What determines why something gets popular?
Why did Frozen make a billion dollars but Tangled only half of that?
Why does Good Dinosaur do poorly but Despicable Me 2 make a billion dollars and get nominated for Best Animated Picture?
Why does Venture Brothers have 1/8th the vocal fanbase of Steven Universe despite both being decent serialized cartoons suffering from hiatuses on the same channel?
Why does something like Adventure Time or Regular Show become a breakout hit while Wander Over Yonder or We Bare Bears kind of just stays small?
Is there actually something to analyze here or is it just pure luck in what gets popular?
>>80445751
steven univese sucks gigantic donkey balls, don't you ever compare it to greatness of the Venture Bros.
>Why did Frozen make a billion dollars but Tangled only half of that?
Really persistent marketing, also Elsa is appealing because she is both pretty and powerful
> Why does Good Dinosaur do poorly but Despicable Me 2 make a billion dollars and get nominated for Best Animated Picture?
Minions, minions and more minions
The BANANA and high pitched voices make people laugh histerically, including kids. Also The Good Dinosaur has a lousy marketing
I could say the same things about the other questions
It's all about appeal to normies and marketing
>>80445751
People get paid mad money to analyze exactly that. There's a ton of factors going on at any given time.
>>80445751
Frozen had Let It Go which people thought was about being gay. Also incest bait
Steven Universe has tumblr behind it, Venture Bros. predated tumblr.
>>80445959
Non confirmed triggered.
Anyway it helps if something is controversial especially if co can attach some boogeyman to it like reddit or tumblr.
I have wondered this sometimes, and I've assumed it's a combination of multiple factors. Part of it is probably the work's quality gaining it a fanbase, with information about the work spreading via viral/grassroots means, and people checking out a work based on the recommendation of someone they know. Another part of it is aggressive marketing and exposure by the publishers: ad campaigns, toylines, or whatever. But part of it I can't really understand or explain; why some work makes it big while the other doesn't, despite being of a similar quality or noticeably better. So I guess there might be an element of luck involved as well. And probably other factors too. Like sex appeal, which seems to be a pretty big factor at least for people on this site.
>>80446052
>Venture Bros. predated tumblr.
As far as I know, VB still doesn't have an Art Production Tumblr. Which is a fucking shame because I think it would help them immensely. They have fantastic art, especially today where a lot of cartoons/comics either look like Adventure Time or Power-Up.
If we show enough interest in it, think there's any chance Doc and Jackson would consider it?
I think there are just certain things about a show or movie that can attract a large fanbase, even if other shows are better somehow.
1. Curiosity for the world the characters are living in, which causes a lot of discussion. Having some element of mystery makes people interested and excited for what's to come.
2. It has to appeal to both children and adults. A show that is specifically enjoyable for children or is too mature for children misses a large chuck of it's possible audience. Even in an entirely adult space.
3. It's helpful for a series to be somewhat marketable. To be able to have their characters on trendy t-shirts and toys.
4. An optional factor is the ability for self insertion. Little girls want to be Elsa. People want to be able to ask themselves "What if I was a pony/steven universe/sonic character." Series that use animals or strong associations (like specific gemstones) for every character leave themselves very open to this.
>>80445751
Good Dinosaur was fucking boring and unmemorable.
>>80446822
>Implying boring movies don't become huge hits.
World-building (and all of the ways to do it) is probably the most important thing.
This is a number of factors:
1) Consistent world. One of the harder ones to do, especially in a long-running series. You have to build a sense of rhythm so that when certain situations happen, the audience knows most/all of the things to expect.
2) Breadth and depth. Popular things, across all media, tend to feature a large cast of characters. These characters (both main and supporting, and sometimes even tangential) also aren't just...simple. They have some complexity, and usually have character arcs of sorts. (note: I tend to treat places/settings as characters, too; they need arcs, too, especially ones the main characters visit often)
3) Powerwanking is always useful. If not "powerwanking", then who is the smartest/prettiest/etc. Who is a better romantic choice for person X? And so on. Ways for people to compare characters to each other, especially when either/all answers are acceptable.
When you've done all of this, you create a world that people want to revisit time and time again.
It's entirely the matter of what's more popular at the moment OP.
