beer Fans are Fearing" "15 Things Craft Beer Fans Think (But Nobody Says)" "Craft Beer Asia" "Competition Brewing in Germany as Consumers Tire of Traditional Beer" "Brewing Beer in the Middle East Is a Tough Business" "How Beer is made" "Elitism, or something else? Millennials and the war on Big Beer" "Does craft beer taste better than mainstream beer or do people drink it to benefit their own self-perception?" "Why is craft beer so white?" "There are almost no black people brewing craft beer. Here's why" "Charting All the Beer Styles" "New Brewer FAQ - Reddit"

Credits Music: All this week's music is provided by our very own G! Logo: "Glasses" by Anton Anuchin used under CC BY 3.0 US "Beer" by Dilla Chee used under [CC BY 3.0 US](http://creativecommons.org/licenses

View Details

It's gettin' late, and we just can't wait... to talk about this week's fandom: KISS Army!

How did KISS Army start? Is it just about the music, or is there something more?

We're gonna rock and roll all night, and podcast ... once a week? Sure.

Everyone's a fan!

View Details

Will we be astronauts, debutantes, farmers, or computer scientists today? Today, we'll be podcasters as we talk about Barbie fans!

Why do folks become Barbie fans? Why do they collect the dolls? Is it just about the dolls?

We're not going shopping on this week's episode!

...But in order to do that, we'll need our special guest, Chloe!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 0:00:05 - Theme Song 0:00:22 - Introduction 0:00:38 - Special Guest Introduction: Chloe! 0:01:08 - Who is Barbie + Trivia 0:05:20 - What are Barbie fans called? + Earring Magic Ken + MORE TRIVIA 0:22:53 - Why Barbie Collecting? 0:30:00 - Thoughts on the 'new' Barbie 0:36:25 - Barbie (the character) as an icon and role model 0:44:42 - Barbie and play 0:48:55 - Barbie Superbowl commercial and men's attitudes towards dolls and play 0:53:45 - Fan of the week 1:01:25 - Spotlight: Sailor Moon Celebration, June 24 2017 @ The Ontario Science Centre 1:03:11 - Where can I find more about Chloe? Imgur, Instagram 1:04:07 - Where can I learn more about Fanthropological / The Nickscast? 1:07:16 - Outtakes

Citations "The new realistic Barbies squash kids' imaginations" "The 9 Most Expensive Barbies of All Time" "Barbie collectors from around the globe gather in Jacksonville" "The History of the Barbie Doll" "The Zen of Ken, or Life as Barbie's Boyfriend" "Beautiful Trouble - Barbie Liberation Organization" "16 Questions for the 'Real-Life Barbie,' Valeria Lukyanova" "What We're Missing by Banishing Barbie" "Critics Slam New Engineer Barbie for Reinforcing Gender Stereotypes" "R/Barbie - Why Do You Collect Barbies? (Those That Do)" "13 People At The National Barbie Collectors Convention Tell Us Why They Love Barbie" "The New Barbie Commercial Features a "Typical Man's Man" Playing with Dolls" "Fan Community Nicknames" "From Barbies to Maggots: The Nicknames of 25 Fan Bases" "Barbie Girl - Wikipedia" "Ken Dolls - FanLore" ["Why does the Barbie Obs

View Details

This week, we're filling our backpacks with trail rations as we head out into the wilderness to talk about Live-Action Role-Playing (LARP)!

Why do folks become LARPers? Is it just Dungeons and Dragons? What's the appeal?

Hopefully we level up our knowledge skills and find out!

...But in order to do that, we'll need our special guest, Luke: Scholar, Poet, musician, and "LARP apologist"!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 0:00:09 - Theme Song 0:00:27 - Introduction 0:01:00 - Special Guest Introduction: Luke! 0:01:26 - What, Who, and Why of LARPing 0:41:31 - Differences in expectations in LARP 0:49:20 - LARP vs Re-enactors and more discussion 0:58:09 - Nicks + Guest: Would you LARP? 1:04:20 - Spotlight: College of Wizardry 1:09:56 - Where can I find more of Luke's work? lukemaynard.wordpress.com, Luke's Ukes (Youtube), Cthulu Sattva 1:11:35 - Where can I learn more about Fanthropological / The Nickscast? 1:13:16 - Outtakes

Citations Live Action Role-Playing Game - Wikipedia What different styles of LARP combat exist Magic Kingdom: Why Live-Action Role Playing is one of Denmark's Most Popular Pastimes How To: LARP Live Action Roleplaying | The Feed Here Are Some Of The American Adults Who Started Live-Action Role Playing And Never Stopped FORGET VIDEO GAMES: Here's What It's Like To Put On A Costume And Go Live-Action Role Playing Larp Census Why Japan does not LARP LARPing Saved My Life - YouTube 16x9 - Role Play: What's it like to LARP? - YouTube The Basics of Larp - YouTube What to Bring to LARP - YouTube Does LARP have to be based around combat : LARP any tips for staying in character? : LARP Tips for introverts heading to their first LARP? : LARP I don't understand the point of High Fantasy LARP : LARP BAD LARP charaacter sterotypes. : LARP Storytelling the Darkness: Ten Cliches to Avoid in Character Creation How To Run A LARP [How To Start a Larp | LARPIN

View Details

This week we're placing bets as we enter the season, of FANTASY FOOTBALL (or an episode, at least)!

