Thread "Character types that appeal to different demographics?" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 6:01AM, Jan. 19, 2018

I was just wondering if this was such a thing?
I was thinking about how when we had a certain kind of persistent troublemaker on the site most seemed to fit into the same general description:
Young males in their teen to early 20s, stroppy, drink too much, maybe into drugs, see themselves as a bit alternative or "outside" of the system.

The film characters they idolised were Cool hand Luke, Tyler Durden from Fight club, Heath Ledger's Joker and then the Guy Fawkes character from whatever that movie was…

But they had a type, that's the thing. Are there other demographics that are as predictable?

Posted at 8:01AM, Jan. 19, 2018

A few years ago, my comic had a huge visitation spike. I traced the hits to a link from an erotic lesbian blog.

I wondered at the time if there were characters or themes in my work that were appealing specifically to that demographic. But it has very little romance or relationships at all, so it was interesting to find a link from an erotic blog. Go figure.

Posted at 9:01AM, Jan. 19, 2018

ozoneocean wrote:
I was thinking about how when we had a certain kind of persistent troublemaker on the site most seemed to fit into the same general description:
Young males in their teen to early 20s, stroppy, drink too much, maybe into drugs, see themselves as a bit alternative or "outside" of the system.

What you're describing there almost seemed like the default internet posting style a few years back. It annoyed me at first, but you could have fun parodying it with alts. Did LeScarfe ever put in an appearance here?

Having known a good few real life substance abusers, I suspect most of those guys were just pretending in order to look cool, as young men sometimes do. Sorry I'm wandering off the point here - how about older posters who consistently fail to stay on topic, could that be a demographic?

Posted at 3:01PM, Jan. 19, 2018

I know EXACTLY what person you're talking about, Ozone!

I definitely think it's possible to predict appeal according to demographics… in fact, for some people it's an actual job. They sit in their marketing division thinking of ways to get the money of specific demographics. And they'll even drastically change products or add characters to movies and TV Shows.

I know I've watched shows before and thought, "That character was put in JUST to appeal to the Hot Topic crowd" or some other demographic. It's usually when the character doesn't add anything to the show, other than to apparently add "flavor" or "personality".

Posted at 11:01PM, Jan. 20, 2018

Hawk wrote:
I know EXACTLY what person you're talking about, Ozone!

Hahaha! Well there was that one notable fellow… Bust there were also a few others that also thought along the same lines as well ;)

Hawk wrote:
I definitely think it's possible to predict appeal according to demographics… in fact, for some people it's an actual job. They sit in their marketing division thinking of ways to get the money of specific demographics. And they'll even drastically change products or add characters to movies and TV Shows.

I know I've watched shows before and thought, "That character was put in JUST to appeal to the Hot Topic crowd" or some other demographic. It's usually when the character doesn't add anything to the show, other than to apparently add "flavor" or "personality".

True. It can feel a little false when it's too calculated. That's the main reason I disliked Buffy The Vampire Slayer series for so long: it was SOOOoooooo targeted towards a specific demographic with the various characters.

@Scarf - haha you're thinking of the same fellow as Hawk :D

@Usedbooks - I think I know which character had that appeal ;)