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South Park

Fandom
Name: South Park
Abbreviation(s): SP
Creator: Trey Parker, Matt Stone
Date(s): 1997-present
Medium: cartoon, movie
Country of Origin: USA
External Links: wikipedia
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

South Park is an animated sitcom that tells the adventures of four ten-year old boys (who had
been eight and nine-years old in previous seasons). Known for its incredibly foul language,
sexual references and satirical humor, it is supposedly directed toward more mature audiences,
falling into the same genre as Family Guy and Futurama.

A movie for the cartoon was released in 1999, called South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.

Contents

Canon
Fandom nods

Fandom
Age and Target Audience
Minors and the Fandom

Ships and Characters

Fanwork Examples
Fanfiction

Fanart

Reactions to Socio-Political Commentary

 Doujinshi

Links and Resources

Notes and References

Notes

References

Canon

The four main characters are Stanley Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman (usually referred to
by his last name) and Kenneth McCormick, as the show normally centers around them. South
Park is a small mountain town in Colorado, though it is not like other towns - strange and bizarre
things often happen in South Park, such as random cavemen appearing, being attacked by a
giant robot of Barbara Streisand, an affair between a five-year old Canadian and a Kindergarten
teacher, as well as the constant reappearances of a Christmas poo and a towel that enjoys
getting high.

The series has always had a strong undercurrent of socio-political commentary, but in the early
seasons it was blended into the simple, vulgar humor the show was more known for. The socio-
political leanings became stronger around season 7, and in season 18 the show went from an
episodic format to season-long arcs and tighter continuity.

Fandom nods

A season 19 episode was focused on the yaoi sector of fandom and highlighted the supposed
relationship between characters Craig Tucker and Tweek Tweak, whom the Asian exchange
students drew fanart of. The art featured in the episode was actually submitted by fans of the
show, at the request of the writers.

Fandom

South Park's general fandom has existed since 1997, when the show premiered. It quickly
became deluged with OCs on early websites that have now been deleted.[1]

It also had an RP community on Yahoo! Groups as early as 2004.[2]

South Park's slash fandom began receiving significant attention on Fanfiction.net in 2008, where
it presently has 18,600 fanworks and is the seventh most popular cartoon fandom on FFn.
Notable FFn authors at the time were IndianaBeachBum, BroflovskiFan, Fermata, Seaouryou,
Fletset, BratChild3, Ben Barrett, The English Professor, and Faery Goddyss. SekritOMG also
remained a pervasive writer in the fandom from 2008 to 2016.

The slash fandom gained a revival in late 2011-2012, especially with the genesis of a kink
meme[3] and a big bang challenge, which debuted in 2012, with successive challenges running
in 2013, 2014, and 2016.[4] [5] There also was briefly a forum for South Park slash fans[6], as well
as a South Park Prom event[7] in the same year.

There is a booru for fan art of the show; it is currently inactive and posting is moderated,
however, as of October 2017 the site houses over 62,000 images.[8]

Mary Sue fanfiction is (was?) also popular on FFn.[9][10]

As for fanart, South Park has a sizeable fandom on DeviantArt[11] for English-speaking fans.
There has also been a large Japanese fandom on Pixiv[12], and a Chinese fandom on Lofter.[13]
There is also a significant presence on Tumblr.

Age and Target Audience

Though South Park's target audience is 18-24[14], and tends to be more classically male, the
audience in fannish spaces tends to lean heavily amongst female fans (in slash fandom
especially) between the ages of 13-25. There is a pattern of fans either discovering the fandom
on Fanfiction.net as young as 12-13, or in early adulthood on Tumblr and AO3.

Minors and the Fandom

Because a part of the South Park fandom are underage fans interacting with a sexually explicit
show and content, some adults both in and outside of the fandom may be uncomfortable with it
(see Minors in Fandom). This issue is present in many fandoms that involve minors, either as
characters or as a portion of the fan base. Fandom members may age the characters up for art
and fanfiction, though there is still debate regarding whether explicit content of the characters is
problematic.[note 1]

Ships and Characters

The fandom's most popular ship is Stan/Kyle, or Style[15] Runner-ups include Butters/Kenny,
Craig/Tweek, Kyle/Cartman, and Kyle/Kenny. Other largely known ships are Craig/Kenny,
Cartman/Wendy, Stan/Wendy (which is canon), Greg/Christophe, and Cartman/Butters.

Pairings are usually made by combining the characters' names, which makes several pairing
names words, such as: Style (Stan/Kyle), Creek (Craig/Tweek), Bunny (Butters/Kenny), Candy
(Cartman/Wendy), Bendy (Bebe/Wendy), and Dip (Damien/Pip).
In the fandom, appearances of adult characters are very rare, and they are typically minor
characters. Many OCs are child characters.

