What happens when you find yourself in a beautiful world as a silent protagonist and a non-verbal story? You _might_ end up getting into a "games as art" discussion with a special guest Nick! We're talking about fans of the works of Team ICO (i.e. ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last Guardian)! Fortunately, we have [Nick Suttner](https://twitter.com/nsuttner), author of [the Boss Fight Books book on the subject](https://bossfightbooks.com/products/shadow-of-the-colossus-by-nick-suttner) to help us out! ## Episode Outline ### Fandom Facts **History and Origins:** > Team Ico was a Japanese video game development studio led by game designer Fumito Ueda. It was part of Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Studio's Product Development Department #1, and had developed the games _Ico_ and _Shadow of the Colossus_, both for the PlayStation 2. The team was also initially responsible for _The Last Guardian_ before Ueda's departure in 2011 and the formation of a new company taking over development in 2014. Their games are usually characterized by minimalist storytelling and gameplay, an atmospheric use of bloom and high dynamic range rendering (HDR) lighting, and use of fictional languages. Their products are frequently cited as examples of video games as an art form. > > — [Wikipedia - Team Ico](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Ico) **Search Data:** Based on worldwide search data, it looks like [the biggest peaks of interest in the games has already passed](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F05zht0,%2Fm%2F0h53djf,%2Fm%2F06404g0). _Shadow of the Colossus_ is by far the most popular of the games and has had spikes in interest around October 2005 (its release date) and again in February 2018 (remake of the original). Interest in _The Last Guardian_ similarly spikes around its release date: December 2016. The top ten countries, by search volume, are as follows for the different games: - _Shadow of the Colossus_: Brazil, ...
Love them or hate them, they have definitely been a very visible and vocal fandom, even in the mainstream. This week, we're talking about fans of the Twilight movies and books: Twilighters. What happens when fandoms hit the mainstream? What's the backlash like? What was it that allowed the franchise to connect people across different generations? We cunningly avoid taking sides, and instead focus in on what defines Twilight fans. Everyone's a fan! Find more like this: [fanthropological.com](http://fanthropological.com)Find us on social media Twitter: [@thenickscast](http://twitter.com/thenickscast) Instagram: [@thenickscast](http://instagram.com/thenickscast) Facebook: [fb.com/thenickscast](http://fb.com/thenickscast) Youtube: [youtube.com/thenickscast](http://youtube.com/thenickscast) Email us about fandoms you want to hear about: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) Play-by-play 00:00 – Cold Open 00:04 – Theme Song 00:29 – Introduction 01:03 – Who are the Twilighters? 05:07 – Trivia 19:07 – When fandom hits the mainstream 43:13 – Cross-generational fandom 57:57 – Community Post 61:12 – Spotlight: [Her Eternal Moonlight](http://hereternalmoonlight.com) 63:52 – Goodbye! 65:00 – Outtakes Citations ["Tree Graveyard – Forks, Washington"](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tree-graveyard) ["Awesome Places (Arguably) Ruined By Popular Books"](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/awesome-places-arguably-ruined-by-popular-books) ["Twilight | Forks Washington Chamber of Commerce"](http://forkswa.com/twilight/) ["Teen 'Twilight' Vampire Tourism: Volterra's Battle for Authenticity"](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/teen-twilight-vampire-tourism-volterra-s-battle-for-authenticity-a-690073.html ) ["Forever Twilight in Forks"](http://forkswa.com/forevertwilightinforks/) ["Crazy Twilight Fans"](http://oddculture.com/crazy-twilight-fans/) ["When 'Twilight' Fandom Becomes Addiction"](http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jun/27/entertainment/la-ca-twilight-addiction-20100627) ["Stephenie Meyer 'Twilight' Author Q&A 'Austenland' Keri Russell Movie"](http://variety.com/2013/film/news/qa-stephenie-meyer-twilight-author-trades-undead-for-well-bred-in-austenland-1200577471/) ["Midnight Parties to Rage on at Walmart Despite 'Twilight' Ending"](http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/midnight-parties-to-rage-on-at-walmart-despite-twilight-ending-1200001723/) ["Studios Love and Fear Fans"](http://variety.com/2010/film/columns/studios-love-and-fear-fans-1118021212/) ["South Korean Werewolf Romance Eclipses 'Twilight' with 6.5 Million Admissions"](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/south-korean-werewolf-romance-eclipses-twilight-396698) ["Twilight fans: No wonder they are called Twihards - Telegraph"](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/9675725/Twilight-fans-No-wonder-they-are-called-Twihards.html) ["Twilight Ruined Comic-Con - YouTube"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbA1a7M7nx0) ["How the Nerds Lost Comic-Con - The Atlantic"](http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/07/how-nerds-lost-comic-con/313106/) ["When Comic Con Ruined Twilight – A Look Back At San Diego 2011 - Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movie, TV News"](http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/07/26/when-comic-con-ruined-twilight-a-look-back-at-san-diego-2011/) ["Is this Comic-Con? Fans debate 'mainstream' panels - CNN.com"](http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/07/22/is.this.comicon/) ["What Belongs at Comic-Con and who decides?"](http://thestake.org/2013/08/16/what-belongs-at-comic-con-and-who-decides/) ["Twilight ...
This Nickscast are entering the spooky woods, going beneath the surface to see what's really going on in the weird world of Twin Peaks fandom! Why did it get a revival? Are there really a lot of Twin Peaks fans? We'll get the fans-eye view (and no backwards talking) on this week's episode! Next week, we’ll be jacking-in to our new deck and diving into the world of fans of Cyberpunk! ## Episode outline ### Fandom Facts > There's likely as much mystery surrounding the fandom as there is surrounding the show. > > — T **Origins:** Twin Peaks was a cult TV series that ran for two seasons in the early 1990s created by David Lynch. It received a film prequel in 1992 (_Fire Walk With Me_), and will have a revival this month on Showtime. The story begins around the murder of a high-school homecoming queen and quickly changes to... something different entirely. **Fandom Demographics:** Hard to estimate size: The Twin Peaks festival has about 7000 followers on Twitter, and the Twin Peaks subreddit has about 24000 subscribers. Looking at [IMDB](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098936/ratings), the majority are people between ages 30-44, skewing towards male. Looking at the IMDB data, there are 120 000 ratings for Twin Peaks. To get a sense of scale, _Batman Begins_ has about 1 million ratings (as does Avatar), Disney's _the Lion King_ has about 700 000, and _the X-files_ has about 160 000. **Changes in Fandom:** Interest in the fandom has remained relatively constant (relative to the peak) [according to Google Trends](https://trends.google.ca/trends/explore?date=all&q=twin%20peaks) with some spikes since the announcement of a revival [in October 2014](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks_(2017_TV_series)#Announcement). One of the largest fan festivals, the [Twin Peaks Festival](https://www.twinpeaksfest.com/), has attendance capped at about 200 people, though previously attendance was less than 100 ...