university report about South Park fan culture

Hello UP,

your topic was closed because you already asked the same question in an existing topic. But I guess it makes sense to keep things in one place, so I reopened it and added a fitting title.

Regarding this website: It is used by people who are South Park fans and people who just like the look of the characters and are no fans of the show. Some of my visitors never heard about South Park and never watched an episode. Today the main connection to South Park is the drawing style of the characters, but I stopped drawing backgrounds and costumes from the show because I felt it's very limiting. So while it started as a fan project I guess it grew to something different.

Regarding South Park: When I started working on this project I was a huge South Park fan. But today I have to admit I am more interested in the community than in the show itself. I still run another website, http://www.planearium.de, which is the biggest German South Park community and I met most of my friends there. The last couple of seasons were not my cup of tea. I like the older seasons for their satirical humour. They combined dumb jokes and clever satire in a unique way. Well... and obviously I like the drawing style.

Hello UP,

I wish you all the best with your report. Please keep us updated with the progress

To awnser your questions:

What are your favourite episodes and why?
My favorite ones are the prequels ones to Stick of Truth (Black Friday, Song of ass and fire, titties and dragons), and the ones featuring Coon and Friends.

I love the fact that you can now play them in game as a follow up. And I am a sucker for superhero stuff.

Why do you even use this website?

Back when I was still in elementary (2006/2007) I was crazy about creating avatars. So one day I was browsing on google and I saw this site. And I really had a nostalgic spot for South Park so I decided to create a character. When I saw they created a forum where people could create pictures for contests I decided to create an account and start to practise with moving stuff. My first contest entry was a Ditto for the Pokemon contest on 02/2011. I didn't end up in the top 5 but I kept creating.

[Blocked Image: http://www.planearium.de/sp-studio/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=53&image_id=1804]

I kept improving myself and became a part of the community. Even at a point where people of the user gallery would create each other in different versions. Like for example: Eggyslav made a fantasy one and Jetpack-guy made a star wars one. And at one point Janina posted a topic where she asked if people would be interested to be moderators on the forum. I wasn't expecting much of it so I was like "yeah sure". Not realising it would make me an actual moderator. And well the rest is history

What do you like about South Park?

I love how they are up to date. You can see in the new episodes that they try to insert recent stuff that happens. I also like that they are not afraid to talk about serious stuff that most people won't talk about. There are actual lessons to be learned from it.

As the admin of a huge South Park community (not this one, I mean the German one a couple of years ago) I met many fans and I can asure you most of them are pretty normal people who just share a certain taste in humour. Of course there are some who just enjoy they show because of the curse words and who want to act like Cartman... unfortunately there always are black sheep. But most understand it as satire. In my experience the younger fans who don't get the satricial part yet often are the ones who act antisocial because they feel like that's what the fandom is about. But as they grow older and actually meet other fans this changes. Most SP fans are really nice people who laugh about Cartman but don't act like him.

It might be interesting for your report that there is a huge fan art movement as well. Not just with SP-Studio pictures. Many fans draw their own art inspired by the show and their favorite characters or invent their own character for this universe. I feel like there are two main types of South Park fans: The ones who see it more as a social commentary or satire, like a late night show. And those who are huge fans of certain characters and are excited about their adventures as if it was a life action show with actors. They "get it" as well, but their focus is a little bit different.

Good luck with your report!