Discussion: Does Zoids attract more female fans, and why?

[Darth Escargot]

So dchan and I were briefly talking about this in the thread about the upcoming ZW videogame, and so as to not derail that thread, here's a new one. I'll just post my thoughts on this topic, but obviously I'd be most interested in what our female members have to say about this.

I've been noticing for years that the Zoids fandom seems to attract more women than other mecha fandoms, and I've often wondered why. It's going to be difficult to discuss this without falling into stupid stereotypes, but I'm going to try.

My theory is basically that it's related to the fact that the Zoids fandom in general is also far more friendly than... really all others that I've encountered, basically, and I post in a lot of geeky communities about various stuff (Gundam, Warhammer, Maschinen Krieger, videogames etc., with videogames being by far the worst of course, but Warhammer 40K isn't far behind). So let's tackle that first. I think the reason the Zoids community is friendlier is because it's simultaneously relatively small and very international. There are a few groups I'm aware of that are for specific regions or countries, typically in East Asia, but in other fandoms, when a community is labelled "international", that typically means it's 90% American. When you look at pretty much any international Zoids community, it always has people from Europe, the Americas and Asia at least, and so people are just naturally a bit more respectful - plus the communities are small, so there's far less anonymity. The only other fandom where I notice similar tendencies is - guess what - Maschinen Krieger, which is also super niche and very international.

I think it's that general friendlier atmosphere that results in female fans just being more comfortable posting in these groups. There may be lots more female Gunpla builders and Warhammer players out there than you see in the online communities, but in these larger fandoms, it's almost impossible for a woman to post something without the inevitable immature numbskull making some sexist or outright aggressive comment. And I just never ever see that happening in Zoids communities - and also not with Maschinen Krieger, by the way.

So I guess what I'm saying is I suspect "small and international" translates into friendlier which then translates into more visible female fans. Of course the other question is whether it's something about the franchise itself or the distribution is about the same in other fandoms and the women just don't post online because of what the communities are like.

[Maethius]

I think I've seen more female Zoids fans than, say, Gundam. Perhaps there is also sometime tied to the animal forms that adds to the appeal? I'm happy to have them, and my daughter thinks they are really incredible, too. ^_^

[Snowflake]

Boys like robots, girls like animals. Robot animals? You're all set. Plus it helps that the Zoids story has never been gritty and unpleasant like a lot of military-heavy stuff

[Fulano]

I've always suspected that the non-human forms of Zoids has made for a more friendly and less masculine storyline - backstory and male characters not withstanding. Gundam and most other mechs rarely have a feminine form factor, whereas Zoids have a very non-gendered form factor.

In addition, the Zoids fanbase has always kind of supported the Yao/homo-erotic shipping of male characters in the Zoids story, more so than I feel other fandoms do. It kind of always felt like this was driven by our friendly female Zoider friends.

Thirdly, the strong women in Zoids are very popular characters, and very diverse in their characterizations. Naomi, the Saix pilots, Leena in NCZ, and Reese, Moonbay, and others in Guardian Force have always been solid characters that everyone, but especially girls, could identify with.

Back when MMM was still up, I remember seeing and understanding that there were a lot of women roleplaying in that game, and there were a lot of creepy mods at at the top preying on them. But I thought what was most interesting was that MMM was far more active than any gundam roleplaying forums I knew of.

Perhaps the small size of the fandom, the un-gendered look of the mechs, the prominence of female characters as more than just love interests of the main mech pilots, and the acceptance of RPing in the fandom tilted Zoids to being more accessible and having more staying-power for women. Idk, I think it's cool that there do seem to be lots of women and girls participating in the fandom nonetheless.

[Darth Escargot]

I wonder how much longer we're going to be able to say that Zoids communities are particularly friendly, though. Things are fine around here, obivously, but we've got what, like a dozen active posters at this point? You can't post anything ZW-related on the two main Facebook groups anymore without a bunch of crying manbabies polluting the comments. It's getting a bit sad.

[dchan]

That is a good point, though I am glad for the small but supportive group we have here. That is sad though-- wish people didn't take things so personally and let others enjoy what they like.

[Leon35]

Aug 11, 2020 4:23:37 GMT -5 Darth Escargot said:

I wonder how much longer we're going to be able to say that Zoids communities are particularly friendly, though. Things are fine around here, obivously, but we've got what, like a dozen active posters at this point? You can't post anything ZW-related on the two main Facebook groups anymore without a bunch of crying manbabies polluting the comments. It's getting a bit sad.

While that is annoying, it has gotten a lot worse than that.

Almost as a overreaction, there are now a lot of posts on the facebook groups that go out of their way to label people/content/points of view belonging to "only true zoids fans." Its an extremely toxic mentality for a fandom to have. It's rhetoric that is a huge red flag in a small fandom like Zoids. As of today, I have left the Zoids Collectors facebook group, and plan to only be active here, and discord. I don't know if that was the right thing to do, but its what felt right to me at this time.

Concerning this topic, I have had the pleasure of interacting with a lot of Zoids fans, binary and non-binary. This is something that should be talked about, but some of the phrasing in this topic feels off...Im 99% sure that everyone commenting already identifies as male, which kind of speaks for itself. The way we make observations about the opposite gender can be informative, but could also be alienating or off putting. So please bear that in mind. This is not an accusation, but merely an observation. I do not speak for anyone.

Now that I think about it....if I ever got the chance...I would love to apologize to user:Tilly if they are still around. I haven't interacted with them in a lot of years...and I am pretty sure I misgendered them constantly in my younger years.

[Darth Escargot]

Aug 12, 2020 16:58:11 GMT -5 Leon35 said:

Aug 11, 2020 4:23:37 GMT -5 Darth Escargot said:

Concerning this topic, I have had the pleasure of interacting with a lot of Zoids fans, binary and non-binary. This is something that should be talked about, but some of the phrasing in this topic feels off...Im 99% sure that everyone commenting already identifies as male, which kind of speaks for itself. The way we make observations about the opposite gender can be informative, but could also be alienating or off putting. So please bear that in mind. This is not an accusation, but merely an observation. I do not speak for anyone.

Now that I think about it....if I ever got the chance...I would love to apologize to user:Tilly if they are still around. I haven't interacted with them in a lot of years...and I am pretty sure I misgendered them constantly in my younger years.

I'm not going to pretend I had actually thought about that when I started this thread, but now that I think about it, I really did mean fans that present and openly identify as female, and that's what seems unusual to me. It's really just something I've picked up on recently - I remember Tilly very well as someone who vaguely alluded to being non-binary, and I don't recall anyone ever even asking about it - Tilly was an individual who was passionate and knowledgeable about Zoids, and that was really all that mattered.

Now that you mention it, maybe this just stands out more on Facebook where people generally don't have gender neutral usernames, whereas that's very easy to do on a forum like this.

By the way, I'm a mod in a new FB group called Zoid Maniacs and Zoidfans is also on there - those are both smaller and still very friendly. The admin for Zoid Maniacs had to come out today and announce that we weren't going to tolerate this garbage, though, which is pretty sad in and of itself.