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Caption: A title card that reads: Toastystats presents - Where to find Gen on AO3 (January 2024).
I recently received the following two asks on Tumblr:
I was wondering if you have any gen focused stats? Specifically like which fandoms (above a threshold) have hoghest % of gen or which fandoms have the most gen period. Maybe even what tags are most common in gen fics? Most popular gen ships? Most popular gen ships that aren't tagged alongside romantic ships?
A spin off of the gen ask earlier, and this may just be personal bias, but I feel like theres been a rise in genfic recently. I'm thinking specifically of the minecraft youtubers/Batman/TLoU/The Mandalorian (just a rise in star wars gen in general I think). Its not really something anyone tracks but think I've noticed more and more gen ships, and not background ships but primary ships, on the top ao3 ship list.
In response, I put together these stats, using the biggest fandom/ship/character data I recently collected. (I also dug into the Gen tag a bit further in some cases -- for those that don't already know, you can also browse and filter all the Gen works on AO3 if you want to dive into the Gen tag yourself.)
Let's start by looking at the question of how the fraction of AO3 that gets tagged Gen has changed over time:
Caption: A graph from the following data: Year Fandom with the most Gen works Gen only Gen + other categories 2023 OriginalWork 13.4% 18.1% 2022 DreamSMP 14.3% 18.9% 2021 Minecraft 14.5% 19.0% 2020 BNHA 13.1% 17.4% 2019 MCU 12.0% 16.2% 2018 MCU 12.8% 17.0% 2017 HarryPotter 13.3% 17.7% 2016 Supernatural 13.6% 18.1% 2015 Supernatural 13.8% 18.7% 2014 Supernatural 16.3% 22.1% 2013 Supernatural 20.0% 26.6% 2012 Sherlock 21.4% 27.2% 2011 Supernatural 23.6% 28.3% 2010 Supernatural 25.3% 28.7% 2009 Supernatural 26.3% 28.7%
The percent of AO3 works each year that were tagged Gen was greatest when AO3 had just started (~2009). That’s true whether looking at all works that have the tag Gen or at works that ONLY use Gen and no other category tags. It also depends when you’re counting from; the average percent of Gen has risen a little since the lowest point in 2019, but there’s not an obvious ongoing upward trend.
That said, the second asker makes a good point that there are several recent popular fandoms that have a bunch of Gen. I listed the fandom with the most Gen for each year in the above graph – it starts out being mostly the same as the biggest fandom overall (usually Supernatural, early on). But it’s interesting to see the rise of Minecraft/Dream SMP more recently, which is a big fandom but not right at the top of the rankings. It’s just got A LOT of Gen. (Also very interesting to see Original Work as the top producer of Gen in 2023!)
I also looked at the fandoms with the most Gen works:
Caption: A graph from the following data: tag Gen only Gen + other categories Marvel Cinematic Universe 78,994 30,649 Video Blogging RPF 74,371 9,359 Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling 55,735 21,489 Star Wars - All Media Types 46,909 12,770 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) 42,373 16,687 Original Work 44,176 11,681 Supernatural (TV 2005) 43,919 11,118 The Avengers (Marvel Movies) 34,132 14,750 Minecraft (Video Game) 39,032 4,275 Batman - All Media Types 33,653 6,248 Dream SMP 35,341 3,317 DCU (Comics) 22,663 5,131 Sherlock (TV) 18,187 6,735 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) 16,875 6,504 Naruto (Anime & Manga) 15,486 6,993 Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types 14,719 3,113 Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types 14,005 3,562 Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies) 13,292 3,323 Captain America (Movies) 10,228 5,659 Teen Wolf (TV) 8,959 6,235 Doctor Who (2005) 10,938 3,724 Undertale (Video Game) 11,509 3,117 One Piece (Anime & Manga) 11,309 3,167 Iron Man (Movies) 10,178 3,889 The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien 11,196 2,339
There's a lot of overlap between this and the top 25 fandoms right now, but the following fandoms are outside the top 25:
- One Piece (Anime & Manga) #32 overall
- Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types #34
- Doctor Who (2005) #40
- Undertale (Video Game) #41
- Iron Man (Movies) #44
- Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies) #53
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types #54
- The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien #85
I also found the complete list of all the fandoms with 10K+ works that have Gen as their top category (there are only 19 of them):
