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This week, we _better_ not be a afraid of no ghost, because we've got the Ontario Ghostbusters helping us to get into the spirit of Ghostbusters fandom (and bustin' makes us feel good)!

Next week, we'll be honing our routine in preparation to talk about fans... of the Olympics!

## Where can I learn more about Adrianna and Brily?

Adrianna and Brily are co-presidents of the [Ontario Ghostbusters](http://www.ontarioghostbusters.ca/). If you want to learn more about them, check out the Ontario Ghostbusters on social media:

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OntarioGhostbusters
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ON_Ghostbusters
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ontarioghostbusters/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/OntarioGhostbusters

## Episode outline

### Fandom Facts

**History and Origins:**

_Ghostbusters_ is a supernatural comedy franchise created in 1984 by Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, and Dan Aykroyd about a group of eccentric parapsychologists who start a legit ghost-busting business (like exterminators) in New York City. The project was initially conceived as a "Ghostmashers" (starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi) with the cast traveling through space and time ... and something about magic wands — the script was drastically rewritten after it was deemed 'financially impractical' and after the death of Belushi.

Since the first films release on June 8, 1984, the franchise has spawned a total of three movies, two television series, several video games, novelizations, comics, and is in the [top 50 grossing domestic films (adjusted for inflation) of all time](http://www.filmsite.org/boxoffice3.html).

**Search Data:**

The search data is a bit hard to track; though there is a search topic for the Ghostbusters franchise, it has very little data compared to search data compared to the 2016 and 1984 Ghostbuster films. Even looking at [just these two topics](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F025tlkg,%2Fm%2F01d2v1) is hard to analyze the broad trend because of the massive distortion in search data around the release of the 2016 movie.

Taking a look at the data from a few different timescales, it is most likely that interest in the franchise has remained fairly flat, with the most notable spike in interest occurring in July of 2016 (release of _Ghostbusters (2016)_), and some much smaller spikes in August 2004 (_Ghostbusters: Legion_ comic, possibly), and June 2009 (_Ghostbusters: The Video Game_).

Looking at the search data, Ghostbusters is popular in most parts of the world. Inexplicably, comparing the 2016 and 1984 search interest reveals slightly different popularity when looking at regions:

_Ghostbusters (1984)_ top 5 countries by search data: Mexico, Costa Rica, Spain, Italy, El Salvador
_Ghostbusters (2016)_ top 5 countries by search data: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Australia

The later entries start to overlap.

**Size of Fandom:**

Taking a look at some of the data we have, let's see what we can estimate for the fandom size:

- [The Ghostbusters subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/ghostbusters/) has over 6000 subscribers
- [The GBFans Forum](http://www.gbfans.com/forum/index.php) has over 29 000 members (with over 9000 online at once)

That probably puts the size of the fandom (depending on your measure of fan-ness) somewhere in the **ten thousands** of fans.

**Fast Facts:**

Looking at Fanfics, there are over [2600 Ghostbusters fanfics on Archive Of Our Own](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Ghostbusters%20-%20All%20Media%20Types/works)

- Most are _General Audience_ (900+) or _Teen and Up_ (800+)
- The top three categories: F/F (1800+), Gen (500+), M/M (100+)
- The top three fandoms: Ghostbusters (2016) (2000+), The Real Ghostbusters (300+), Ghostbusters I & II (100+)
- The top three characters: Jillian Holtzmann (1800+), Abby Yates (1200+), Patty Tolan (1...

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