Why do folks become fantasy football fans? Is a familiarity with (American) football required?

Hopefully our draft picks work out in this episode! Especially because we have guests Rebecca and Laura!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 0:00:00 - Editor's Note 0:00:39 - Theme Song 0:00:57 - Introduction 0:01:21 - Special Guest Introduction: Laura and Rebecca! 0:01:55 - Who are Fantasy Football Fans? 0:02:50 - Why are people fans of Fantasy Football? 0:19:04 - Fantasy football, related fandoms, and more discussion 0:59:16 - Fans of the week 1:05:06 - Spotlight: Fantasy Movie League 1:06:54 - Where can I find more of Rebecca's work? GetBookish (Youtube) 1:07:48 - Where can I find more of Laura's work? Adlaya's Animals 1:08:30 - Where can I learn more about Fanthropological / The Nickscast? 1:10:34 - Outtakes

Citations "Fantasy Football (American) - Wikipedia" "The Beauty (and Ugliness) of Fantasy Football" "The Popularity of Fantasy Sports Continues to Grow" "Top Ten Reasons To Play Fantasy Football" "What's behind fantasy football's surprising popularity" "Fanlore - Television Without Pity" "Fanlore - How do I Quit Wasting my Life on Online Escapism" "Know Your Meme - American Football" "Jack Kerouac Was a Secret, Obsessive Fan of Fantasy Baseball" "Fantasy Football Draft Prep, Part 1 - Fake Quarterbacks" "Fantasy Football Draft Prep, Part 2 - Fake Running Backs" "Fantasy Football Draft Prep, Part III - Fake Everything Else" "The Finances of a Fantasy Football Player" "r/fantasyfootball - Fantasy Football is like Porn" "r/fantasyfootball - Cognitive Biases and Fantasy Football" "r/fantasyfootball - My Experience with Fantasy Football" ["r/fantasyfootball - Would You Watch a Documentary about a Family's Fantasy Football League"](https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasyfootball/comments/3o

View Details

Fire up your Pesterchum (or Trollian) folks, this week we're talking about Homestuck fandom!

Who are Homestucks? What's the appeal? And why are they (literally) trolls?

There's no gigapause this week as we start our SBURB session!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 00:07 - Theme Song 00:26 - Introduction 01:30 - Who are Homestucks? 02:09 - Special Guest Introduction: Soph! 03:02 - Trivia 08:14 - Why are people Homestucks? 30:45 - Homestuck and other fandoms 56:43 - Fans of the week 1:03:27 - Spotlight: Otaking77077 (via Kotaku) 1:04:52 - Where can I learn more about Fanthropological / The Nickscast 1:06:45 - Where can I find more of Soph's work? Tumblr and DeviantArt 1:08:07 - Outtakes

Citations "A Noob's Guide to Homestuck" "Metatext of Doom" "When fandoms collide: The present and future of anime cons" "The Bright side of Homestuck fandom" "What is Homestuck and why is it considered annoying" "How did Homestuck get a bad rap" "Homestuck Horror Stories" "Fate of the MSPA Forums" "Inside the strange, brave new world of Homestuck" "What the Fuck is Homestuck!?" "Homestuck fan prepare for webcomic release" "Stuck on Homestuck: How Andrew Hussie Turned a Tumblr Craze Into a Teenage Empire" "Homestuck is the First Great Work of Internet Fiction" "Wikipedia - Homestuck" "Fanlore - Homestuck" "Mayor of Meme Town" "Homesmut" "Home | Omegaupdate" "Listen to This: 20 of the Best 'Homestuck' Songs in Honor of its Ending" "'Hiveswap' and the Tenacity of Fandom" "Homestuck Fans Want You to Know that It's still Weird" "Thanks for Playing: The Weird Legacy of 'Homestuck'" ["Goodbye to Home

View Details

Playing games makes sense, but racing against the clock in games? This week, we're talking about Speedrunners!

What is a speedrun? What is sequence breaking? Is cheating in video games ok in a speedrun??

