We dig into authorial intent, the challenges of animation, and fan work (and entitlement) as we talk about Rooster Teeth’s RWBY and its fans! ## Episode Outline **Topics:** RWBY (obviously), Anime, Linguistics, the _Tales of_ series, authorial intent, dudebros, expectations and fan work ### Fandom Facts “RWBY (pronounced "ruby") is an American anime-style web series and media franchise created by Monty Oum for Rooster Teeth. The show is set in the fictional world of Remnant, where young people train to become warriors (called "Huntsmen" and "Huntresses") to protect their world from monsters called Grimm. The name RWBY is derived from the four main characters' forenames: Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang, as well as their associated theme colors; Red, White, Black, and Yellow. Following several promotional trailers, the first episode was screened at the Rooster Teeth convention event RTX and then released on their website in July 2013.” ‒ [Wikipedia - RWBY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RWBY) * A fan survey from about a year ago gives us [some idea of the demographics](https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/6ckube/rrwby_user_survey_results/) (and other interesting tidbits about the fandom) with over 700 respondents: * 86% of respondents identified as male (and a non-zero percentage as assholes: Attack Helicopter) * Almost 86% are under age 24 (67% are between 18 and 24); if we do some math, its reasonable to assume that means that folks probably started watching between ages 13-19 (i.e. five years ago) * Just over half (55%) watch Rooster Teeth’s podcast ### First Impressions #### Z: I knew absolutely nothing about RWBY before starting the research for this episode. I’d seen some cosplayers and had no idea who they were until someone told ...
Should we get emotionally attached to fictional characters? Of course we do, intentionally or not… but _should_ we? No guarantees that we get anywhere near addressing that, but we definitely dig into how and why people get attached to characters (for good reasons… and for reasons)! In particular, we talk about: * The (non-)distinction between fictional and real characters… and real people? * How writing has gotten better, and how people can relate to even villains * How people can exert agency over fictional character in fanworks and how that promotes attachment And more! All in under thirty minutes. ## Episode Outline **Topics:** We do get attached, fictional vs real characters, beyond the emotional journey of a story, uncritical character love, villains and relatability, queer coding villains, characters as proxies, rewriting characters’ destinies, beyond physical attraction, reinforcement learning in a nutshell, the randomness of initial selections, a bad sports fan fandom analogy, cosplay and fictional characters. ## Where can I get updates? If you want to follow us on social media, we’ve got you covered: * Facebook: [facebook.com/fanthropological](https://facebook.com/fanthropological) * Twitter: [@fanthropologic](https://twitter.com/fanthropologic) And of course, we can be found where all fine podcasts are found (e.g. [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2IVp8MBIUyCqlKyZn79iHn), [Apple Podcasts](https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/fanthropological/id1163621210?mt=2), [Google Podcasts](https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLnBvZGlhbnQuY28vZmFudGhyb3BvbG9naWNhbC9yc3MueG1s)). Oh, and here at [fanthropological.com](https://fanthropological.com) ## Special Announcement: Livestream for the Cure 4 The 4th Annual Livestream for the Cure (or the Livestream 4 the Cure?) has been scheduled for FORTY-EIGHT HOURS from May 28th thru the 31st, with a small four hour kick-off event scheduled for the evening before to do final tests (and hopefully wrangle in some amazing guests). This year we’ll be pushing to raise $10,000 for the Cancer Research Institute, and if all of that gets doubled, we stand ...
Breaking News! Were you at YetiCon? If so, you may have been a part of our live podcast: *A Fanthropological View of Pokemon*! What is it that keeps a franchise going for over twenty years? Why do fans continue to flock to it? Who are the fans of Pokemon anyway? Stay tuned, and find out! ## Episode outline ### Fandom Facts **Origins:** Pokemon is a video game and media franchise that was started in 1995 by Game Freak / Nintendo video game designer Satoshi Tajiri. The franchise centers on fictional creatures called Pokemon (*Pocket Monsters*) which humans, known as Pokemon trainers, catch and train to battle each other for sport. The is the third best-selling video game franchise (behind Mario, and Tetris) and spans 18 mainline games, over 60 different spin-off games, an anime series that has been running for 20 years and 11 seasons, 20 different movies... there is a *lot* of Pokemon! **Demographics:** Obviously, the main game series has broad appeal, so it is hard to pin down. Using data from [*Club Nintendo* and *Media Create*](http://www.siliconera.com/2014/12/01/pokemons-audience-growing-older/), it looks like the average Pokemon player is male, between the ages of 19-24. *However*, there are lots of other data sources. Data from [*Infoscout* on Pokemon licensed merchandise](http://infoscout.co/brand/pokemon_licensed) is slightly different: the largest group being white females between the ages of 35 to 44. Also interesting is that this data shows that Pokemon purchasers are more likely to have kids, to have a college education, and to make over $80k USD. Some data on [*Forbes* about Pokemon GO](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2016/07/26/more-women-than-men-are-playing-pokemon-go-by-a-lot/#29c1bee613dc) suggests that the majority of players are age 18-29, and female by a large margin (63% vs 37%). That's 2-to-1! **Names:** Pokemon Fans, Pokémaniacs, Pokétubers (Youtube) **Most Active:** I would argue that Pokemon is more popular ...