Personality profiles of fandoms
There is a website called subredditstats that can calculate the overlap between two subreddits using probability multipliers — so a multiplier of 2 means that people on subreddit x are 2 times more likely to post or comment on subreddit y. If the association is not statistically significant, it is not posted.
I went through 30 anime with highly popular subreddits and posted their overlaps with 13 different subreddits of interest.
There is a problem with surplus zeroes, where some series did not have enough subscribers to properly calculate their overlap with each subreddit. For that reason, I deleted Konosuba, Cowboy Bebop, Mushoku Tensei, and Ghibli (technically a studio, anyway) from the list, and added Dr Stone, Black Clover, and Avatar the Last Airbender.
From what I can parse:
Code Geass fans are fairly normal, but are more right wing and gay than most anime fans. This seems credible — Suzaku x Lelouch is a classic gay ship.
Fate/stay night fans are dopaminergic types — low ADHD and depression. Political subreddits I saw mostly leaned right.
Fullmetal Alchemist fans are notably high in autism, bisexuality, and anxiety, but are much more christian than the average anime fan, which is odd because the anime itself is quite anti-religious. The political subreddits I saw were right leaning.
Death Note fans are a bit neurotic, more right wing than the average anime fan, and much more likely to be LGBT. Not a surprise, as the L x Light ship is popular.
Tokyo Ghoul fans are incredibly depressed and unusually Christian.
DBZ fans are low in depression, more right wing than the average anime fan, and less likely to be gay or bisexual. Checks out.
One Piece fans are less likely to be mentally ill and gay than the average anime fan, but are about as spergy.
My Hero Academia fans are unusually anxious and spergy, and a bit more likely to be gay or a teenager. Also checks out, due to the fact that the fans love shipping Midorya and Bakugo or Bakugo and Todoroki.
Steins;Gate fans are a bit more likely to be autistic.
Fairy Tail fans are unusually anxious.
Evangelion fans are depressed, pessimistic, and autistic. Unsurprisingly, more likely to be gay too.
Bleach fans are mentally ill across the board. This is unexpected — most popular action shows tend to have mentally stable fanbases, but something about bleach in particular has attracted the oddballs. Not sure what.
Naruto fans are high in depression but low in anxiety. Unexpectedly, more likely to be Christian.
One Punch Man fans are generally mentally stable and straight. Less politically interested.
Gintama fans are a bit autistic and attracted to antinatalism. Very few of the characters in the series have normal families — perhaps that has something to do with it.
Attack on Titan fans are pessimistic but neurotypical and have low levels of interest in both right and left wing politics. Sounds plausible: man vs monster stories select for a more negative but less political person.
Overlord fans are unusually autistic, antinatalistic, straight, and left wing. AKA otaku losers.
Monogatari fans are disproportionately libertarian, depressed, and christian. Perhaps this series acts as a substitute for porn for religious guys who are a bit more socially liberal. Oddly enough, less likely to be teenagers.
Hunter X Hunter fans are neurotic and higher in ADHD. I suspect this selection is due to the inconsistent pacing of the show and the fact that it’s more weird and underground than the other big shounen.
Re:Zero fans are neurotypical, left leaning, and more likely to be gay.
Demon Slayer fans are mentally odd and more Christian than you would expect.
Berserk fans are straight, left wing, neurotypical, and antinatal leaning.
JoJo fans are higher in mental stability, more likely to be gay, and left leaning. I would have expected them to be more mentally unwell based on the way they act, but maybe being obnoxious is not the same as being mentally unstable.
Jujutsu Kaisen are the most left wing fans of all, likely due to the fact the anime is left wing coded and has a disproportionately young and female audience.
RWBY fans are mentally stable but a little spergy, with an audience that leans gay. Not unexpected, due to the flagship bumblebee pairing.
Persona fans are lower in depression, but more autistic and antinatal. Left leaning but straight audience. Checks out to me.
Gundam attracts spergy (but not totally autistic) guys who are less likely to be religious but also less likely to be left wing.
Dr Stone fans are the least distinguished of all, which perhaps is a different type of distinguishment...
Black clover attracts less depressed but more anxious people. Young audience.
Avatar the Last Airbender fans have a large gay fanbase and are highly neurodivergent, but not depressed.
The spearman correlation matrix is as follows:
There are two ways of interpreting these results: that there is overlap between two subreddits because they are attracting the same phenotype, or that two phenotypes cause people to like the same kinds of series.
I can see examples of both relationships. For example, bisexuals and depressed people tend to like similar series, but I see no reason for thinking that these traits cause people to like the same series, so it must be concluded that the cause is phenotypic overlap. On the other hand, depressed and right wing people tend to like the same kinds of series, despite the negative phenotypic correlation — perhaps both depressed and right wing people might both be attracted to slow paced, conventional series.
Or maybe it’s just a statistical fluke. The p-value is not that good, even after you group all of the political subreddits into the same factor:
JoJo and Berserk are somewhat surprising considering how popular they are on the internet right, but in both cases I understand why lefties like them. For JoJo, they probably are gay and like the homoerotic mist to the character designs. For Berserk, they resonate with gritty traumatic medieval stuff because they feel it subverts the chivalric ideal of Western (and to some extent non-Western) tradition. Meanwhile shonens like DBZ and Naruto are the opposite, they affirm this chivalric ideal. Also, DBZ and Naruto have many fans from Latin America who are likely religious. Avatar doesn't follow this same trend because it is literally DEI the Cartoon. The authors went out of their way not to include any European inspiration at all in the show. The countries are based on Native Americans and East Asians, but there are also Indian, SEA, and African inspirations. It is a world without White people, basically.
I was about to watch FMAB because I like alchemy. But if it is anti-religious I might not watch it. Have u watched? Would u recommend? No spoilers thanks
This is easily your funniest article yet. Also AOT is most definitely not a man vs monster. The titans are simply a plot device that lays the backdrop for interpersonal conflict between factions and peoples. That’s why the show doesn’t end when the titans are killed.