[ SECRET POST #5659 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5659 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #810.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Admittedly that does cover two of the specific fandoms I was thinking of! But I would argue with you that cdramas are not a "narrow slice of fandoms", they're huge and there's a lot of them. If you don't like them it's not your fault, but the problem isn't that there's no fandoms that older fans are into, it's that you don't like most of them (which! is a valid problem!)

I was also thinking of 9-1-1 which currently has a huge juggernaut slash ship (which a lot of people who are only into sf/fantasy type stuff haven't even noticed) and The Mandalorian, which is huge and seems to be mostly older fans who aren't super into other Star Wars but are super into dad-aged guys. Also Stranger Things is the current most popular AO3 fandom in just the past month or two, that's characters of various ages but it's definitely aimed at people who grew up thirty years ago.

I just did a quick skim of what's hot on AO3 right now (I try to do that periodically, which is why I know of all these big fandoms that I don't actually care about) and the only recurring fandoms in the top fics for the past month on A03 that I would say *aren't* aimed mostly at older fans are MCYT, BNHA, and Owl House. BNHA is about teenagers and I don't know the overall demographics but I know a whole lot of older anime fans who are super into it; MCYT is the terrifying young fandom I mentioned several times in other comments but hey, I'm there, and I'm in a Discord with other out-of-college fans, which I found by asking on DW if anyone knew of a haven for adults; and I admit I know very little about Owl House - that might be mostly actual teenagers from what I've seen about it.

For older fans there's 911; several cdramas, kdramas, and tdramas mostly with older characters for older fans; Stranger Things, OFMD, Clone Wars and Mandalorian, Supergirl (which is where most of the older femslash fans are hanging out right now); and a bunch of older perennials that get all ages like Batman and Bleach and A:tLa.

Also Genshin Impact, The Quarry, and First Kill which I admit to knowing nothing about whatsoever even to pin an age demographic on.

But I definitely wouldn't say it's dominated by teens writing for teen fandoms.

AO3 does lean older than some other fan spaces, so there's definitely places where the teens are more visible and the grownups less, but when multiple fandoms for adults of adult are in the '100+ fics a day' category on AO3 and they're most of the fandoms in that class I wouldn't say they're dying out.

I absolutely feel the pain when your demographic's tastes in fandom drift away from yours - there's a reason I've been snuggled up in a tiny corner of MCYT for most of the past year - but I think your problem is probably less "there are no active fandoms aimed at adults out there anymore" and more "I don't like cdramas and kdramas (or Taika Waititi) and that's where all the grownups are rn". I have known a lot of people feeling that pain lately.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah TBH I don't think we agree that much on the details - the biggest difference is really whether you consider "Taika Waiti and Cdramas" a narrow slice of fandom or not. But, yes, fundamentally the problem is that Taiki Waiti and Cdramas seems to be where all of the new adult fandom energy is pointing right now. There are definitely absolutely still some other perennials chugging along like they always do.

With regard to Cdramas - obviously since Cdramas aren't my thing I could easily be wrong with this. But my sense was that the most popular Cdramas are sort of all from one specific genre and also that there's a lot of crossover in the fandoms for the different shows, so that's more why I think of them as a single category. But again, that could easily be an incorrect impression.

Also Stranger Things the show is definitely aimed at people who grew up 30 years ago, but Stranger Things the fandom IME is very, very, very young. I think that's somewhat less true in the Steve Harrington slash-oriented parts of fandom, but it's still very young overall.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, for reasons that are probably clear I mostly see the older end of it. But even then I don't get the impression the fic-writers, at least, lean that young compared to other fandoms (And most of the merch seems to be aimed at adults?) That's another one I don't really know much about, except that a lot of my late-thirties friends are into it and it's not my thing.

A lot of the biggest popular cdramas are the Chinese equivalent of fantasy or historicals, but I would say that's also the case for, historically, most of the popular Western fandoms? I'm not super into many of them but the ones I hear most about are CQL (xianxia/high fantasy), Word of Honor which I think is more wuxia/low fantasy, NiF which is historical palace drama, Guardian which is modern urban fantasy, and Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, which is historical murder mysteries. And SVSS I guess, which is parody. I think there's censorship (and budget) issues in China as much as fandom taste which means there aren't a lot of SF ones getting out, and possibly that also applies to modern settings? Guardian has had more censorship issues than some of the others.

There are a lot of modern-day and/or not-fantasy Kdramas and Jdramas with a lot of popularity lately, though. Cherry Magic! is super huge and it's about thirtysomething salarymen. And I don't know anything about the Thai ones except that I'm starting to see Thai tags on AO3.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh hey, OP of secret here, just wanted to say thanks for this. Maybe it's just that I don't know where the older people are because the things they like interest me so little, whoops. But this helped me put things into perspective.

As I am deeply in love with it, Genshin fandom has been my safe haven for the past year - it's full of kids but I found my way to the people in my age range who just want to chill (the infamous teapot mains lol) and it's been nice. Of course, the gacha aspect helps, but I can't spend despite being older so that is one aspect I could care less for. Also, there is a lot of meta discussion, and then fic and art created by people in all age groups. It's... not all bad. So just some insight on it.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

The Mandalorian and Clone Wars, yes, and the new Obi-Wan Kenobi show is pretty big with Star Wars fans who were young when the PT and even the OT came out. Even older megafandoms like Supernatural and MCU are still producing hundreds of fics every day and have very active fanworks/discussions going on, and that demographic has kind of aged with the franchise. Lots of older Millennials and younger Gen X who were young when those started running and have stuck with them.