>>80445751
There is a lot of different factors but it basically boils down to
-How many people are aware of it
-If a good portion of people would consider it "good"
The first point is basically an issue of money/logistics the second is the trickier one because everyone has different tastes and what's considered good or not changes based upon a lot of factors, including the current meta of what else is popular. As an example say you have a mega success like Star Wars come out recently, if you want your own work to be truly popular, you can't have it follow the space opera science fiction genre too closely or it'll just be seen as a watered down version of star wars (though you may generate more interest if you include just enough similar elements to catch people's eye)
>>80446481
Didn't they have a livejournal at some point? Not that it matters considering Livejournal is a shipwreck.
>>80446481
I hope not, I just worried that tumblr would infect Astrobase Go!, though given Jackson and Doc are both in their late forties, as well as the whole 'and more people of colour' thing, I think they wouldn't gel well with some tumblrites.
Meme power. Unironically. Frozen's success is tied directly to Let it Go.
>>80445751
>Steven Universe
>decent
>>80445751
I don't like it, but the answer iswaifus.
Tangled had one, Frozen had two. Frozen made twice as much.
SU has bunch and it's crazy popular.
WoY has one in the spotlight now and look how much steam it's picked up this week.
>>80446010
>Really persistent marketing
Really, no.
Frozen was marketed like shit initally, about as bad or with even less effort than Tangled. Disney fully expected Frozen to flop. They only started marketing it in earnest after they were caught completely by surprise by the insane demand for Frozen merch during Christmas season 2013, when everything sold out almost instantly and desperate parents were paying ridiculous prices for Frozen stuff on ebay.
Frozen was a sleeper hit, and whether you like it or not it became successful on its own, despite a rather low marketing effort. It was initially marketed about the same as Tangled, BH6 or Wreck-it Ralph. Of course once it had proven itself to be insanely successful, Disney is trying to milk it for everything its worth, but that's very different from building all the hype for the movie in advance through marketing
>>80450564
The Cuteness factor of female characters really can help drive a work's popularity.
Cute girls just have a universe base appeal that's easy to digest.
Rely on it too much though and you get harem anime.
>>80445959
>>80452834
Harem anime isn't a disqualifier though, shit's still popular.
>>80454350
He did animation direction, not writing/storyboarding
>>80454697
That doesn't relate to my point.
I didn't even have a point.
>>80445751
Some might argue that it's based on luck, but really the jury is out on that.
>>80454350
> RPG
I don't think I'll ever forgive him for dropping the comic at the final fucking battle
>>80454576
I don't disagree, just wanted to include an example of what happens when you focus too much on things that will make your work popular. It can end up overshadowing everything else about your work.
>>80445751
Well, Wander over Yonder is stuck on c-list channel so it was destined to never bee too big. As for We Bare Bears, it's just not that compelling. Not too mention it tries way too hard to be contemporary. I predict watching WBB 15 years from now will be a cringe inducing experience.
>>80447036
Titanic was popular.
>>80452834
How would this apply to Gravity Falls and Rick & Morty which are basically meme machines?
>>80445751
>Frozen had a beautiful sad girl who was vulnerable, and had no competition for kid-friendly movies at the box office. Tangled's opening weekend it came second against Harry Potter, and and was followed by Megamind. It also had good word of mouth publicity.
>Good Dinosaur was shit. Despicable Me 2 had an established fanbase.
>Steven Universe appeals more to people with autism and SJW-tards who actually think that it's progressive, despite the gay alien trope.
>SJW-tards. Also adventure time and Regular show get way more exposure, even on /co/.
>Why did Frozen make a billion dollars but Tangled only half of that?
One really good song and subversion of usual Disney stories that sparked alot of people
>Why does Good Dinosaur do poorly but Despicable Me 2 make a billion dollars and get nominated for Best Animated Picture?
One had no marketing and hlow expectations even by it's own studio while Despicable Me was created by committee to be as marketable as possible
>Why does Venture Brothers have 1/8th the vocal fanbase of Steven Universe despite both being decent serialized cartoons suffering from hiatuses on the same channel?
Venture Bro.s has no merchandising and releases a season every 3 years while Steven Universe has tons of merc and it's first season had 40 episodes
>Why does something like Adventure Time or Regular Show become a breakout hit while Wander Over Yonder or We Bare Bears kind of just stays small?
The were released at a time when CN mostly had live action reality shows so and they were their saving graces. Meanwhile Wander is on Disney XD which is heavily ignored by Disney themselves and again, no marketing.
>>80455264
I'm not really sure what your asking, but I think it's something like: How do cute girls apply to shows that reference memes?
