#fandom statistics

[ao3demographicssurvey2024]

The AO3 Demographics Survey 2024 was an unofficial demographics survey of 16,131 AO3 users conducted in January 2024. We have just finished posting our initial results, so here is just a taste of the graphs and data you can check out now over on AO3!

The anonymised dataset from this survey is now available for researchers.

A full list of the survey questions with links to the relevant data is below the cut!

Demographics

How old are you?

Do you identify as LGBTQ+ in any form?

What is your gender identity?

Do you identify as any of the following? (LGBTQ+ related identities)

What is your sexual orientation?

What is your romantic orientation?

What is your race?

Is English your native language?

Which geographic region best describes your current place of residence?

Which religious or spiritual tradition(s) do you believe?

Do you experience the following? (Disability, Neurodivergence, and Health Conditions)

Usage of AO3

Which of the following AO3 activities have you done in the last twelve months?

How frequently do you use the following methods to find works on AO3?

In a typical week, how long do you spend on AO3 or reading downloaded AO3 works?

When did you begin using AO3, with or without an account?

When did you create your first AO3 account?

What languages do you use for reading and posting on AO3?

Works You Post On AO3

Which of the following types of works do you post on AO3? (Media)

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post works with the following ratings?

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post works focused on the following types of relationships?

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post works in the following genres/tags?

Of the works you post on AO3, how often do you post the following types of works? (Format & Miscellaneous)

Works You Consume On AO3

Which of the following types of works do you consume on AO3? (Media)

How much do you enjoy works with the following ratings on AO3?

How much do you enjoy works focused on the following types of relationships on AO3?

How much do you enjoy works in the following genres/tags on AO3?

How much do you enjoy the following types of works on AO3? (Format & Miscellaneous)

Fandom Beyond AO3

Which of the following types of fanworks have you consumed in the last year?

Which of the following types of fandom activity have you done in the last year?

Which of the following websites or apps do you currently use for fandom activities at least once a month?

Which of the following websites or apps have you previously used for fandom activities, but no longer regularly use?

When did you first begin participating in fandom?

How many fandoms have you considered yourself a part of in the last five years?

Which of the following types of media do you participate in fandoms for?

[osterby]

Here, have the top ten video game fandoms on The Archive of Our Own every year since the archive started

These tables show the current number of extant works (including archive locked works) on the AO3 created before Jan 1st of each year.

This is just the top fandom lists from a much larger project. For graphs, full details on methodology, a separate section on the Dragon Age tags, these lists in text rather than screenshot format, and more, see the full work here here

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62226781?view_full_work=true

EDIT: First error spotted! Legend of Zelda was missed in the 2024 list, I've updated the screenshot and it now correctly appears in ninth place

EDIT 2: Somehow the screenshots for 2019 and 2020 were missing? I'm blaming Tumblr, they're here now.

[centrumlumina]

I’m not sure whether you know the answer to this, or whether or not there’s a way to find out, but I’d like to ask:

In all of AO3’s history, how many instances has there been in which a fandom with over 100 or over 1000 fics has had a platonic relationship be the most written one, appearing at the top of the dropdown list?

Because I can only think of one (2 if you count both book and movie): Project Hail Mary.

And I’d really like to know whether there’s any others.

This isn't necessarily an exhaustive list (especially if the same pairing appears in multiple fandom tags, which many of these do), but I used my AO3 Ship Stats data to try to find a few of the largest fandoms where the largest relationship tag is a platonic one:

Batman - All Media Types - 194,603 works - top relationship Dick Grayson & Jason Todd

Minecraft (Video Game) - 115,828 works - top relationship Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson | Philza

Dream SMP - 93,420 works - top relationship Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types - 39,556 works - top relationship Donatello & Leonardo & Michelangelo & Raphael (TMNT)

Danny Phantom - 28,996 works - top relationship Danny Fenton & Tucker Foley & Sam Manson

