The Nickscast discuss why a man who "died" over one hundred years ago is still popular today: We're talking about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous work, Sherlock Holmes and, more appropriately, its fans, *Sherlockians*. How is it that one set of stories sparked so many different pastiches, re-interpretations and ever more stories? What did fandom look like in the 19th century? What does the fandom look like today? Find out on this week's episode of Fanthropological: the great game is afoot! Next week, we’ll be talking about fans of Transformers (The *robots in disguise* variety). Stay tuned! ## Episode outline ### Fandom Facts **Origins:** The world's most famous fictional private detective; first appeared in print in 1887 (in *a Study in Scarlet*). The creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, he is well known for his deductive reasoning, forensic science, and logic that borders on the fantastic. **Fandom Origins:** In 1897 the first "fan fiction" appears (John Kendricks' *Pursuit of the House-Boat*), during the time period when Holmes had been 'killed off' between 1893 and 1903. In 1934, the Baker Street Irregulars were founded in NYC—one of the oldest and largest Sherlock Holmes organizations dedicated to the fandom. Much later, fandom springs up around BBC's *Sherlock* (2010) and *Elementary* (2012). **Names:** Sherlockians, Holmesians **Fan terms:** > **Z**: *The hiatus* is the term that fans use to refer to the period where Sir Arther Conan Doyle was not writing any new Sherlock Holmes stories between 1893 and 1903. > **G**: Much like Harry Potter's 3 year summer, or, I don't know, the eternal wait for whenever the next game of throne book comes out. **Size of Fandom:** > Certainly, Sherlock’s audience is several million greater than the 565 people who took this survey, but they ...
What is it about little bits of cardboard, plastic, and wood that draw people in so much? This week, we're talking about fans of board games: AKA Board Game Geeks! Next week, will we escape the podcast in 60 minutes or less? Probably not, but that won't stop us from uncovering the mystery of escape room fans! ## Episode outline ### Fandom Facts **Origins and history:** Board games are... broad, and historically date back quite a ways. Wikipedia provides a succinct description not unlike a description of life: > A board game is a tabletop game that involves counters or pieces moved or placed on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Some games are based on pure strategy, but many contain an element of chance; and some are purely chance, with no element of skill. > > Games usually have a goal that a player aims to achieve. Early board games represented a battle between two armies, and most modern board games are still based on defeating opponents in terms of counters, winning position, or accrual of points. > > — [Wikipedia - Board game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Board_game) While it is unclear what the _first_ board game was, many early games date back as far as 5000 years ago; some examples of the early board games include Senet (Egypt, ~5000 years ago), Go (China, ~2500 years ago), and Backgammon (Persia, ~5000 years ago). **Size of Fandom:** Using a few proxies of popularity, we can try to estimate the number of fans (and level of involvement of fans): - BoardGameGeek had approximately 360k registered in 2010, with 100k active per month ([BoardGameGeek - Geek Analytics 2010](https://boardgamegeek.com/article/6071127#6071127)) - The most backed board game on Kickstarter, Exploding Kittens, had almost 220 ...
[// Pregenerate link to episode ahead of time: - clicktotweet.com- sharelinkgenerator.com]: # This week's episode is gr-r-reat, probably because we can see why kids love the swirl of Nicks in every bit of this week's episode... on Breakfast Cereal fans! Next week, we'll have special guest friend, [EFG Nick](http://www.epicfilmguys.com/), to talk about fans of fad foods! ## Episode outline ### Fandom Facts **History and Origins:** Breakfast cereal is a type of food, often made of grains and eaten as the first meal of the day (in Western society, at least). Cereals are often fortified with vitamins, lack the vitamins needed for a healthy breakfast, _and_ are often high in sugar. In 1970, there were only 160 different kinds of cereal in the US; in 2012, there were almost 5000. [//Apparently, breakfast cereal has profit margins of 40-50%? That's a lot ]: # Breakfast cereal actually shares its history _way_ back with indigenous North Americans who had found a way to make ground corn palatable (later, called "grits" or "hominy")... though it never gained a foothold in the northern US. Apparently, there was a group of food reformers who wanted to cut back on excessive meat consumption at breakfast (including Seventh-day Adventists, who made the food reforms part of their religion). Flash forward a bit to the end of the 19th century with a certain John Harvey Kellogg, son of an Adventist factory owner, medical superintendent, _and_ masturbation rehabilitator. The institute he worked at often had wealthy industrialists visit for recuperation and they were accustomed to egg, ham, sausage, fried potatoes, coffee... and so on; at the facility, they found abstinence and a vegetarian diet. Kellogg experimented with granola, which eventually lead to Cornflakes, the archetypical breakfast cereal. ...
