A Possible Theory on Why Some Fandoms Are More Popular And Long Lasting Than Others
So i was thinking the other day, why the hell are some book/movie/game/etc fandoms lasting for 50+ years and others die in a year?
I was comparing some of my favourite fandoms, the Percy Jackson fandom and the Harry Potter fandom and what I noticed and discovered is to make a good fan base, you HAVE to create a good organisation in your story/game/movie/book etc.
In Percy Jackson for example, we have our main character’s home base. Camp Half Blood. It’s developed in the background throughout the whole series, there is a companion book on the Camp itself, and the whole area is relatively fleshed out and utilised throughout the whole series. It’s described in detail, there are official maps released, people love the camp.
In Harry Potter, we have, of course, Hogwarts. It’s by far more developed than Camp Half Blood, with detailed classes, architecture, art, story, lore, founders. And our main characters spend majority of their time in the building itself. Hell, even the villains of the story used to attend Hogwarts
Why does this matter? Why does world building matter?
Aha. Here’s my hook. Fandoms stay alive as long as fans stay connected to the community. And how else to develop the strongest connection possible than fans being able to build their own original characters or ocs and imagine they’re in the story?
Human imagination is a powerful thing, as soon as they have a world (Hogwarts and Camp Half blood) to build off of, they can create their own characters and imagine more stories building off the Canon to keep their love for the universe alive.
This is why role play communities are so popular, in addition to having your original character and developing a story for them, having a community to showcase and use your character greatly increases your attachment to this community.
Once you make your fans feel like they are part of your world, it’s the strongest connection. Because by default, humans are selfish, they feel more close to something if it’s like they have involvement in it.
Characters VS World Building.
It’s the age old question, what’s more important?
No one is more important than the other, it’s just a matter of what you’re trying to accomplish.
With focusing on world building, you almost confirmed yourself a space for your fans to imagine themselves in. And you can have a lot of fun with world building! Creating your own original words, terms and concepts. Your own take on real world events and items and applying it to your story.
However you can’t focus on both so your characters might need to be limit to 2-3 main ones, to balance out your complex and intricate world.
With focusing on characters, you build yourself loyalty based on attachment to characters. This may not yield as much original characters/fan led creation as focusing on world building, but the perks are your characters explode into main stream. Art will be drawn of them, fanfictions will be written about them, headcanons, adaptations etc. By pouring effort into your characters, you create deep and meaningful bonds with specific characters that people will remember.
Maybe 10 years down the line, your fans may not remember everything about the story, or the environment or the world you created, but they will look back one day and go “Good lord, that was an AMAZING character that I still love to this day.” And that’s amazing for you.
This is exactly the case with Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. In my opinion, Hogwarts is wildly more developed than Camp Half Blood for obvious reasons. Hogwarts is a school and CHB is a homebase. Most of the time PJO characters are on quests away form their home base but HP characters are almost always in Hogwarts.
So how do you world build?
1. Of course create your organisation, base it off maybe a real life historical organisation with your own twist.
2. Build a rich and complex backstory, with specific historical figures that contributed to the creation of your organisation.
3. Build ROLES. Build divisions and department in your organisation. Think houses in Hogwarts and cabins in Camp Half Blood. Build specific roles your fans can imagine themselves as. Prefect, Head Girl/Boy, Head Counsellor.
4. Describe describe describe. You have all this amazing lore in your arsenal, now weave and intertwine your characters with them. Make your characters attached to the organisation and want to protect it. Mix your plot and story with it, make it so your organisation MATTERS to the story.
World building is hella important.
Heyyy, this isn’t proofread. Reblog or like if you enjoyed it. Or don’t.
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