We're going to go fast in this week's episode!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 00:09 - Theme Song 01:10 - Who are Speedrunners? 03:33 - Trivia 21:52 - Why are people speedrunners? 30:47 - Different kinds of speedruns, and specifics of speedrunning 51:06 - Fans of the week 1:00:12 - Spotlight: Games Done Quick! 1:01:50 - Secret Spotlight: Race Against Time! 1:02:25 - Where can I learn more about Fanthropological / The Nickscast 1:04:10 - Outtakes

Citations "Wikipedia - Speedrun" "An Animated 'Speedrun' Through Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" "The 10 Best Videogame Speedruns" "Speedrun.com" "Speedrun.com - Forums: Why did you Decide to Run Your Most Recent Speedgame" "Speedrun.com - Forums: Drug Testing" "SpeedRunsLive - Frequently Asked Questions" "Gamers Divided Over Freakish Feats Achieved With Tool-Assisted Speed Runs" "5 Lessons to Take Away from Awesome Games Done Quick 2015" "TASVideos - Welcome to TAS Videos" "Awesome Games Done Quick 2016 - Donation Index" "Why The Super Mario Bros. World Record Has Been Broken So Many Times Recently" "14 Years Later, Zelda Fans Discover New Way to Kill Wind Waker Boss" "Why Speedrunners Use Glitches" "SDA Knowledge Base - What is a Speedrun" "Speedrunners Finally Pull off the 'Holy Grail' of Mario 64 Glitches" "SpikeVegeta on the Growth and Competition of Speedrunning: I Want Something 'On-The-Line' for these Runners" "Trihex on the Future of Speedrunning: We Could Definitely use a Twitch Speedrun Directory" "Hanging Out With a Pro Video Game Speedrunner Defending a World Title" "What makes a speedrunner popular? : speedrun" "How we Can Fix Speedrunning - YouTube" ["Super Mario World Credits Warp Explained - YouTube"](https://

View Details

It's a new season, and what better than to draw parallels to our first season by talking about Star Wars fans!

What do you call Star Wars fans? Is there really a big difference between them and Star Trek fans? How have they kept fans interested in the 40 years of Star Wars??

May the force be with you on this week's episode!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 00:07 - Theme Song 00:00 - Introduction 01:27 - Who are Star Wars Fans? 03:34 - Trivia 20:06 - Why are people fans of Star Wars? 38:36 - Gender segregation in (Star Wars) Fandom 44:09 - Fans of the week 56:07 - Spotlight: The 501st Legion! 59:32 - Where can I learn more about Fanthropological / The Nickscast 1:01:19 - Outtakes

Citations "Meet the Star Wars Fans Who Lined Up Two Weeks Before the Premiere" "Why we love Star Wars: an explainer for 'normal' people" "People Watch Star Wars For The First Time | Syfy Wire" "I watched all 6 'Star Wars' films for the first time, in one sitting" "STAR WARS subreddit, I need your help! Why do you love STAR WARS?" "This Is What It's Like To Watch Star Wars For The First Time" "'I Got Emotional Reading This': Diego Luna Shares Touching 'Star Wars' Fan Tribute to Importance of Diversity" "An Unofficial 'Star Wars' Convention in England Was Incredibly Depressing" "Carrie Fisher's Unsung Legacy" "Culture Wars" "Fanlore - Don't Call Me "Widow"" "Fans Reconstruct Authentic Version of Star Wars, AS It Was Shown in Theaters in 1977" "Hardware Wars: The Mother of All Star Wars Fan Films (and the Most Profitable Short Film Ever Made)" "Hundreds of Fans Collectively Remade Star Wars; Now They remake the Empire Strikes Back" "Reylo: The 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Fan Fiction Ship Between Rey and Kylo Ren is Popular and Controversial" "Selling the Soul of Star Wars" "Star Wars Gets Dubbed into Navajo: A Fun Way to Preserve and Teach a Fading Language" ["The Force of Collecting Star Wars Cards"](http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/an

View Details

As we get closer to the new year, the Nickscast explores a seasonal fandom: Christmas fans?

Is there really a fandom for Christmas? If so, what is it? What is it about Christmas?

Be sure to deck the halls, and settle in (but not for a long winter's nap!) as we get to the 'Why' of Christmas fandom!

Everyone's a fan!

Find more like this: fanthropological.com Find us on social media Twitter: @thenickscast Instagram: @thenickscast Facebook: fb.com/thenickscast Youtube: youtube.com/thenickscast Email us about fandoms you want to hear about: nick@thenickscast.com

Play-by-play 00:05 - Theme Song 00:24 - Introduction 02:02 - Who are Christmas Fans? 02:58 - Trivia 17:30 - What is it about Christmas Fans? 39:41 - Fans of the week: Mick Foley on Santa Claus and belief in Christmas magic 53:32 - New year plans for the podcast? 59:08 - Spotlight: The Internet Archive! 1:01:40 - Goodbye! 1:03:18 - Outtakes

Citations "Christmas Fans - Rankings - Anime :: Manga" "12 Reasons To Be A Christmas Enthusiast" "Confessions Of A Hardcore Christmas Enthusiast | Thought Catalog" "The Christmas Enthusiast - Light Knights" "About | International Santa Trackers Association" "Christmas junkies call to arms - Christmas Fan Club" "Mick Foley Explains How He Became Santa Claus" "Why Japan is Obsessed with Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian" "Christmas Expo|Learn about holiday lighting" "Community for Christmas Fanatics - Christmas Fan Club" "Christmas Stay Auction | A Christmas Story House" "r/Christmas: What are Some Christmas Traditions You like to do During the Holidays? Why do you Love Christmas so Much" "r/Christmas: Why do You Love Christmas" "r/Christmas: Why do You Believe in Christmas" "Reasons Why Christmas is a Terrible Holiday" "Madrid Christmas Parade - Los Cerrillos, New Mexico" "Bronner's Christmas Wonderland - Frankenmuth, Michigan" "Christmas Eve in the Trenches" "Christopher Hitchens Gets Contrarian on Christmas from the Grave (Plus Some Tom Lehrer)" "Gift Giving Tradtions Around the World in a Handy Infographic" "A brief history of the ugly Christmas sweater" ["This is the most popular Chris

View Details

This week, we take a 0 calorie (but still great taste) break as we talk about Coca-Cola Fans!