I suppose they appeal in similar ways, they are both relatively low effort depending on how they're employed and both have potential mass appeal. People like cute things, cute girls have the bonus of being potentially sexual attractive to a male audience or stylistically attractive to a female one, whereas a meme is basically a suped up inside joke, your audience will feel a little more special if they get it (therefore more drawn in) and if they don't recognize it it probably just wouldn't have been noticed.
They have ease of execution going for them as well: Have a minor character you need to design? why not make them female with larger eyes and a cutesy hairstyle.
Working on your backgrounds? why not stick in an internet joke.
They're both small things that make it just a little more likely that someone will find the work interesting due to potential mass appeal. And they both can overshadow the original goal if you overuse them.
>>80455264
When did Rick and Morty have memes?
Things only get popular if you hate them.
I mean, why the hell else would Trump be winning?
>>80449679
They STILL have a livejournal. They're both nearly fifty years old anon, they're not down with the hip young kids and their fashionable trousers.
kids finding it exciting is what makes cartoons popular, the good dinosaur was boring was generic character designs
easy to draw characters is something I think helps a big online fanbase
>>80455749
I'M MISTER MEMESEEKS LOOK AT ME
>>80456269
The horse cartoon that shall not be named is proof of that.
>>80454350
I miss nockforce
>>80456354
How is that a meme?
>>80456354
It MADE a meme. It didn't USE a meme. That's different.
Besides faggots just throw around the word "meme" now to describe anything that is funny to a majority of people.
>>80445751
>>Why did Frozen make a billion dollars
Easy, look at what it was up against.
>>80445959
>Hello my name is anon and I can't fucking read
Popularity is essentially random. You can't predict it, you can't force it. It's also completely separate from content and quality, because for every popular thing, there are many things with comparable content and quality that are less popular.
>>80459232
I'm not sure if that's completely true, you can't really guarantee something will be popular, but if you have the resources (money for advertising and a solid source material that has mainstream appeal) you can almost certainly ensure it has a good amount of popularity.
Really advertising is probably the biggest thing a number of good quality ads lend legitimacy to the project and get people to talk about it, once it becomes a topic of conversation for enough people it will become popular.
There's certainly an element of randomness to it, because even well designed stories can fall flat for any number of unforeseen reasons but it's not like playing the lottery or something.
>>80445751
If you worked out the cold hard formula for exactly what makes what popular under what exact conditions, you'd easily become the most successful man to have ever lived
No matter what it is or how it's made or when it's made, there's always an X-Factor. Things could be popular for reasons we don't even know we don't know. It just happens.
>>80445959
Lemme put it in words so small that even someone like you can understand them:
Steven Universe is a better written, better acted, and better animated show than Venture Bros and ratings/viewership reflect that fact. Stay mad, /pol/.
>>80459111
Looks like a list of winners to me.
>>80462258
>But if you have the resources (money for advertising and a solid source material that has mainstream appeal) you can almost certainly ensure it has a good amount of popularity.
Can we really be sure of just how many ambitious projects with tons of funding just never succeeded because there wasn't enough interest to spread the word? For all of the shows we see headlining primetime hours, how many more do you think just remained huge ideas that ate lots of money but couldn't catch fire?
>>80459021
>It MADE a meme. It didn't USE a meme. That's different.
The term used was meme machine. Machines make things. Ever seen a factory? In what way was it an incorrect term to use?
>>80462566
I don't even care if this is bait, it's 100% true
>>80462566
(you)
>>80462622
I think the difference is that a factory is made with the express intention of making the thing, whereas very few memes were created specifically so that they'd become memes
Even if they were, we'd be hard-pressed to prove it
>>80462566
Not even remotely.
And I love both shows, SU doesn't even come close.
>>80462566 (You)
>>80459111
2013 was one of the worst years for big budget animation other than frozen
alsoturbo was comfier than it had any right to be
>>80462597
Like projects that never got to completion or to the stage where they'd be advertised?
Those would be the results of poor planning and mismanagement so not really random.
