While fandoms and subcultures are by no means new phenomena, social media and online culture have accelerated their reach and impact.
This raises the stakes for both participants and content producers who have to engage in a treacherous tango with their demanding fans. They are no longer small fry and a lot can be won or lost…
A fandom can grow around any area of human interest or activity. While traditionally we associate fandoms with admiration of a celebrity or an artwork (music, tv, films) in recent decades tech brands such as Apple and Tesla have created two of the largest online fandoms of all time.
All fandoms are different, each with its unique set of internal rules, codes, visuals and linguistics. This can make them feel deeply inaccessible to outsiders. Perhaps though, there are some universal truths that link the fandom experience and these can help us to effectively reach them?
In this report we used the Discover.ai platform to analyse the discourse of 50+ online fandoms from different domains of contemporary culture.
Our objective was to understand what lies beneath the seemingly infinite number of unique subcultures that comprise fandom more broadly.
To download the report click here
Happy reading!