Caption: A graph from the following data: tag Gen only works Gen + other categories Minecraft (Video Game) 39,042 4,273 Dream SMP 35,369 3,319 Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types 14,022 3,561 Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies) 13,294 3,323 The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien 11,202 2,340 Batman (Comics) 11,489 1,941 The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms 9,978 1,872 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types 9,400 1,300 Hermitcraft SMP 7,753 707 The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien 6,854 1,557 Danny Phantom 6,958 799 NCIS 5,717 1,393 Star Wars Original Trilogy 5,557 1,415 The Umbrella Academy (TV) 5,814 1,045 White Collar (TV 2009) 5,690 609 Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018) 5,012 581 Encanto (2021) 4,066 1,206 Star Wars: Rebels 3,209 925 OMORI (Video Game) 2,573 589
Those are the absolute numbers. But which fandoms have the highest proportion of Gen? I again limited it to just big fandoms -- the ones with over 10K fanworks -- and then I looked at the percent of each one that was Gen. Here are the top 25 fandoms by proportion:
Caption: A graph from the following data: tag Gen only Gen + other categories Not Gen White Collar (TV 2009) 51.2% 5.5% 43.3% Danny Phantom 45.1% 5.2% 49.7% Dream SMP 44.1% 4.1% 51.8% The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien 39.3% 8.2% 52.5% Hermitcraft SMP 41.6% 3.8% 54.5% Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018) 39.0% 4.5% 56.4% The Umbrella Academy (TV) 36.6% 6.6% 56.8% Star Wars Original Trilogy 33.6% 8.6% 57.9% Batman (Comics) 35.6% 6.0% 58.4% Minecraft (Video Game) 37.1% 4.1% 58.8% Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types 34.7% 4.8% 60.4% Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types 31.0% 7.9% 61.1% Encanto (2021) 29.8% 8.9% 61.3% Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies) 29.4% 7.4% 63.2% Star Wars: Rebels 28.3% 8.2% 63.6% Batman - All Media Types 30.4% 5.6% 64.0% The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien 29.0% 6.6% 64.5% NCIS 28.5% 6.9% 64.6% Star Wars Prequel Trilogy 27.3% 8.0% 64.7% The Adventure Zone (Podcast) 27.6% 7.4% 65.0% Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga 26.8% 8.0% 65.3% Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types 27.1% 7.0% 65.8% The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms 28.4% 5.3% 66.3% Stargate SG-1 29.1% 4.1% 66.7% Gravity Falls 28.7% 4.6% 66.7%
As in my previous stats, I omitted tags that weren't the same as their own top fandom tag. I did a similar filtering for all the tags below (including freeforms).
Now let's look at the popular ships with the highest percentage of Gen works. Three of the top 25 were romantic ships (shown in light gray below), so I added in three more platonic ships to this list also:
Caption: A graph from the following data: tag Top fandom Gen only Gen + other categories Not Gen Tim Drake & Jason Todd Batman - All Media Types 65.1% 5.7% 29.1% Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne Batman - All Media Types 63.9% 6.5% 29.6% Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne Batman - All Media Types 61.0% 7.9% 31.1% Dick Grayson & Jason Todd Batman - All Media Types 61.9% 7.1% 31.0% Technoblade & Phil Watson | Philza Minecraft (Video Game) 62.2% 4.6% 33.1% Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit Minecraft (Video Game) 62.4% 3.1% 34.5% TommyInnit & Phil Watson | Philza Minecraft (Video Game) 61.8% 3.2% 34.9% Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF) Minecraft (Video Game) 60.8% 3.0% 36.2% No Romantic Relationship(s) Minecraft (Video Game) 60.3% 2.3% 37.4% Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit Minecraft (Video Game) 58.0% 4.6% 37.4% Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson | Philza Minecraft (Video Game) 56.4% 4.7% 38.9% Ranboo & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF) Minecraft (Video Game) 56.0% 4.3% 39.7% Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker Star Wars - All Media Types 46.3% 13.5% 40.2% Ranboo & Toby Smith | Tubbo Minecraft (Video Game) 52.2% 6.3% 41.5% Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester Supernatural (TV 2005) 47.1% 10.8% 42.1% Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin) Merlin (TV) 42.1% 15.0% 42.9% Peter Parker & Tony Stark Marvel Cinematic Universe 44.4% 9.9% 45.7% Diluc & Kaeya (Genshin Impact) 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) 45.8% 6.9% 47.3% Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Midoriya Izuku 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) 35.5% 13.2% 51.3% Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) 