Who are Coca-Cola Fans? What sets them apart from other collectors? Why do they start?

Relax, and enjoy! Also, this episode was not sponsored at all (surprisingly).

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 00:00 - Cold Open 00:06 - Theme Song 00:26 - Introduction 01:38 - Who are Coca-Cola Fans? 02:44 - Trivia 22:19 - What is it about Coca Cola Fans? 48:08 - Fans of the week 55:48 - Spotlight: Dani Oliver (Pixel Artist) 57:39 - Goodbye! 58:54 - Outtakes

Citations "The Coca-Cola Collectors Club - The Coca-Cola Collectors Club" "For collector, 300K things go better with Coca-Cola | Lubbock Online | Lubbock Avalanche-Journal" "My Coke collection: 'I love 90s stuff' | Life and style | The Guardian" "Bidders 'Taste The Feeling' Of Coca-Cola Advertising" "Going ga-ga for all things Coca-Cola - The Rakyat Post - The Rakyat Post" "Fizzy mood at collectors' fair - Community | The Star Online" "LaGrange Daily News | Vanishing Troup: History of the Coke bottle" "Coca-Cola Collection" "A public rant: Diet Coke with Lime : cocacola" "Coca-Cola Cookbook | Warehouse of Weird" "10 Strange Coca-Cola Flavors From Around the World" ""We only sell Pepsi, is that okay?" : cocacola" "My Coke-Cow | Collectors Weekly" "Coca cola swastika ae22 medallion | Collectors Weekly" "Coke Captures Cola Fandom in First-Ever User-Generated Ad" "Starting Your Private Coca-Cola Collection" "Coca Cola Antiques and Collectibles - Collector Information" "About Me - Blaine Martin's Guide to Vintage Coca-Cola Memorabilia" "Coca-Cola's Historian and Archivist Talks About His Favorite Frosty Beverage" "Schmidt Museum of Coca-Cola Memorabilia - Elizabethtown, Kentucky" "Coca-Cola Auction: Largest Collection of Memorabilia Hits the Block" ["Coca Cola Inve

View Details

This week, we take a small jump across the pond to talk about fans of those dashing Brits: Anglophiles!

Who are Anglophiles? Is it just Americans who are Anglophiles? What is the appeal?

Stay tuned for a smashing good time!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 00:00 - Cold Open 00:08 - Theme Song 00:31 - Introduction 02:06 - Who are Anglophiles? 04:50 - Trivia 09:28 - Why are people Anglophiles? 52:03 - Fans of the week 55:17 - Spotlight: Watchtower Restaurant KW and the Nickscast Youtube 59:12 - Goodbye! 1:00:25 - Outtakes

Citations "What is an Anglophile? - ANGLOPHILES UNITED" "Lost in the Pond: Why Are There So Many American Anglophiles? - Anglotopia.net" "10 Reasons Why This US Dude Loves the English | The Huffington Post" "Why America's Anglophiles Are Missing the Point of the Royal Wedding - TIME" "Is the UK an introvert's paradise? - The Student Room" "Separated by a Common Language: accent attitudes" "Anglophilia: Anglophile Problems That We Have to Accept - Anglotopia.net" "Wikipedia - Anglophile" "Anglophones United" "25 Signs You're an Anglophile" "Lost in the Pond: Why Are There so Many American Anglophiles" "Confessions of an Anglophile" "Reddit - Brits of Reddit, How Long Would an Anglophile Last in the UK" "Reddit - What Do You Think of Anglophiles" "Reddit - What Are Your Thoughts on Anglophilia and Anglophiles" "Wikipedia - Paris Syndrome" "Anglicon 2017 ― Christmas in Whoville" "TV Tropes - Foreign Culture Fetish" "Know your meme - Anglophiles" "Professor Elemental's "I'm British"" "Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer's "Straight Out of Surrey"" "Lost in the Pond: Why are there so many American Anglophiles" "Why Anglophilia" ["The Mystery of Stephen Harper's Anglophilia"](https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2012/09/27/the_mystery_of_stephe

View Details

Do you have your your goggles fastened? Are your firmly seated on your velocipede or dirigible? Tune in over the wireless as we talk about Steampunks!

What is Steampunk (and is it over)? Who are they and what makes them... tick?