The Last of Us (Video Games) - 14,208 works - top relationship Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)

White Collar (TV 2009) - 13,819 works - top relationship Peter Burke & Neal Caffrey

Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Cartoon) - 13,537 works - top relationship CT-9901 | Hunter & Omega (Star Wars: The Bad Batch)

The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton - 10,432 works - top relationship Darrel "Darry" Curtis Jr. & Ponyboy Curtis & Sodapop Curtis

Linked Universe - jojo56830 (Webcomic) - 10,327 works - top relationship Four & Hyrule & Legend & Sky & Time & Twilight & Warriors & Wild & Wind (Linked Universe)

[sprinklecipher]

The Postal Service Songs & Fic Titles

inspired by this post, I made a graph about how many fics on Ao3 have Postal Service song names in their titles:

Method info/additional details below the cut

Data notes:

The counts are the number of fics on Ao3 that contain the song name somewhere in the title (i.e., the full fic title could include other words in addition to the song name), as of 9/8/2025. I used the Ao3 “Any field” search with the modifier “title:” added, since the “title” field search didn't seem to support exact phrase filtering, for some reason. The counts don't include restricted fics

To be clear, I'm not claiming the counts equal the number of fics named after the songs (especially for the songs with shorter, more generic names) :)

Notably, there’s at least 1 fic on Ao3 with an exact title match for every single song on Give Up except for “Clark Gable”, although there is a single fic that mentions Clark Gable in its title

Also, here's the graph again but sorted by album order, because why not:

[reclusiarch-orm]

FANDOM STATISTICS

(because i have autistics)

Short version: the fandom has literally doubled in size in the last 12 months. If you are an older fan feeling alienated, this is probably why. We're in a massive growth spurt!

When i joined this fandom about a year ago, i took down notes of the size of it. I wrote down the number of followers for the main tags, as well as some control tags. I also wrote down approximately how many notes fanart of varying characters and quality did over what time period, in order to estimate not just the size of the fandom itself, but also how much of it was "active" as opposed to an abandoned or casual interest. Here are my numbers, taken down on February 12th 2025.

#warhammer 40k - 14k followers #warhammer - 11k followers #WH40K - 3.8k followers #space marines - 2.8k followers

At the time i estimated the active fandom at about 2,000-3,000 people, based on the notes on the most well made fanart that had been circulated for 1-2 years.

These same tags as of today, February 16th 2026:

#warhammer 40k - 28k followers (literally doubled!!!) #warhammer - 15k followers #WH40K - 6.5k followers #space marines - 4.3k followers

Tags that have less than 1,000 people following them do not display a number. No primarch tag had a displayed number last year, and neither did #warhammer 30k. This year:

#warhammer 30k - 1.4k followers #magnus the red - 1.1k followers #roboute guilliman - 1.1k followers #konrad curze - 1.1k followers

#demetrian titus and #space marine 2 do not display follower counts. #emperor of mankind does not display. i did not take down #rogue trader last year, but it currently displays 2.8k.

I also compared numbers in the early summer of 2025, a few months in, and saw NO CHANGES. This growth started sometime AFTER midsummer 2025. It also seemingly did NOT go into the space marine 2 faction of the fandom, as it might be tempting to assume. #warhammer 40k DOUBLED, while #space marine 2 sits under 1,000 people following the tag (and not every fan even follows the tags! i don't!). These are not video game fans flooding in late.

my proposed conclusions is that the TUMBLR fandom:

-is experiencing huge growth, particularly going into the heresy era and 40k setting. NOT from the space marine games!

-has a much larger ACTIVE section that before. the note ceiling for wide-appeal fanart was about 2,000 ish notes, and now i have seen art reach that number in weeks. This activity is extremely recent.

