anyone feel like sonic is more popular than ever now?

[zevirik]

(putting this in the everything else subforums because its related to the entire franchise and not just the games.)

anyway, exactly what it says on the tin. feels like sonic is just way more popular than its ever been nowadays. not that its necessarily a bad thing - i guess it depends on taste, but thats what it seems to me.

i comment mostly because i remember when i was young - from baby years to early 10s, like 12 or 13 years old, somewhere round that mark - sonic was popular, obviously, but not the biggest thing ever. i feel like the fact im latina is kind of related to it, but sonic merch is way more accessible nowadays than it was back then, and being a 'sonic kid' isnt exactly the quirky thing it used to be. just a few weeks ago i got my hands on a couple classic socks and a sonic hoodie, last year i got one of those silly, kind of bootleggy movie sonic toys, and in 2020 i got a team sonic blanket (i still use it.) compare that to like, 10 years ago? my only sonic merch was a sonic plushie that i still have, even if hes really dirty now.

likewise i remember back then i was quirky and weird (and slightly ostracized) in school for being too into sonic. hell, it was only until a few years ago where i got new interests that surpassed by interest in sonic - like, nowadays im way more interested in guilty gear and umineko over sonic, but it took me until 2021 for that to really happen. thats literally last year at time of writing! i was always a sonic kid and was seen as a weirdo for it. now i see kids being unabashedly interested in the sonic franchise. kids wearing sonic shirts and sonic pants going to school with their sonic backpacks. sidenote, having a sonic backpack was one of my dreams as a kid... theres obviously nothing wrong with it, im glad were letting kids have fun without forcing them to be ashamed (say NO to cringe comps...) but its just weird to think about.

anyone else relate? i think the movies are the primary reason for this since more people are interested in movies than they are in games, but it really feels like the sonic franchises got a boost in popularity where youre not really seen as 'weird' for being a sonic kid anymore (unless youre a clickbaity gaming youtuber who likes to bash games for clout.)

 

[rox]

I'll be a coward and suggest that Sonic is probably more popular on a mass scale now than it was before, but the sheer amount of no life nerds that defined Sonic for decades has largely decreased (obviously due to silencing from the NSA).. or maybe they're just hiding in the shadows 0_o

So there are more people who know who Sonic is, but probably less that actually love love love it to the point of stalking sega employees

 

[GingerSRB2]

Now,we only need Super Mario to give up the glory to Sonic.This a rapid rise,and most people talk about Sonic.

 

[Shadow's_Lover_Girl]

I do! I absolutely agree.

 

[The Sin Heartless]

I'd still say the fandom is very much fractured between different eras, fangames & even the level of dedication into various sub-communities much like many other gaming-related communities of recent years. So while the surface-level popularity would be higher than ever, how much of that is going to affect the sub-communities underneath the surface level is debatable to say the least.

SRB2 community meanwhile has always been on the slow rise throughout its existence, and to me, it has been most fascinating to see it grow. Sometimes a slow growth is better than a meteoric rise that often creates a bubble of popularity which ends up bursting. That, I'd argue, is how SRB2 has maintained its relevancy when other fangame projects would otherwise succumb to the popularity bubble.

 

[Pinkio]

That, I'd argue, is how SRB2 has maintained its relevancy when other fangame projects would otherwise succumb to the popularity bubble.

i feel like if i'm the only one who remembers Neo Sonic Universe and Neo Sonic 3: Revelations (they're both from 2003) :v