Stay tuned (as we stoke the coals)!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 00:00 - Cold Open 00:05 - Theme Song 00:25 - Introduction 01:10 - Who are Steampunks? What is Steampunk? 03:31 - Trivia 09:42 - Why Steampunk? 1:03:38 - Spotlight: Soulless and Girl Genius 1:06:17 - Goodbye! 1:07:40 - Outtakes

Citations "Steampunk = Mad Scientist Inventor [invention(steam x airship or metal man/baroque stylings) x (pseudo) Victorian setting] + progressive or reactionary politics x adventure plot" -Jeff Vandermeer, The Steampunk Bible "Steampunk - Fanlore" "Beyond Victoriana | A Multicultural Perspective on Steampunk" "Airship Ambassador »" "What is Steampunk, and is it over?" "What the hell is Steampunk?" "An Anthropological Perspective of the Steampunk Culture" "Steampunk: Reimagining Trash and Technology" "Does Steampunk have an ideology?" "Does Steampunk have politics?" "Glue some gears on it (and call it Steampunk)" "Wikipedia - Steampunk" "Oxford Dictionaries - Steampunk" "Steampunk Moves Between 2 Worlds" "K.W. Jeter's Letter to Locus" "Crafting Yesterday's Tomorrows: RetroFuturism, Steampunk, and the Problem of Making in the Twenty-First Century" "Steam Dream" "Steampunk Preppers.." Vintage Tomorrows, Dir. Byrd McDonald (Netflix), 2015 Steampunk'd (Documentary), 2015, Game Show Network

Credits Music: All music this week is courtesy of our very own, Nick G! Logo: "Glasses" by Anton Anuchin used under CC BY 3.0 "Steampunk" byImangalieva Luiza used under CC BY 3.0 "Gears" byDavid used under CC BY 3.0

View Details

We take a departure from the ordinary as we get a bit more international, and talk about the "fandom" of this week: Esperantists!

What is Esperanto? Are speakers of a language "fans"? What is its appeal and how did its followers come to be?

Stay tuned for an educational episode!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 00:00 - Cold Open (Esperanto???) 00:07 - Theme Song 00:29 - Introduction (Esperanto???) 00:56 - Introduction (English) 01:20 - Who are Esperantists? What _is_ Esperanto?! 41:30 - Fans of the week 47:16 - Spotlight: Springboard to Languages 50:46 - Goodbye! 52:03 - Outtakes

Citations "The Joy of Esperanto - The Daily Beast" "The Serious History Behind Esperanto | TIME" "Esperanto: the language that never was | Prospect Magazine" "The Secret Jewish History of Esperanto - Culture - Forward.com" "Regina home to smallest Esperanto language club in Canada - Saskatchewan - CBC News" "Esther Schor's Bridge of Words, reviewed." "Springboard… to Languages - an innovative introduction to language learning for KS1 and KS2" "Pasporta Servo - Wikipedia" "Learn Esperanto first: Tim Morley at TEDxGranta - YouTube" "paculo comments on Why learn Esperanto?" "Adventures in Esperanto - Finding Esperanto's little quirks" "Wikipedia - Esperanto" "The Secret Language of George Soros" "The Joy of Esperanto" "The Hidden Perverse Effects of the Current System" "Esperanto in China Faces Uncertain Future" "Parolas Esperanton? Esperanto Language still has Appeal in Brazil" "Johnson: Simple, Logical and Doomed" "Are there any esperantization movements - Reddit" "Gufujo - Wikipedia" "Oomoto - Wikipedia" "Esperanto Culture - Wikipedia" "Esperantido" "Esperanto Stack Exchange"

Credits Music: "Tarantelle, Op. 43" by Frederic Chopin, played by Olga Gurevich "Polonaise in F sharp minor" by Frederic Chopin, played by Olga Gurevich "Fantaisie, Op. 49" by Frederic Chopin, played by Olga Gurevich Logo: ["Glasses"](ht

View Details

You'd best _Accio Seat_ for this episode, as we enter the wizarding world of Harry Potter fandom and talk about Potterheads!

What's it like growing up along side the object of fandom? Is Young Adult (YA) just for kids? Why do people of all ages love Harry Potter?

Whether you're Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin, you won't need a Nimbus 2001 to catch this week's episode!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 00:00 - Cold Open 00:04 - Theme Song 00:31 - Introduction 01:22 - Who are Potterheads? 02:10 - Trivia 21:00 - The work and the fans growing up together 36:35 - YA on the rise and Harry Potter fandom 56:16 - Fans of the week 61:58 - Spotlight: Harry Potter Alliance & GeekyCon 66:19 - Goodbye!

