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TOASTYSTATS: How do ratings compare on AO3 vs. FFN?
Archive of our Own and Fanfiction.net have similar but not identical rating systems. FFN differs in its policies, in that it prohibits explicit stories. I was curious which ratings were most popular on each site.
FFN, the older archive, has ratings K (for Kids), K+, T (for Teen), and M (for Mature). AO3 has General, Teen and Up Audiences, Mature, and Explicit, and also has a Not Rated option. For comparison, until recently, Wattpad had a very similar G/PG/PG-13/R rating system that mirrored US movie ratings, but they’ve switched to a binary option of All Audiences (13+) or Mature Content (17+).
In comparing the usage of different ratings on AO3 vs. FFN, I first did archive searches to find the total numbers of archive works with each rating as of Feb 19, 2015. Then I grouped K and K+ on FFN as being roughly equivalent to AO3′s General, and created the graph above.
Despite popular belief that fanfic is mostly smut, the data suggest otherwise. The Teen/T rating is most popular on both archives; on FFN it accounts for nearly 45% of the fanworks on the site, whereas it’s the rating of 31% of the AO3 fanworks. A quarter of the AO3 fanworks use a rating that is not available on FFN (17% use Explicit and 8% Not Rated).
We can also break down K and K+ into separate bars:
K+ is more popular than K on FFN (22% vs. 16%).
Related stats:
- Is fanfic mostly porn? (Part 1 -- Ratings popularity among writers and readers on AO3.) For a case study of the Sherlock fandom in particular see slides 57-59 of my SSC 2015 presentation.
- AO3 vs. FFN: what languages are fanworks written in?