Saturday, March 05, 2005
Ten "Fandoms"
Funky thought exercise: If you put the phrase below in quotes along with the word "fandom" in a Google search, you get the following number of hits. I claim that these numbers are a fairly relative representation of the strength of each fandom. (I would enjoy hearing dissenting opinions.)
"Star Wars" -- 133,000
"Star Trek" -- 105,000
"Harry Potter" -- 76,400
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer" -- 23,200
"Smallville" -- 15,600
"Doctor Who" -- 14,800
"The Prisoner" -- 7,430
"Rocky Horror" -- 4,340
"Bullwinkle" -- 2,250
"Daria" -- 2,200
"Super Friends" -- c. 350
It appears that 4,000 is at least the threshold for public recognition. (I'm sure more people are familiar with Rocky Horror than Bullwinkle.) Rocky Horror fandom is notorious for its excesses, but not really for the strength of anything except audience participation and throwing toast. 7,000 seems to be the threshold where a fandom can hold conventions. (The "Six of One" society holds a convention of Prisoner fans in Wales each year.) 23,000 seems to be the threshold where you can bring a series back to life, re Buffy. 70,000 seems to be the point where you can command an enormous cash flow and can make movies.
We have a long way to go.
# posted by James @ 10:59 PM 