We have more fans, and in my impression they are mostly still hanging around the entry level lore with characters like primarchs. Many more established fans have told me they feel alienated by the fandom lately, like things are different, and they can't express why. Well, I have über-autism, and felt compelled to track statistics the first thing i did when i got here. These are my findings. They may explain why the fandom feels weird right now: we are going through very explosive sudden growth in numbers, and the chafing that comes with that. Hold on, and hunker down.

And if you're new, well! (anglerfish voice) you should swim deeper in the lore. I say it's great down here. Also, please use general tags on xreader content ( like #x reader and #warhammer x reader) instead of just the character name. there are a gazillion characters.

[guidaozongshi]

Naruto Ships popularity in the Chinese fandom

There are many charts made with the omission of data to exaggerate a ship's popularity, especially so in the case of Sasuke/Sakura where they spread misinformation about it being the 'most popular' in the CN fandom, this couldn't be further from the truth.

I have statically reviewed the tags for particular ships across the most popular Chinese platforms and will provide the findings for the same.

1. Starting with Douyin, it is the China exclusive parent of tik-tok and one of most widely used app.

Data Sources :

I don't think people can see the tag information in Douyin without accessing the app so I am pasting the screenshots here.

Sasuke/Sakura aren't even on the same scale, it's kind of funny.

2. Weibo

Data Sources : [1] [2] [3]

SasuNaru and NaruSasu are considered separate tags in the Chinese fandom and aren't used interchangeably like in the West , they rarely overlap which is why I have combined them for 'SNS'.

Regardless, Sasuke/Sakura don't have nearly as many supporters as their Sasuke-Naruto counterparts.

3. Lofter

Data Sources : [1] [2] [3]

Once again Sasuke/Naruto/Sasuke beat Sasuke/Sakura in both participants and views.

4.Overall

Sasuke/Naruto/Sasuke near more than 4 Billion views, Sasuke/Sakura are nowhere near it.

Btw, You can download the complete notebook where I have compiled all the information as well as generated the graphs

TL;DR Sasuke and Naruto are by far the most popular pairing in the CN Naruto fandom

[pygian-weapon]

I've seen some discourse regarding the methodology of the 2025 TOP AO3 SHIPS , especially regarding the lack of privated works or how the current analysis tends to punish older fandoms that might have authors deleting their past works. So I've decided to try my hand at manually computing the TOP 19 SHIPS ON AO3 for last year.

My method was to go through each Rating tag and select for works updated between Jan 1st, 2025 and Dec 31st, 2025. The decision to consider all works that updated in the year and not just those newly written like other Fanfiction Ship Ranking, comes from two reasons:

that's what the ao3 tag filter lets me do more easily and I made this table in less than an hour

I think works that keep updating for years also denote the interest and interaction of fans, so they should not be counted out

As a disclaimer, I did this through my personal ao3 account in order to view privated fics as well, but I have some authors muted so their works might have not appeared in my search.

For each Rating (Explicit, Not Rated, Teen and Up, Gen, Mature) I noted down the ships with the highest number of works in the Tag Filter. After doing that, I went back and checked the number of works for any ship that hadn't appeared before under a specific rating (for example, Han Jisung / Lee Minho which did not have many fics tagged as Gen).

Once I had the number of fics under every Rating for each ship, I simply summed the total and put them in descending order. I also highlighted in yellow the ship that had the highest number of works for each rating.

Among the issues that might affect this method, I have no way of knowing how many ships crossover with each other, especially when they're from the same media. Are Lily and James Potter actually that popular, or are they just in the background of all other Harry Potter ships ( I am trying to be objective but I am judging all of you)? Do Jayvik and Caitvi feature in many works together? And most importantly, are author tagging appropiately, or are they tagging as main also couples that barely feature in a scene?

I will be very happy to receive suggestions on how to get more accurate results. I also think this method would be very difficult to expand to incorporate more than a few dozens of ships.

[supernatural-word-search]

happy pride :-) Dean is the only character who uses the word ‘gay’ more than once in 15 seasons of supernatural