Very Basic Growth Rate Stats: Stargate Atlantis and other fandoms.

[icarus]

How does Stargate Atlantis rate in online popularity?

We can use fanfiction as a benchmark for how popular the Stargate Atlantis fandom is compared to other fandoms. My statistics are taken from fanfiction.net, the largest fanfiction online archive*, which receives 9,700,000 impressions per day according to Alexa. As of June 25th, 2007, fanfiction.net was the 193rd most popular site on the Internet, drawing more traffic than MSNBC. Actually, a lot more traffic than MSNBC.

Fanfiction is a huge online draw. Therefore it can be used as a general measure of the online popularity of a show.

The number of stories measures the level of activity in the fandom. This reflects the number of readers, rather than writers, believe it or not. As one writer receives a ton of comments, other writers follow the money -- er, reviews -- and the fanfiction dynamo kicks off.

*(Caveat: fanfiction.net does not allow explicit NC-17 stories, so the numbers of actual fanfics out there is much higher, an estimated 30% more. Needless to say, the porn is an even bigger draw. Most of the NC-17 fiction is housed on Livejournal.com, the 63rd most popular site.)

A fandom requires three elements:

1) Active Viewers who are familiar with the show. Fanfiction does not explain or repeat what is known from the show. Fanfic, for example, don't explain what a stargate does or what a "puddlejumper" is.

2) Active Writers (and Artists and Vidders). Usually there is a core of "Big Name Fans" who have written for many shows and popularize the fanfiction for a new show. Working alongside them will be organizers who run (and pay for) archives, story challenge communities, and newsletters that promote the fanfiction, as well as the all-important readers who sift the wheat from the chaff and maintain recommendations lists that anthologize the good stories.

3) Active Readers who send praise and online comments -- called "reviews" -- to the writers. These readers demand more stories which starts up a dynamo. Reviews are the coin of the realm. Getting more reviews for a story is bit like getting paid more for your work. Writers don't like to admit it but they do follow the readers. As the reviews and "pay-off" increases, the top drawer writers are drawn in and the quality of the stories goes up as well.

Comparing the two Stargates:

Stargate Atlantis (after 3 years, about 2,890 per year): 8,669
Stargate SG-1 (after 10 years, about 1,621 per year): 16,211

SGA's early surge of popularity far outstripped SG-1 fanfiction. While SGA's discovery by fanfiction writers can be contributed to a springboard effect, that doesn't explain why SGA has nearly double the number of fanfiction stories per year.

This is significant. If Stargate Atlantis continues at this clip for seven years, it could pass 20,000 stories and be ranked in the top five mainstream fanfiction communities alongside the Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm writing a synopsis of that first year examining why the wacky SGA fanfiction drew so many writers and readers.

Stargate Atlantis compared to the three hottest new shows:

Supernatural (after 2 years, about 4,954 per year): 9,908
Stargate Atlantis (after 3 years, about 2,890 per year): 8,669
Dr. Who (after 3 years, about 2,482 per year): 7,448
Battlestar Galactica 2003 (after 4 years, about 580 per year): 2,319

Stargate Atlantis is on a par with the two hottest new fandoms today: the skyrocketing Supernatural, and Dr. Who. Supernatural's growth rate is astounding. It looks like it could be the next X-files. Battlestar Galactica, despite the quality of the show (or perhaps because of it) has not created a large body of fanfiction readers.

Stargate Atlantis compared to the three biggest mainstream fanfiction communities:

Harry Potter (after 10 years, about 30,965 per year): 309,650
Lord of the Rings (after 10 years since fanfiction.net launched, about 4,012 per year): 40,121
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (after 7 years, about 4,480 per year): 31,364

Stargate Atlantis (after 3 years, about 2,890 per year): 8,669

No fandom is as large as the King Kong of fandoms, Harry Potter. Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are a distant second and third, though they have nearly twice the number of fics found in the next largest fandoms.

Less familiar to most people are the powerhouse Anime fandoms, which I distinguish from the "mainstream" fandoms:

Naruto: 90,972
Yu-Gi-Oh: 42,233
Digimon: 28,743
Dragon Ball Z: 28,266
Sailor Moon: 24,693
Fullmetal Alchemist: 19,003
Ruroun Kenshin: 14,704

Stargate Atlantis (after 3 years, about 2,890 per year): 8,669

The Anime fandoms have a reputation for drawing a younger readership with greater numbers of young male readers. According several surveys, the typical ratio of male to female readers ranges from 85-90% women, 15-10% men.

Stargate Atlantis compared to the mid-range mainstream fandoms:

CSI (after 7 years, about 2428 per year): 17,000
Stargate SG-1 (after 10 years, about 1,621 per year): 16,211
Gilmore Girls (after 6 years, about 2,053 per year): 12,322
House, M.D. (3 years, about 2,280): 6,840
**X-Files (after 9 years, about 726 per year): 6,536

Stargate Atlantis (after 3 years, about 2,890 per year): 8,669

Stargate SG-1 is a mid-range fandom. Stargate Atlantis, if it keeps its early momentum, will surpass all of these.

**Note: The X-Files is a much larger fandom than these numbers indicate. The figures here are low due to the fact that fanfiction.net did not launch until the late 1990s, years after the X-Files began. Most of the early X-Files fanfiction was shared through other means. Likewise, the early Star Trek fanfiction is not housed on fanfiction.net and was mostly shared through printed Zines. Shows like Stargate SG-1, which started at the same time as fanfiction.net or later, can be sampled via fanfiction.net.

