okay, oh my god, I was just gonna reblog this, but EVERYBODY GO LOOK AT THESE DATA. The charts are color-coded (and interesting to look at), and I might have done a little bit of finer analysis (especially in platforms – they were check all that apply questions, but how many folks are using only one platform to look for fanfic, and, if so, are there trends in the platforms they use), but the data here are richly detailed and fascinating and THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF RESPONDENTS?! (i incorrectly read that as over a million before, my bad!)
also, to the people who ran the survey, can I play with your data? in all seriousness, can i? I’ll use it in Tableau Public, but can you IMAGINE the cool visualizations you could do? the story you could tell with these data?!!?!?!??!?!
“Surprisingly, 35% of our respondents didn’t check off “gen”—meaning that 35% of the respondents never read stories that don’t feature ships!”
LOL. As someone who both writes and reads genfic – I am actually NOT surprised by that at all. In multiple fandoms I’ve been in genfic was basically guaranteed to get less traffic than shipfic. Very cool to have an actual number though.
Also, I didn’t even know what a “Cinderella moment” was until this. Huh. Though that chart of terms ppl were least familiar with is fascinating. I hadn’t realize “woobification” was so unknown to many!
THIS was my favourite observation though:
But this idea doesn’t tell the whole story. Canon-divergent alternate universes (#2 most-liked). Fix-it fic (#12). Missing scenes (#14). Minor character focus (#32). Point of view shift (#34). What do these have in common? They all fall in the top quarter of most-liked tropes and themes—and all of them are absolutely intertextual, requiring the reader to understand the original story
From The Hobbit: “He was noble and as fair in face as an elf-lord, as strong as a warrior, as wise as a wizard, as venerable as a king of dwarves, and as kind as summer.”
And then about Rivendell: ”His house was perfect whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or storytelling, or…
I’ve always thought about Thranduil and Elrond as comic rivals with a grudging respect for each other but they are constantly trying to one up each other at fancy elf gatherings. There is a whole lot of Thranduil whispering ‘nerd’ under his breath and Elrond being like ‘Hahaha it’s so nice to be…
Mashups and Exports 