In modern day ties, it is hard to imagine but there was once a point where fantasy was not popular.
In fact, being a fan of anything fantastical, or sci-fi would have garnered you ridicule. But things have changed. At some point, fantasy shifted in the eyes of the public to become something trendy.
It’s gotten to the point where the most popular forms of media today are almost expected to be fantastical in nature. So, why did this happen? Why did fantasy become so popular? And why do people like fantasy so much?
The answer may be more complex than expected.
Fantasy is popular today because of the critical and financial success of early 2000 fantasy projects, especially those in TVs. This led to studios wanting to produce their own forms of fantasy, which lead to fantasy being exposed more frequently to the general public.
This shift of exposure to fantasy from books (which are often seen as nerdy and not for the cool kids) to visual media (which are often seen as cool) meant that people were more likely to consume fantasy, leading to them experiencing fantasy, and discovering its true appeal.
The appeal of fantasy, and the reason why people like fantasy so much, is because it appeals of Carl Jungian psychological archetypes. Firstly, these symbols found in fantasy resonates with the subconscious mind found in all human beings. Additionally, fantasy affirms basic morality, and inspires people to be the same.
Even I have to admit that’s a mouth full. In this article, I will break this answer down to appropriate pieces, and show some of the research I’ve done that backs this stuff:
How Popular is Fantasy?
Fantasy is one of the most popular genres in the world in the present era.
Fantasy statics from wordsrated.com show us that fantasy books, along with sci-fi, generate $590.2 million sales per annum in the United States alone.
Yet still they grew by 45.3% in 2021 compared to 2020, the largest among all genres aside from graphic novels, and finally, that only in Q1 of 2021 fantasy sales were up to 48.4% in the similar time frame in 2020.
Additionally, the top 10 most selling authors of all time feature 2 fantasy writers; J.K. Rowling, and Dr. Seuss.
Also, fantasy has broken into the main stream.
While fantasy has existed for a long time, it was usually looked down upon by people. This genre was often enjoyed in secret, and was a niche thing that most did not know about. Yet today, it has grown to levels that we could not imagine, with articles like the guardian pointing out just how big fantasy has gotten, and which main culprits are the cause of this.
Finally, the popularity of the this genre has leaked out of the literary, and book places, and now it exists in different mediums too. The most prominent of these being screens. Studycorgi.com even wrote a piece about this, where they analyzed how much fantasy has grown in the pop cultural sphere.
Why is Fantasy so popular?
Forest-Fire Theory
Fantasy is popular because of the critical and financial success of early 2000 projects, which led to the spawning of even more similar projects.
Of all the discussions I’ve read up on the popularity of this genre, there is one that I still have yet to see discussed, and that is something I’ve dubbed the forest fire theory.
You see, when an entire forest is on fire, it does not mean that the forest erupted simultaneously in a combustion of flames. Instead, there was one point where someone forgot to turn of a fire. As a result, the bush caught the fire, then a tree, and a few more, and finally the whole forest.
This is how fantasy became popular.
It’s not that this genre just became popular to everybody.
It used to be that being a nerd was seen as a negative, and most people hid their interest in fantastical stories for fear of ridicule. But, with the popularity of Sam Raimi’s Spiderman, then the Ironman, suddenly, there were more of this genre’s movies being created. Just like in a forest fire, the fire started in one section; visual media. Things like movies and TV series.
Soon, it spread to things like TV shows with the popularity of Game of Thrones, and the likes.
The popularity of these shows inspired people to start seeking out this genre series, instead of waiting. Thus, people started reading the books. And before we knew it, fantasy was the cool kids thing now. This habit was then accepted all over the world.
When did the fantasy genre become so popular?
At some point when the graph begins, but it truly become popular when it hit tv, and made this genre’s movies big.
What is the appeal of fantasy?
The appeal of fantasy is that it provides escapism, teaches morality, and it resonates with our deep psychological minds and archetypes that were discovered by psychologist Carl Jung.
Escapism
The first appeal of fantasy is it’s escapism.
Truly, the most appealing elements of fantasy has always been it’s worldbuilding. It is something that is integral to this genre plot, characters, and themes. This is because of how the world complements the themes, and central conflict, thus reflects the heroes losses, and the heroes victories.
But at a meta-contextual level, the reason why this genre is so important is because it allows the viewers to place themselves in a world completely different from theirs.
Fantasy worlds are fun.
And that’s it. They have all sorts of awesome magic, fascinating locations, and amazing creatures. It is exciting existing in a world like that. So we want to live in that world, and this genre allows us to go there, escaping out harsh, and boring worlds for a moment.
Morality
The second appeal of fantasy is that it tends to be a moral place.
One of the most disheartening things about our world is how much suffering is allowed to thrive and fester. The innocent suffer, and the guilty get away scot-free. This is something we see all the time.
There is a lot to be done to fix that, and yes we should. But would it not be easier to go to a place without any of that? Such as This genre? This genre allows us to enjoy a place where justice prevails, and the innocent are saved.
It is a place where we also learn how we must live.
We learn how to conduct ourselves as adults in this new world, and how to carry the way we conduct ourselves in fantasy worlds, to the way we conduct ourselves in the world of the living.
Psychology
Finally, and most importantly, fantasy is appealing to us because it hits us at our Carl Jungian soft spot.
Carl Jung is a psychologist who wrote of how all human beings have a deeper mind that manifest itself through these typical projections. This work was later condensed to be 4 main archetypes; the king, the lover, the warrior, and the magician.
All humans have this, and when we achieve a balance amongst these, we automatically become better, and rounded people. We pull our lives together. We may not know it but when we watch this genre, read this genre, we read about a world where these things exist.
A world that reflects our most subconscious and base human desires. This is resonates with us and makes us want to come watch this genre over, and over again.
Carl Jungian psychology of the monomyth.
Anime, actions, and others aren’t as universally relatable. Only romance does better because love is also the same throughout all cultures. Also, there is the inner detailed work of this genre. Better covered by this article of rowena-cory-daniells.
What writers can learn from why is fantasy so popular now?
Writers can learn the importance of starting to write their book. Or patience. Choosing a proper genre to work in. Or, just choosing a genre from your book, no matter what that may be. Once you learn to master this, you will be that much closer to mastering mastery.