How does Stargate Atlantis compare to small fandoms?

West Wing (after 7 years, about 580 per year): 4,060
Friends (after 7 years, about 452 per year): 3,165
Farscape (after 5 years, about 351 per year): 1,759

Stargate Atlantis (after 3 years, about 2,890 per year): 8,669

Small fandoms have communities and primary authors, though often the authors "main fandoms" will be elsewhere.

Compare Stargate Atlantis to the micro fandoms:

Law and Order: 738
Jane Austen: 691
Shakespeare: 294
Profiler: 288

Stargate Atlantis (after 3 years, about 2,890 per year): 8,669

At the farthest end of the spectrum are the "micro fandoms." These are too small to have an active community of readers and are not self-sustaining. Writers create stories for them out of love for the work alone and usually have other fandoms that are their "bread and butter." The readership is the random stray reviewer.

Online popularity of course is no measure of quality, or the popularity outside of the online community. No one has figured out the magic formula that draws readers to seek more from their fandom in fanfiction stories. And some shows and books don't invite fanfiction just because they're difficult, or so highbrow they don't have a readership. For example, one of the micro fandoms is based on the works of William Shakespeare. I guess fanfiction writers don't have the gall. :D

Comments

[aka-arduinna.livejournal.com]

SGA's early surge of popularity far outstripped SG-1 fanfiction. While SGA's discovery by fanfiction writers can be contributed to a springboard effect, that doesn't explain why SGA has nearly double the number of fanfiction stories per year.

I think part of the reason is that the playing field is nowhere near as level as it might seem at first glance.

First, I should mention that SG-1 premiered a full year before ff.net started up, and the fans did what fans then did, which was create fandom-specific archives and post to mailing lists. A lot of them just stayed there.

As for fanbase, especially US fanbase, SG-1 was seriously hobbled in its first five years because it was only on Showtime. This was before episode downloads were easy or common (the show started in 1997; BitTorrent wasn't developed until 2001, and took a while to make inroads to fannish distribution of shows). I used to supply as many as ten people with the show every season, which involved literally copying my tape of the show ten times every weekend and mailing out the resulting tapes once they were full.

There were no DVDs available anywhere until several seasons in, when a handful of first-season eps were released in England; that was the only place to buy them for a year or two, and they were released one disc at a time, very pricily. (I was paying about US$25-40, depending on exchange rate and shipping deals, for four-five eps every few months during those first years.) You had to be able to play Region 2 PAL discs to watch them. They were also extremely delayed by today's standards; it wasn't until season 5 or 6 that the DVDs caught up to the airings, so you couldn't actually catch up on the show by watching the DVDs until that point.

By the time SG-1 stopped airing on Showtime and moved to SciFi, there was already five years of fairly complex canon, and it wasn't easy for people coming in cold to catch up (although by then the show was in syndication on other stations, and DVDs were available in the US -- but that still meant catching up on 110 episodes, just to know the background on what was going on in the show).

Compounding this, the show had lost a fan-favorite character at the end of season 5, and replaced him with a new character, and a lot of the fans who'd watched the show on Showtime never bothered making the switch to watching it on SciFi for season 6, diluting the fanbase. Some came back for season 7, but not all, while some of the fans who'd grown attached to the new character left when he left and the original character came back.

On top of *that*, SGA was announced during SG-1 season 7 and began at the same time as season 8, with fresh canon to start with, so new fans could just start there, instead of having to catch up on years of canon for SG-1.

SGA had the advantage of having a built-in audience from existing SG-1 fans wanting to see what they did with it; being more widely available from the outset on a basic cable station rather than pay cable, and going to syndication by the second year; existing during a period of relatively easy episode sharing via torrents; and existing during a period when shows regularly go to DVD within months of a season's end. All of those make a huge difference.

Sorry to be all nitpicky, but SG-1 is dear to my heart, and I really think the circumstances around it are different enough to be noted. To me, it's amazing that a show that spent 5 years on pay cable built as deep a fanbase as it did right from the beginning; SG1 was the huge hot fandom back in the day. :)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind that I was an SG-1 writer first. (Proof (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/ficsg1.html).)

Numbers never tell the whole story. All you can see is the results but not the reasons for them. You have to be in the fandom to know what happened.

Thank you, this was very interesting. And entertaining, too.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, I should point out that this goes both ways. Stargate SG-1 benefitted from the cascading cancellations of the various Star Trek shows, at the height of their popularity.

[dossier.livejournal.com]

but that still meant catching up on 110 episodes, just to know the background on what was going on in the show

I agree--about Season 7 I spent several months buying box sets to catch up and watching about 7 seasons of SG1. Syndication of SG1 was always iffy: a year or two behind new shows and time slots that moved around. It was too complex to just come in cold and catch an episode. I dearly love it for that reason, but not something the casual viewer can see and really *get*.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I watched it in syndication long before I was a member of the fandom, from season four on, which was played in Seattle consistently on Saturdays. It was my Star Trek replacement. I myself didn't find it hard to catch up to what was going on, though it is certainly much better when you have all the earlier episodes.

Other fandoms have syndication problems that affected their fanfiction output as well. Look at Firefly. These figures just tell you the results, not the why behind them, though I'm interested in the why.