Fanwork Examples

Fanfiction
Short Stories with Tragic Endings by Faery Goddyss

Where No Leaf Blooms by Genis Aurion

Life is Better Under a Totalitarian Regime by Seaouryou

Breaking Up Sucks by damianwayne

The Scenic Route by hollycomb

Cartman Rising by Marcus Absent

Fanart

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of
examples.

Twitter , Archived version & NewGrounds , Archived version by RimmBurglar

Fandom: South Park Date: 09 December 2018 Medium: Fanart - Animated Gif Status: Complete

Genre: Masturbation, Smut

Craig thinking about Tweek ;) (Creek)

untitled , Archived version by RimmBurglar Fandom: South Park Date: 13 March 2020

Medium: Fanart Status: Complete Genre: Handjob, Kissing, Sleepover, Smut

Sleepover (Creek)

Tweek by Hidesbreak, Archived

Reactions to Socio-Political Commentary

Fans' reactions to South Park are largely passive in response to the socio-political commentary
of the show. Some fans hold similar libertarian views as the creators[citation needed], while others
separate their political opinions from their enjoyment of the show.[citation needed]

The social justice attitude wrought by early 2010's Tumblr fandom became a heated discussion
when South Park aired 'The Cissy' on October 8, 2014, an episode discussing the large
discussion of gender, particularly nonbinary identities, that had been primarily on Tumblr at the
time. A blog called safepark[16] was created in reaction to the episode, and cites itself as "a place
for south park fans who feel persecuted in the fandom for being critical & anxious about the
issues it tackles and how it tackles them. the priority is to make you feel safe and loved in this
fandom."

Coincidentally, South Park launched an episode about and entitled 'Safe Space' the following
year, on October 15, 2015. safepark was also featured on /r/TumblrInAction[17], resulting in
backlash such as:

“ I can't believe this is real I thought reddit was lying. You realize this is a textbook
safespace right? A safespace is a place where you are free to dish out criticism but
will take none, it isn't simply a place that contains no criticism. I really hope you
eventually see that South Park itself is trying to show just how wrong places like
this are, and how they are really fucking up social media/the internet.

”
One mod's response was:

“ I’m personally finding it hilarious that you (and south park, but that’s not my
point here) find the idea of safe spaces ridiculous in that we refuse to take
criticism and only criticize things ourselves - it sounds like you want to defend
south park, which criticizes things, but you don’t want us to criticize it. hmm.

On another note, we welcome critics of this blog, but considering they’re just as
hypocritical as you in that most people who hate this blog want to censor us for
bringing up the idea of censorship - or, you know, basic human decency - it kind
of renders a lot of their points moot. Honestly the narrative of this whole
argument is that “you shouldn’t be allowed to say whatever you want so I can say
whatever I want!” It is circular and illogical. Try again.
”
The blog has been inactive since 2015.

Doujinshi

Yaoi:

Koiyomi
Mainichi Honebuto
 Links and Resources

Official website

South Park Archives , the South Park Wiki

South Park Fanon Wikia

South Park fic recs at TV Tropes

Notes and References

Notes
1. ^ As someone in NSFW and cartoon fandom circles for some time, the concept of "aging up"
characters who are minors in canon in order to draw/write NSFW of them is a hot topic of
debate. If someone ends up with a "call out post," and they also have practiced aging up minors,
that will usually be on the call out post among everything else. (Patchlamb 8/2/2020)

References
1. ^ See I was thinking about the ghosts of fandoms past

2. ^ sprpgroup on Yahoo! Groups

3. ^ southparkkink on LiveJournal

4. ^ South Park Big Bang at LiveJournal

5. ^ South Park Big Bang

6. ^ Archived

7. ^ South Park Prom on Tumblr

8. ^ soft pork booru

9. ^ South Park High by Ciaxlia

10. ^ Mysterion & Friends by SkyeRockette

11. ^ "south park" search comes up with over 100,000 results

12. ^ サウスパーク OR ( south park ) on Pixiv

13. ^ "southpark" tag on Lofter

14. ^ Comedy Centra: Target Audiences on MediaWiki

15. ^ This is based on the combination of deviantART, FFn, and AO3 tags. Craig/Tweek is
currently the most popular ship on AO3.

16. ^ safepark on Tumblr

17. ^ Safepark, the safe space for South Park fans who don't want reality to interfere with their
headmates, mischaracterizations and shipping thread on Reddit

Last edited 13 hours ago by BloomCountyFan

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