Citations "Political Scholar Studies the Harry Potter Generation" "Harry Potter Did Help Shape the Political Culture of a Generation" "The Times Plans a Children's Best-Seller List" "Warner Brothers' Bullying Ruins Field Family Xmas" "Warner Bros backs down on Harry Potter Web Site" "Grave of Real Life Harry Potter Killed 71 Years Ago: A Tourist Attraction for Fans" "AU Lily and Snape by julvett on DeviantArt" "Hogwarts Student Maker by Hapuriainen on DeviantArt" "How Ginny Should Have Looked by viria13 on DeviantArt" "Harry Potter Chibis + Quotes by ShadowSeason on DeviantArt" "#6 Polyjuice Potion y Picolo-kun on DeviantArt" "Harry Potter and the Childish Adult" "The New Powers That Be: Harry Potter, the Triumph of Fandom, and the Future of Creativity" "Pottermania: Harry Potter Tourism, Where the Pilgrims are Adults and the Books are a Religion" "Hogwarts Is Here" "Fans are leaving heartfelt notes in Harry Potter books" "Harry Potter Fans Won A Four-Year Fight Against Child Slavery-Produced Chocolate" "From Young Adult Book Fans to Wizards of Change" "How Harry Potter shaped a generation" ["Fanlore: Harry Potter"](https://fanlore.o

View Details

If chins could kill, you'd want to watch out for fans of this week's topic: Bruce Campbell

Are fans of Bruce Campbell distinct from similar fandoms (e.g. Evil Dead, Horror)? What makes them special? Does Bruce Campbell do a better job with fanalysis that we do?!

Good. Bad. We're the one's with this week's episode.

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 00:00 - Cold Open 00:06 - Theme Song 00:26 - Introduction 02:01 - Who are Bruce Campbell fans? 04:25 - Trivia 16:05 - Is Bruce Campbell fandom a thing (vs Evil Dead)? 30:02 - Does celebrity fandoms exist (through the lens of Bruce Campbell)? 36:06 - So, what is it about Bruce Campbell then?? 46:32 - Fans of the week 52:19 - Spotlight: Anime Feminist 56:08 - Goodbye! 57:32 - Outtakes

Citations "'Ash vs Evil Dead' star Bruce Campbell reveals weird fan gift - Business Insider" "Bruce Campbell on How the Fans Brought 'Ash vs. Evil Dead' to Life" "I'm Bruce Campbell. I'm back. Ask Me Anything. : IAmA" "Fans Call For Bruce Campbell As Mysterio In 'Spider-Man 4' - MTV" "LAST FAN STANDING Episode 1 FREE on CONtv - YouTube" "Fanalysis" "Bruce Campbell - Encyclopedia Dramatica" "Help Bruce Campbell fund the Last Fan Standing - Kickstarter" "Hail to the King: Bruce Campbell on Fandom - Kickstarter" "Cult hero Bruce Campbell has fun with Fan Expo - The Toronto Star" "Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless talk about Comic Con and the difference between their fans - AOL" "Strong Lineup Kicks Off First Edition of Bruce Campbell's Horror Film Fest in Chicago" "Bruce Campbell's Horror Film Festival: Special Groovy Report" "Bruce Campbell Interview: Evil Dead, Being Ordained, Making Bombs" "Bruce Campbell Fan Page (Facebook)" "Deadite Hills Retirement Home (Nostalgia Thread)" "Books Bound in Human Skin... (Thread)" "I'm Bruce Campbell. I'm back. Ask Me Anything" "Bruce Campbell Talks Trump and Personal Legacy" "Change.org: Nicolas Cage take me to prom"

View Details

Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight, never running from a real fight, they are the fans of Sailor Moon: Moonies!

Why was Sailor Moon so influential in its time? Why has it endured as long as it has? And for that matter, what was it like being a fan in the 90s?

In this week's episode, we fight in the name of love and justice... stay tuned!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play 00:00 - Cold Open 00:06 - Theme Song 00:26 - Introduction 00:56 - Who are Moonies? 02:59 - Trivia (Yes, we had a lot this time!) 40:42 - Feminism, Femininity and Fandom 64:19 - Community Posts 68:20 - Spotlight: Sailor Moon Screenshots Redraw and Moon Animate Make-Up! 74:36 - Goodbye! 75:43 - Outtakes

Citations Official Sailor Moon Fan Club Finally Opening to Fans Overseas Saying No To "The Other Name" - We Want Serena! Sailor Moon Fans Are the Best People on Earth | VICE | Canada Male Sailor Moon fans - It Just Bugs Me! Sailor Moon reboot far from magical | The Sheridan Sun Sailor Moon Crystal Failures THEM Anime Reviews 4.0 - Sailor Moon The Comics Journal: Essays How 'Sailor Moon' Fandom Became a Refuge for 90s Queer Kids | VICE | Canada Sailor Moon: Fanlore What I learned about gender and power from Sailor Moon 7 Authors who wrote fanfiction because its actually the best List of Sailor Moon Soundtracks What is a Moonie Code? Ballet-fu Nerd Royalty #1: Linda Ballantyne on Sailor Moon & Love for Fandom How Sailor Moon Made Me a Feminist Frill Clad Warriors of Justice and Girl Power Women, men, and feminist works part 3: Sailor Moon is serious business the blog The Feminism of Sailor Moon Why Sailor Moon is one of the greatest feminist stories ever The return of Sailor Moon [Homose

View Details

Love them or hate them, they have definitely been a very visible and vocal fandom, even in the mainstream. This week, we're talking about fans of the Twilight movies and books: Twilighters.

