One unfortunate stereotype that still persists despite all evidence to the contrary is the idea that women don’t like “geeky” things. This is often applied to (among other things) fantasy stories like Game Of Thrones. The New York Times foolishly referred to the show as “boy fiction” recently and Thrillist posted a ridiculous article called “Why Your Girl Hates Game of Thrones,” which we’ve already lambasted here.
To summarize what I’ve said before, women aren’t a shallow, monolithic hive mind who all feel the exact same way about things. Some women like Game Of Thrones. And some women read comics and/or play video games (a large percentage of the market, actually). Can we at least try not to perpetuate a stereotype which no longer aligns with current observable facts?
Thankfully, WIRED did some digging and unearthed statistics on the actual viewership and social media fanbase of our beloved Game Of Thrones.
According to statistics provided to Wired by Nielsen, approximately 2 million women are tuning in to the show on average each week – about 42% of Thrones’ total 4.8 million viewers. While that isn’t quite half, it’s far closer than you’d expect for a show with a reputation for alienating ladies. […] On top of that the female viewership of Game of Thrones is talking about it quite a bit. According to Fizziology, which tracks social media buzz about TV shows, during a week earlier this month women are having a full 50% of the online conversations about Game of Thrones. And they’re not tweeting “God, I hate this show!” The data Fizziology provided to Wired only looked at positive mentions of the fantasy drama. Just for balance, we also asked Fizziology for the same number for Mad Men because, according to the Thrillist post, “Girls may hate Game of Thrones, but we love Don Draper.” That’s true, but only one percentage point more than they love Tyrion Lannister (or whoever), since women account for 51 percent of the Mad Men social media conversation. [WIRED]
YA BURNT. (With science.)
*drops the mic*
