Ethnography: Fans of “The Walking Dead”
In order to fully understand the scale of the phenomenon that is “The Walking Dead”, the critically acclaimed and widely beloved television series that continues to break rating records with each new season, one would have to conduct a bit of a research on the very people, who keep tuning into the show and supporting it over the years. The fans of “The Walking Dead” are made up of quite a diverse crowd, encompassing television lovers of all ages, genders, ethnicities, races, and sexualities represented in the U.S. Therefore, researching them gives one insight not only into the intricacies and complexities of a single particular fandom, but into the general patterns of preferences and behavior of a significant portion of American society.
For the purpose of this research, I have compiled a questionnaire in order to assess the defining characteristics of a typical consumer of “The Walking Dead” as a source of personal interest and entertainment. With the assistance of the fans, whom I was able to get in touch with using online platforms, such as fan forums, blogs, and social media, I have obtained the following results. Most of the fans of “The Walking Dead” fall within the age category of 21 – 30 years (48%), followed by 31 – 45 year olds (23%) and 13 – 20 year olds (18%). Fans over 45 stand for only 11% of the consumers. In terms of gender alignment, the fan base is divided almost evenly, with a slight overbalance in favor of females (51%). Males constitute 47% of the audience, with non-binary/agender individuals making up 2% of the fan base. As for racial diversity of the audience, in the U.S. the show is mostly favored by Americans of European descent (56%), Afro-Americans (23%), and Latin Americans (10%). The other 11% are made up of all other minorities represented in the U.S. The above gives one the evidence to conclude that the fans of “The Walking Dead” are mostly people in their 20s, with female audience having a slight edge over the male audience and White Americans constituting the majority of viewers in terms of racial composition.
Apart from age, gender, and racial characteristics of the audience of “The Walking Dead”, the questionnaire has been exceptionally useful in shedding some light on preferences of the show’s consumers in terms of the show itself. For instance, an overwhelming majority of the fans demonstrate acute interest in various types of content in the zombie/horror genre: video games, films, comic books, other television shows, apart from “The Walking Dead”. These fans make up 85% of the respondents. This statistics allow one to deduce that for most of the show’s fans, interest in “The Walking Dead” is not an exception from usual preferences or a singular occurrence, but is rather dictated by their general taste and therefore, makes them much more subjective when it comes to evaluating the show beyond the bounds of its conformity with the zombie genre. That is not to say that these fans do not possess the capacity to be critical and impartial while critiquing the show, yet they certainly do display more of an emotional connection with the series, as opposed to the fans that are exceptionally interested only in this particular series, but not the genre.
It is also worth noting that, according to the results of the questionnaire, the fans of the show mostly seem to be the fans of the entire “The Walking Dead” universe as well. For instance, most of them (75%) are also familiar with the source material, which the series is based on – the comic books created by Charlie Adlard, Robert Kirkman, and Tony Moore (Seibert). The bigger portion of the show’s audience also watch or plan to watch the spinoff show taking place in the same universe, which premiered last year (Slezak), – “Fear the Walking Dead” (these people make up 72% of the show’s consumers) and they also would not mind the prospect of more spinoff shows based on the premise of “The Walking Dead” (61%).
As is customary for most fan groups, the fans of “The Walking Dead” hold periodic get-togethers and meet-ups dedicated to appreciating their favorite series. Mostly these meet-ups happen at the fan conventions, which are plentiful in the U.S. These convention serve the purpose of celebrating achievements in genre production, including television, cinema, comic books, video games, and the like. Among those, annual San Diego Comic Con is the most notorious for its scale and inclusiveness (Miska). Yet the fans and creative minds behind “The Walking Dead” have managed to successfully establish a convention dedicated exclusively to the show and its source material. “Walker Stalker Con” has become a success among the fans, which was dictated to a large degree by the fact that it included appearances by many members of the show’s cast and its creative team.
The other particular locality, which is quite sacred to the fans of “The Walking Dead”, is Atlanta, Georgia. The city played a pivotal part in the events of the show’s freshman season and was a backdrop for the introduction of several beloved characters that still survive on the show. These characters are known as “Atlanta 5”, which serves to underscore the significance of the city to the show’s plot, despite the fact that the characters left Atlanta behind several seasons ago (“The Walking Dead”). The fans of the show enjoy coming to Atlanta and taking pictures on the famous highway, which hosted one of the show’s most iconic scenes featured on the promotional poster for season one: the title character, Rick Grimes, approaching the city on the horse’s back along the deserted right lanes of the highway (meanwhile, the left lanes are filled with cars abandoned by people in desperate attempts to get away from the city).
As for the popular activities preferred by the fans of “The Walking Dead” in their show of appreciation for their beloved television series, naturally, they include cosplay. A fan activity originating from Japan includes fans dressing up as their favorite characters using available paraphernalia. Each of main characters on the show has their own unique signature look or weapon, which makes their images iconic in the fans’ eyes. For instance, most notable cosplay accessories include Daryl’s leather jacket with wings print on the back and a crossbow, Michonne’s katana, Carl’s sheriff hat given to him by his father, the Governor’s eye patch, and so on. Yet the hardest cosplay to pull off is certainly the zombie one, which does not prevent the fans from accepting the challenge and astounding their fellow show lovers at their get-togethers. After all, there is not much that could intimidate the fans of the show about a zombie apocalypse.
Works Cited
Seibert, Perry. “The Walking Dead [TV Series]”. AllMovie. 6 November 2010. Web. 17
Slezak, Michael. “Fear the Walking Dead Trailer Is Finally Here! (And So’s the Premiere
Miska, Brad. “SD Comic-Con 2010: The Walking Dead Promotional One Sheet”. Dread
Central. 13 July 2010. Web. 17 April 2016.
“The Walking Dead”. AMC. 8 July 2010. Web. 17 April 2016.
