• A reminder that Forum Moderator applications are currently still open! If you're interested in joining an active team of moderators for one of the biggest Pokémon forums on the internet, click here for info.
  • Due to the recent changes with Twitter's API, it is no longer possible for Bulbagarden forum users to login via their Twitter account. If you signed up to Bulbagarden via Twitter and do not have another way to login, please contact us here with your Twitter username so that we can get you sorted.

Demographics of the fandom?

Argy

Argy

∠(＞ｗ＜） #634
Joined
Jun 8, 2004
Messages
3,907
Reaction score
9
If we were to add up each individual member of every Pokémon forum in every language in which there is a Pokémon forum, how many people would fill the fandom?

I know that sounds like a riddle, but it's not. I read an article about [wp]meganiche[/wp]s yesterday and it got me wondering how many Pokémon fans are online, albeit very spread out.
 
The internet has a population of over one billion? I find that very doubtful. But the concept of a meganiche... well, yeah, it's interesting, but, is there any practical difference between a meganiche and a plain niche?
 
Here is the article, from Wired magazine. It was obviously used as the basis for the Wikipedia article.

IIRC, a meganiche has more than a million users.
 
That's just a definition... What are the differences, in terms of characteristics other than of size, between a niche and a meganiche? What
 
Last edited:
I don't know. I may have seen it at one point, but I don't remember.
 
It will be some time before every niche is filled though. There are millions still catching on to the internet, trying to find the niche they want to fill and that's not even counting those people not interested in being online. Perhaps the internet is so massive now that it intimidates users who try to work with it.

The niches Wired labeled are somewhat synonymous with one another, Gaia, 4Chan and YTMND, all are lauded among groups that share a couple of common interests.

I may be generalizing a bit much, but that's the purpose of the niche, to cater and provide subversive culture to those of similar interests. Groups that try to cater to other potentially large niche's like Oprah [for middle aged wives] or MSNBC [the daily news source] are portrayed not to have captive audiences probably because of the lack of interactivity. A small problem may be that the busiest sites hone the younger users and tech savvy and are by nature more keen to hang out online while sites like CNN are for show and one hit wonders a day which are supposed to cater towards the older crowd [less inclined to hang around]. Of course things are changing at rapid paces and big league like I mentioned sites are noticing. [and are already taking effect]

I seem to notice more and more websites are trying to become more interactive by providing blog like structures and public feedback options (much like forums) and as a result, keep their audience longer and coming back for more when theres nothing interesting to talk about. NBC is taking some bold moves by including tons of exclusive online content as well as reruns of shows that have recently aired online. They're also taking a cue from Youtube by hosting user created videos for online entertainment. With the increasing interactivity among these once drone sites, perhaps the older crowd will be commonly populating the internet scene from now on (And I think it's already showing). It'll still take some time before we start seeing communities vying for each other's populations as Wired put it.

And then there's the crowd that's just unaware of Internet culture or just simply not interested. Why just the other day, I met an avid pokemon TCG player, but he has not once graced an online forum or online site for advice or just to share tournament experiences. He said he may have ran into something like that once and only once, but couldn't stay for long because he couldn't commit the time to it. There are thousands of people out there like that and even more that simply don't have an internet connection to hang out at their potential favorite spots. I'm sure this is evident in the pokemon fandom, among young and old alike. I'm pretty sure some kiddies are probably too young to be allowed access a computer (though some places would say otherwise). And for the older fans, many are just closet fans, and wouldn't know the first place to look or quite too soon after rummaging though the available sites out there. This could be the experience of the general public trying to break into the internet scene; they just don't see what they want yet.

That Wikipedia article seems rather... lacking. I did a favor by linking the Wired article to the Wiki entry so that little entry appears a lot less lonely. :)
 
What about the Japanese forums? Is Serebii really the biggest, or is there some random Japanese forum which is bigger?
 
2ch is several orders of magnitude larger than SPPf, however, it's a general forum, as opposed to a Pokémon forum.
 
There's substantial Pokémon talk there (in fact, name any otaku topic, and they probably talk about it there) on 2ch, so it counts.
 
Zhen Lin said:
2ch is several orders of magnitude larger than SPPf, however, it's a general forum, as opposed to a Pokémon forum.
Click to expand...
By that token, so are IGN and GameFAQs forums...

SPPf is probably the largest forum where Pokemon is the main topic.
 
But Poke Crater is the largest Pokemon website, according to alexa.com.
Pokemon doesn't have enough to be its own meganiche, though it has made some impact on established ones. YTMND, for example, uses Pokemon, and especially battle template, quite frequently.
I'd say altogether, the entire community is at about 300,000 worldwide.
 
Alexa's rankings are determined only by the number of users visiting those sites who actually have the Alexa toolbar (commonly considered by many to be a form of spyware) installed in their copy of Microsoft Internet Explorer. The bar isn't compatible (last I heard anyway) with Firefox, Opera, Safari, or any of the other popular browsers. Most people visiting Bulbagarden would use Firefox.
 
Pokémon Crater is the largest besides Pokémon World, ever since it got the arena.

I miss the old Crater, from '99, before the arena...
 
Please note: The thread is from 18 years ago.
Please take the age of this thread into consideration in writing your reply. Depending on what exactly you wanted to say, you may want to consider if it would be better to post a new thread instead.
Back
Top Bottom