29.9% 11.0% 59.1% Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Sherlock (TV) 24.1% 10.7% 65.2% James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers Marvel Cinematic Universe 22.4% 12.1% 65.4% Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker Star Wars - All Media Types 13.9% 17.3% 68.8% Pepper Potts/Tony Stark Marvel Cinematic Universe 15.0% 16.1% 68.9% Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug Miraculous Ladybug 18.2% 11.1% 70.7% Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Stranger Things (TV 2016) 16.8% 12.2% 71.0% Michelle Jones/Peter Parker Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies) 9.7% 14.5% 75.8% Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens) Good Omens (TV) 14.2% 9.7% 76.2%
Amazing to see how dominated this is by Batman and Minecraft vlogger RPF! And we see a lot of these same fandoms dominating the analysis for popular characters:
Caption: A graph from the following data: tag Top fandom Gen only Gen + other categories Not Gen Phil Watson | Philza Minecraft (Video Game) 49.1% 4.7% 46.2% TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF) Minecraft (Video Game) 49.7% 3.9% 46.4% Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF) Minecraft (Video Game) 48.3% 4.3% 47.4% Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF) Minecraft (Video Game) 46.6% 5.2% 48.1% Toby Smith | Tubbo Minecraft (Video Game) 46.0% 5.1% 48.9% Wilbur Soot Minecraft (Video Game) 45.8% 4.3% 50.0% Damian Wayne Batman - All Media Types 35.1% 7.3% 57.6% Donatello (TMNT) Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018) 37.2% 5.2% 57.7% Leonardo (TMNT) Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018) 37.2% 4.9% 58.0% Tim Drake Batman - All Media Types 35.3% 6.6% 58.1% Alfred Pennyworth Batman - All Media Types 34.6% 7.3% 58.1% Jason Todd Batman - All Media Types 33.0% 6.1% 60.9% Dick Grayson Batman - All Media Types 32.3% 6.5% 61.2% Anakin Skywalker Star Wars - All Media Types 27.3% 8.4% 64.3% Bruce Wayne Batman - All Media Types 29.0% 6.3% 64.7% Obi-Wan Kenobi Star Wars - All Media Types 26.3% 8.2% 65.6% Alexis | Quackity Minecraft (Video Game) 27.5% 6.4% 66.2% Luke Skywalker Star Wars - All Media Types 23.8% 8.7% 67.5% Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF) Minecraft (Video Game) 27.0% 4.3% 68.7% Yagi Toshinori | All Might 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) 21.3% 9.3% 69.4% Zuko (Avatar) Avatar: The Last Airbender 22.4% 8.0% 69.6% John Winchester Supernatural (TV 2005) 24.6% 5.6% 69.8% Class 1-A (My Hero Academia) 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) 19.6% 10.5% 69.9% Peter Parker Marvel Cinematic Universe 22.4% 7.2% 70.4% Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) 20.2% 9.2% 70.6%
Let's finish by doing the same analysis for popular freeform tags ("Additional tags"):
Caption: A graph from the following data: tag Gen only Gen + other categories Not Gen Gen Sibling Bonding 47.2% 10.0% 42.9% 57.1% Platonic Cuddling 45.8% 10.1% 44.1% 55.9% Family Bonding 41.9% 11.6% 46.5% 53.5% Platonic Relationships 40.7% 11.7% 47.6% 52.4% Brothers 43.1% 9.1% 47.8% 52.2% Team as Family 38.0% 13.2% 48.7% 51.3% Families of Choice 36.3% 13.2% 50.5% 49.5% Character Study 37.0% 9.2% 53.8% 46.2% Family Feels 32.7% 13.4% 53.9% 46.1% Whump 38.1% 7.8% 54.1% 45.9% Pre-Canon 35.0% 7.6% 57.4% 42.6% Crossover 30.4% 8.8% 60.8% 39.2% Introspection 31.1% 7.6% 61.2% 38.8% Family Fluff 26.2% 12.3% 61.4% 38.6% Missing Scene 31.3% 7.0% 61.6% 38.4% Canonical Character Death 28.3% 9.9% 61.8% 38.2% Digital Art 32.9% 4.5% 62.5% 37.5% Episode Related 29.2% 6.4% 64.4% 35.6% Crack Treated Seriously 26.1% 8.9% 65.0% 35.0% Grief/Mourning 25.8% 9.2% 65.0% 35.0% Body Horror 27.1% 7.6% 65.3% 34.7% Fanart 29.7% 5.0% 65.3% 34.7% Horror 27.0% 7.3% 65.6% 34.4% Implied/Referenced Child Abuse 25.1% 9.0% 65.9% 34.1% Implied/Referenced Character Death 26.1% 7.9% 66.0% 34.0%
This is quite a diverse mix of tags -- among other things, we see lots of tags about family, and about families of choice; some explicitly about platonic relationships; some about content that is more closely related to canon (Missing Scene, Episode Related, Pre-Canon); and some about difficult/painful experiences and feelings (Whump, Grief/Mourning, plus the tags about child abuse and character death -- and maybe we can toss Horror/Body Horror in there, too). I wasn't really expecting that last group (but perhaps those topics don't mix as easily with romance as some others)! Fascinating. I'd be interested to hear thoughts/read meta about which fandoms and/or tags/tropes are most likely to spawn Gen vs. shippy fic.
I hope you've enjoyed this dive into Gen works! Thanks for reading. :)