What happens when fandoms hit the mainstream? What's the backlash like? What was it that allowed the franchise to connect people across different generations?

We cunningly avoid taking sides, and instead focus in on what defines Twilight fans.

Everyone's a fan!

Find more like this: fanthropological.comFind us on social media Twitter: @thenickscast Instagram: @thenickscast Facebook: fb.com/thenickscast Youtube: youtube.com/thenickscast Email us about fandoms you want to hear about: nick@thenickscast.com

Play-by-play 00:00 – Cold Open 00:04 – Theme Song 00:29 – Introduction 01:03 – Who are the Twilighters? 05:07 – Trivia 19:07 – When fandom hits the mainstream 43:13 – Cross-generational fandom 57:57 – Community Post 61:12 – Spotlight: Her Eternal Moonlight 63:52 – Goodbye! 65:00 – Outtakes

Citations "Tree Graveyard – Forks, Washington" "Awesome Places (Arguably) Ruined By Popular Books" "Twilight | Forks Washington Chamber of Commerce" "Teen 'Twilight' Vampire Tourism: Volterra's Battle for Authenticity" "Forever Twilight in Forks" "Crazy Twilight Fans" "When 'Twilight' Fandom Becomes Addiction" "Stephenie Meyer 'Twilight' Author Q&A 'Austenland' Keri Russell Movie" "Midnight Parties to Rage on at Walmart Despite 'Twilight' Ending" "Studios Love and Fear Fans" "South Korean Werewolf Romance Eclipses 'Twilight' with 6.5 Million Admissions" "Twilight fans: No wonder they are called Twihards - Telegraph" "Twilight Ruined Comic-Con - YouTube" "How the Nerds Lost Comic-Con - The Atlantic" "When Comic Con Ruined Twilight – A Look Back At San Diego 2011 - Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movie, TV News" "Is this Comic-Con? Fans debate 'mainstream' panels - CNN.com" "What Belongs at Comic-Con and who decides?" "Twilight - Fanlore" "The Twilight Fandom Has Very Strong Feelings About the New Gender-Swapped Novel" "Twilight Fandom - Wikipedia" ["How fangirls changed the future of publishing"](http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/fea

View Details

Continuing on their journey out of typical fandoms, this week's Fanthropological starts a foray into sports fandom: Toronto Maple Leafs fans!

How are Leafs fans different from other hockey fans? From other sports fans? What is it about one of the most losing-est teams in NHL history that draws people to it?

We try to unravel the puzzle of this much beloved (and hated?) team and ask: Who are Leafs fans?

Everyone's a fan!

Find more like this: fanthropological.comFind us on social media Twitter: @thenickscast Instagram: @thenickscast Facebook: fb.com/thenickscast Youtube: youtube.com/thenickscast Email us about fandoms you want to hear about: nick@thenickscast.com

Play-by-play00:00 – Cold Open00:10 – Theme Song00:43 – Introduction00:56 – Who are the Toronto Maple Leafs and Leafs fans?02:20 – Trivia14:30 – Loyalty and fandom47:05 – Z Rants: Leafzilla48:48 – Community Post52:32 – Spotlight: Voices.com55:16 – Goodbye!56:23 – Outtakes

Citations "Demographics - Toronto Maple Leafs" "Ten Most Hated Toronto Maple Leafs of All Time" "Two Decades of Misery: A Guide to Toronto's Losing Generation" "Leafs Fans Charged for Throwing Jerseys on Ice During Play" "A history of Leafs fans not getting what they want" "ESPN names Maple Leafs worst franchise in sports - again" "Toronto Maple Leafs Fan Site! Catch the TML Fever." "The Great NHL Dynasties" "Waffles fly in protest as Leafs losses pile up" "Empty rinkside seats an insult to Maple Leafs fans" "Greediness of Maple Leafs franchise knows no bounds" "Survey says, the Toronto Maple Leafs are the country’s most hated hockey team" "Go neurons go! Science explains why it hurts to be a Leafs fan – sports diehards are wired that way" "Habs Fans vs Leafs Fans" "Message to Maple Leafs: 'Yes, you can lose a fan base'" "Why the Leafs can Shock the World and Make the Playoffs" "Superstitions" "Meta Discussion Thread: How Do You Feel about Upvote Parites?" "New Leafs Fan Reaction" ["Leafzilla Invades TO"](http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/12/27/16

View Details

At the Nickscast Fanthropological Institute this week we move away from our wheelhouse and get into a crunchy groove as we dig into an interesting fandom of Americana: Deadheads.

In what ways are Deadheads like the modern day fans we've come to know? Which prominent figures also happen to be Deadheads? What's the enduring legacy that Deadheads have contributed to fandom-at-large?

We can't answer everything, but we'll try not to noodle around too much as we give a history of deadhead fandom, rap about how it has changed over time, its impact on the world, and, in general, keep on truckin'.

Everyone's a fan!