If you mean projects that did have a lot of money and advertisements behind them then that wouldn't exactly be a mystery as to how many of them there are, you'd just have to do research on advertising budgets for tv shows and movies that were flops.
it'd be some effort but you can check into it, and you'd probably find out why they failed as well
>>80462566
>>80455439
>had no competition for kid-friendly movies at the box office
>boo hoo Tangled came out against Harry Potter
Yeah, and Frozen came out against The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Thor: The Dark World and later Hobbit: the desolation of Smaug
Frozen was #22 or whatever on its opening weekend. At the same time there was also Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs and Minions 2 at the box office. Frozen did sort of mediocrely in the beginning but then gathered steam around its 5th week in theatres. Around its week 12 the Lego Movie came out, and later Mr. Peabody and Sherman, but even despite that Frozen kept clinging on to a place in the top 10 earners and only dropped out of the top 10 on its 18th weekend. That's sort of rare, since usually movies perform strongest when they've just been released and the hype is the strongest and then slowly peter out.
its mostly luck but also right timing. Adventure Time kind of made cartoons popular and Venture Bros. came out before that. which is why SU has way more fans than Venture. also pretty much everyone on tumblr collectively jerjs the shit out of SU so they got that huge dedicated fanbase
>>80450564
That's not the sole reason, like most things is just a factor. This isnt Japan, shit like that cant make landmark sales.
>>80445751
Listen, if there was some East to follow formula for this, don't you think Hollywood would have cracked it already?
Truth is, there isn't. It's all up to the whim of the public. Pitch Perfect 2 is the biggest musical comedy ever. Nobody gets why. Movies with the biggest Hollywood stars can fail, while virtual unknowns become massive hits. Which means even star power has no box office draw. So, yeah, basically it's make the best thing you can, and hope for the best.
>>80462720
VB is contrived, SU is concise. Both are great but I'd rather SU than Venture.
>>80454836
it already is
>that waifu pillow episode
I'm convinced music is a massive part of this.
SU, Frozen's let it go, Undertale, RS's 80's soundtrack, hell even AT had some tunes.
>>80445751
Venture Bros is great, but it's mostly a parody of older cartoons and comics and has the target audience to show for it. Steven Universe has more universal appeal. Also, SU's got space lesbians(read: waifus), and actually takes them seriously (as does Frozen, but with implied magical incestuous lesbians instead). People haven't really seen much of that before, and the masses pay attention to stuff they haven't seen.
As for Wander... I think Wander's just too...vanilla? The show is good, but the premise is kinda plain.
>Nice space dude and space horse are nice despite efforts of not-nice space tyrants.
Exciting.
I don't really understand the appeal of We Bare Bears. It feels like the creators took the universe bending weirdness of Regular show, and tried to make it more "comfy." And by "comfy" I mean boring, totally inconsequential, and unrelatable. Also, waifus. not nearly enough waifus. A lack of waifus is tough to make up for, and I don't think We Bare Bears reaches that toughness threshold.
>>80456269
Because people agree with his opinions.
>>80445751
Because all of the successful shit we are having today appeals massively to normies
>>80462566
>ratings/viewership reflect quality
Try again
>>80446010
>Also The Good Dinosaur has a lousy marketing
I didn't know this movie existed until it was already out. And only because I saw a thread on /co/.
Minions, on the other hand, are fucking unavoidable. They're everywhere. On billboards, on buses, on dozens if not hundreds of products at the grocery store, tatted on hookers tits, fast food, entire sections of clothiers, skywriting, etc.
>>80445751
Meme magic. No really.
Frozen got popular because of a meme song.
Despicable Me was popular because of meme characters.
Pixar and Universal have Mememancers wirking for them.
>>80445751
If we discovered a method to making things popular, that method would be weaponized immediately and overused. Even if over-use made the method invalid (see: "Tragedy of the Commons").
In a funny way, the race to overuse such a method guarantees that we will never know a reliable way of making something popular.
>>80468597
normies outnumber us, and individual normies have more disposable income on average. why wouldn't commerce market to normies?
Honestly there's way more luck than you'd like to think, then once something hits a certain point it snowballs and becomes popular simply for being popular. A good book called The Tipping Point analzed this. Also why studios are often thwarted in their efforts to replicate success.
>>80462566
Teen Titans Go is a better written, better acted, and better animated show than Steven Universe and ratings/viewership reflect that fact. Stay mad, /sug/.
Honestly, I think Frozen was such a hit because its song "Let it Go."
Specifically for that song.
Every child, boy or girl, absolutely loves that song, and I think it's because the song resonates a message that children feel strongly about. A large part of young childhood is learning adult rules, which pretty much means you have to suppress a lot of urges. i.e. You're not allowed to yell/scream whenever you want, don't play with your food, no more playing after this time, do your homework.
