In the lead up to this year’s Outfest- As the world’s largest online fan platform, Fandom strives to create an environment that is an inclusive community celebrating every fan, and overall, the report is filled with a number of positive results, especially regarding the platform itself being a safe and representative space. Broken down into four core areas: 1) Category of Media, 2) Franchise/IP, 3) Studio, 4) Gaming, the findings remind us how critical it is for all of us to keep pushing forward so that those who don’t get to see people who look, act, and feel like them in the content they consume one day do.
Category:
- Between Movies, TV/Streaming, and Video Games, our users felt most represented in Video Games (77% Agree or Neutral) compared to TV/Streaming (70%), and Movies (68%).
- LGBTQIA+ media sub-groups felt representation had progressed in the last few years across Movies, TV/Streaming, and Video Games.
-
- Each Media Category is perceived to have made progress towards better representation with approximately 8 to 9 out of 10 people familiar with the Media Category indicating that they agreed or felt neutral that media was becoming more representative.
- Video game and TV streaming saw the most perceived improvement with only 10-12% disagreeing it was improving and 88-90% indicating they felt they were better represented or neutral compared to a few years ago.
-
-
- It is notable, however, that video games had a larger proportion of neutral responses than either Movies or TV.
-
- However, not all experiences within the LGBTQIA+ community are the same and participants who self-identified as Transgender or Nonbinary had differing results to cisgender respondents across media categories. Most notably, this group of non-cisgender respondents (Trans/NB) indicated they were not as represented in Movies.
-
- When comparing groups, Trans/NB respondents were more likely to disagree that they were represented in Movies (45%), compared to cisgender LGBTQIA+ (24%) respondents.
- For TV/Streaming, over a third of Trans/NB respondents (37%) disagreed they felt represented in TV, compared to cisgender (25%) respondents.
- While Video Games saw similar results with Trans/NB respondents more likely to disagree (29%), compared to cisgender (20%) respondents, this was not a statistically significant difference.
Franchise/IP:
- When asking LGBTQIA+ audiences their familiarity with popular IPs on Fandom containing LGBTQIA+ characters across the three media categories, such as Tick, Tick… Boom! Steven Universe and League of Legends, we found these pre-selected IPs performed well, averaging a score of 81% agreement or approximately 8 out of 10 people indicating that they felt represented in the title.
-
- Even among this preselected group of shows with examples of representation, some titles outperformed the rest: The Owl House (95%) and Steven Universe (90%) received significantly higher ratings than the other sampled IPs.
- Moreover, those with somewhat lower scores still largely outperformed the overall media perceptions described in the previous section, including:
-
-
- League of Legends (75%), Stranger Things (74%), and The Loud House (70%), all of which feature LGBTQIA+ characters, performed somewhat behind the average of the tested IPs.
- The Power of the Dog (76%), Shadow and Bone (73%), and The French Dispatch (71%) similarly outperformed their respective Media categories but were behind the leading tested IPs. Note: they had smaller sample sizes.
-
Studio:
- When asking about how well represented this group of LGBTQIA+ respondents felt about various media outlets and video game producers, the average provider saw over 3 ⁄ 4 of respondents (that were familiar with the platform) agreed they felt at least somewhat represented in the content available.
-
- Netflix (87%), HBO Max (now MAX) (85%), and Hulu (84%) significantly outperformed most, or all of the other providers tested with 8 or more out of 10 in agreement that they felt represented on the platform. Amazon Prime was close behind with 79% of respondents agreeing.
- Paramount+ (76%), Peacock (74%), and Disney+ (73%) received average scores, while Apple TV+ (69%) was below the rest of the tested streaming platforms.
- Similar to previous studies about the differences between broadcast/cable TV and streaming providers, broadcast TV (58%) scored significantly lower than the streaming services with a nearly 30% difference between the broadcast TV and highest scores.
Gaming:
- When looking at the Gaming Industry, the average studio we tested had 69% agree they felt represented by the content; however, respondents rated feeling represented in video games overall more than the highest rated video game studio indicating these studios are not necessarily driving the more global effect.
-
- The major providers – Sony (76%), Sega (75%), Microsoft (74%) and Nintendo (74%) – lead the pack, scoring significantly above the average rating for a studio;
- Notably, Naughty Dog scored at 75%, followed by Capcom (73%) and Ubisoft at 71%. Despite being a a comparably smaller studio, Naughty Dog fell into this group.
-
-
- Naughty Dog’s high scores could be connected to their groundbreaking work on games such as The Last of Us Part II.
-
-
- Lastly, Tencent (50%), Activision/Blizzard (60%), or EA (65%) scored lower compared to their counterparts.
Safety:
- Feeling represented and feeling safe are vital to creating the sense of community that is central to Fandom.
-
- Of the more than 3,100 self-identified members of the LGBTQIA+ community, more than 9/10 (95%) agreed or gave a neutral response when asked if they felt represented on Fandom and less than 5% disagreed.
- Based on survey responses, Fandom also provides a safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community outperforming Fandom’s rating in representation with more than 9/10 (97%) agreed (72%) or gave a neutral response (25%) and only about 3% disagreeing that Fandom is a safe space.
-
- While the level of disagreement is lower than perceptions of representation, it is more notable that the proportion with agreement (compared to feeling ambivalent) is significantly higher in regard to Fandom’s creation of a safe space.
- This may be more reflective of the media on Fandom than Fandom itself, especially given the higher levels for perceptions representation for Fandom than for any of the three media Media Categories tested.