Find more like this: fanthropological.comFind us on social media Twitter: @thenickscast Instagram: @thenickscast Facebook: fb.com/thenickscast Youtube: youtube.com/thenickscast Email us about fandoms you want to hear about: nick@thenickscast.com

Play-by-play00:00 – Cold Open00:08 – Theme Song00:30 – Introduction01:27 – What is the Grateful Dead and who are Deadheads?02:30 – Trivia19:33 – Communities and subcultures39:20 – "The Vibe" / Fandom as Religion57:52 – Community Comments61:05 – Spotlight: Forest City Comic Con65:10 – Goodbye!

CitationsOfficial site of the Grateful Dead "'Deadheads are what Liberals Claim to Be But Aren't': An Interview with Ann Coulter.""'Extreme' Deadheads form Religious Cult.""A Long, Staid Trip: How Deadheads Ruined the Grateful Dead.""COMPANY NEWS - Ben & Jerry's.""Confessions of a Deadhead: 40 Years with the Grateful Dead.""Grateful Dead Donates Archives to UC Santa Cruz.""Happiest Hour: Raising the Dead at the Top Hat.""How an Army of Deadheads (and their LSD) Invented Silicon Valley.""How Grateful Dead Fans Became Deadheads.""Scholarship is Dead: A Profile of Nicholas G. Meriwether, Grateful Dead Archivist, UC Santa Cruz.""Spinner Phenomenon.""Understanding Counterculture: The World's Biggest Deadhead Visits Austin, Explains the Importance of Preserving the Grateful Dead's Legacy.""Welcome Wharfrats!""Who or What is Dupree's Diamond News?""How Grateful Dead Fans Became Deadheads""How Deadheads Ruined the Grateful Dead""Deadheads Are What Liberals Claim to Be But Aren't: An Interview With Ann Coulter"["The Grateful Dead's Followers Broke New Ground in Fandom"](http://www.goldminemag.com/article/th

View Details

We start off Fanthropological with a look at the fans that often get credit for starting it all: Trekkies.

Which activist leader loved Star Trek? What did the fans do when the original series ended? How did the first Star Trek conventions get started?

We'll answer all of these questions and more as we deliver a history of Star Trek fandom, its key players, and its greatest moments directly to your ears. And be sure to set your phasers to fun!

Everyone's a fan!

Play-by-play

00:00 – Cold Open 00:05 – Theme Song 00:45 – Introduction 01:05 – What is Star Trek and who are Trekkies? 03:20 – Trivia 17:05 – Special Trivia: Nichelle Nichols and Martin Luther King Jr. 20:55 – History of Star Trek? No, the history of fandom! 37:10 – Who owns a fandom? 50:37 – Community Comments 60:19 – Spotlight: Starfleet 63:32 – Final Notes 70:28 – Goodbye! 71:30 – Outtakes

Citations"Trekker vs Trekkie: The Controversy"Memory Alpha "Secret files reveal police feared that Trekkies could turn on society""What are the main differences between Trekkies and Star Wars fans?""What Makes a 'Star Trek' Fan?""On this day in pop culture history Trekkies gather for the first Star Trek convention" "'Star Trek' Fandom Lives Long and Prospers"Timeline of Star Trek Fandom "A Fragment in Time""Star Trek and the Culture of Fandom""Bjo Trimble: The Woman Who Saved Star Trek""Notes for a Star Trek Bibliography: Fanzines!""Why 'Star Trek' was so important to Martin Luther King Jr."Where no man has gone before Developer Survey Results 2016 "'Star Trek' still cruising space on TV""Star Trek Fan Film In Legal Fight With Paramount""'Star Trek' Lives Despite Taboos""Tampa Bay Rays Tales: Star Trek fan Joe Nelson hopes to pitch long and prosper""How William Shatner Changed the World - Martin Cooper, mobile phone Inventor"["The Trekkie Fad..."](http://web.archive.org/web/200810

View Details

Welcome to The Nickscast's new show, Fanthropological!

In Fanthropological, The Nickscast crew of G, T, and Z pick a fandom and then talk about it. We'll be talking about Trekkies, Deadheads, Leafs fans, and many many more. Every episode we'll bring you facts and trivia about that episode's fandom, give you a brief history of the fandom, discuss issues in that fandom (and in fandom at large), and share what that fandom's community is saying. New episodes release every Friday. Subscribe to us on PodBean, or add us to your pod catcher of choice (Z recommends Podcast Addict to all you Android users out there!). Thanks for checking out the new show, and remember: Everyone's a fan.

The “Glasses” icon featured in the Fanthropological logo is the creation of Anton Anuchin and is used under CC BY 3.0 US.

Fanthropological: Recent Episodes

The Nickscast

Where can I get updates?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Credits

Where can I get updates?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Credits

Where can I get updates?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

What is the “Race Against Time”?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Credits

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

What is the “Race Against Time”?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Credits

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

What is the “Race Against Time”?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Credits

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Credits

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Credits

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Credits

Episode Outline

Where can I get updates?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Credits

Where can I get updates?

What is Fanthropological?

Who are you?

Credits