Most popular story tags (2022)

[GraceFairway6]

Hey everyone,

I've done some number crunching, because I love number crunching, to produce a list of the most frequent story tags used this year. By this year, I mean any story that has either been written or commented on past 1 January 2022, in order to get a sense of what is popular with the community now.

That gives us a selection of 312 stories to work with, and it's worth noting that not all of them were tagged (and I didn't want to assume the author's intentions, and I didn't have time to read them all). For the purposes of brevity and my own sanity, I've excluded any tag that didn't receive at least five uses within the timeframe, and I've combined some tags (e.g. 'hooker' and prostitute') that were functionally the same thing.

Leaderboard
1. WG - 64
2. DG - 56
3. Bimbo - 32
4. MC - 31
5. IQ - 28
6. BE/BR - 27
7. Reality change - 16
=8. Humil. - 14
=8. TG - 14
10. AR - 13
11. Trait swap - 10
12. Preg. - 7
=13. Chav - 5
=13. Cuck - 5
=13. Hooker - 5

It took ages to compile the data, so that's all I'm doing tonight. It's my intention to take an average response with each tag, computing the average number of story views per post to see which tags are more numerically successful, as well as assembling a top three(?) in each tag in case it benefits writers and readers. But I throw it out to the group - are there are other things that you want to know from this data?

[animefan78]

Nice job, and it must have taken you some time to compile everything.

That all said the top three didn't surprise me in the slightest, but I did expect BE/BR to rank a bit higher. Also reality change scored higher than I would have predicted while Chav was much lower.

As for what I would want to see. I guess I would like to know the views and comments per category, and/or the views per comment.

[Achuloh]

This is an awesome effort! I'll be interested to see what the final results are for this.

[Chrystal Wynd]

Well done! Thank you for doing this.

[funfun74]

This is pretty cool to see. Glad DG has made a bit of a comeback this year. For awhile WG was very dominate on this forum. Glad to see it getting more varied again.

[GraceFairway6]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! I'm back, and I have more data for you! Two of the key metrics to gauge a story's 'success', as it were, are the amount of views it gets and the amount of responses it attracts (I'm conscious that many responses may be subsequent chapters, but I'm working with the numbers I've got) - exactly what animefan78 said. If you look for the averages among the 15 most prevalent story tags, it breaks down as follows:


Categories by average viewership
1. BE/BR - 29438
2. Chav - 28809
3. WG - 27640
4. Humil. - 22006
5. DG - 21751
6. TG - 21684
7. Trait swap - 16171
8. Reality change - 14956
9. Preg. - 12614
10. MC - 12174
11. Hooker - 17018
12. IQ - 7290
13. AR - 7047
14. Bimbo - 5332
15. Cuck - 4527


Categories by average response
1. Chav - 62
=2. BE/BR - 38
=2. DG - 38
4. WG - 30
5. Hooker - 29
6. Humil. - 27
7. Trait swap - 19
8. TG - 14
9. Reality change - 13
10. Cuck - 11
11. Preg. - 10
=12. MC - 9
=12. IQ - 9
14. AR - 8
15. Bimbo - 6


* Data accurate as of 27 November 2022

There will be more data to come, including top-ranking stories on average in each category, and a metric which I hope will measure the popularity of a particular tag on the forum - still, for now, hopefully this data is of some interest!

[animefan78]

It’s interesting that Chav was 13th in terms of number of stories, but has the second highest number of views and the highest in the number of replies. Despite being a less popular tag, those stories must have really struck a chord with the community. While bimbo was almost the exact opposite with the third highest number of stories, yet the views and responses put it nearly at the bottom so clearly those stories are not clicking with the community. Most of the others appear to more or less be in line with number of stories matching views and responses with in a few places. It’s outside the scope of this data but one wonders if the chav and bimbo stories succeed or failed due to the writing of the individual stories rather than the forums like or dislike of those particular tags. If I get any take aways from this it’s that weight gain, and other downgrades are particularly popular right now, especially if it includes humiliation. That said and again this is probably harder to do would be to see a breakdown of the WG stories, as there are different types of weight gain depending on the amount gained. With it ranging from a small to normal gain up to and including stuff that might appear on those crazy TLC shows and beyond.

[GraceFairway6]

It’s interesting that Chav was 13th in terms of number of stories, but has the second highest number of views and the highest in the number of replies. Despite being a less popular tag, those stories must have really struck a chord with the community. While bimbo was almost the exact opposite with the third highest number of stories, yet the views and responses put it nearly at the bottom so clearly those stories are not clicking with the community. Most of the others appear to more or less be in line with number of stories matching views and responses with in a few places. It’s outside the scope of this data but one wonders if the chav and bimbo stories succeed or failed due to the writing of the individual stories rather than the forums like or dislike of those particular tags. If I get any take aways from this it’s that weight gain, and other downgrades are particularly popular right now, especially if it includes humiliation. That said and again this is probably harder to do would be to see a breakdown of the WG stories, as there are different types of weight gain depending on the amount gained. With it ranging from a small to normal gain up to and including stuff that might appear on those crazy TLC shows and beyond.

I'd agree with you on the interesting stats there.

To give some context, there are lots of Bimbo stories (32 by the method used to collect the data, probably more too), but they don't drive that much engagement. Of the 32, only nine have more than five responses on their thread. There were a few big hitters that really pulled the average viewership up (if/when I do the list of most popular, you see which ones), but if you excluded those, the tag would certainly be dead last. So people like writing them, but the data suggests that people aren't reading them.

As to Chav, that's really a benefit of the small sample size. We've got five stories, three of which are successful by these metrics (my own Class Mates, BigMystique's Brit Wish and Tara's ongoing Revenge is a dish best served Chav). Their success has uplifted the two smaller stories, and I'd agree with your suggestion that they clearly struck a chord (as well as possibly benefitting from the more-limited selection compared to a category like WG or Bimbo).

I like your question about the quality of the writing - sadly, I don't think I have it in me to determine that!

[animefan78]

That is interesting I wonder why people keep writing bimbo stories when the data shows that they are not popular. I suppose it's due to writers writing what they want and the inertia of past trends.

I suspected that might be the case with chav, as I don't see that many but the ones that are seem pretty good. A limited selection makes sense as well the fans will all read the same ones. Though one wonders if this post might inspire some writers to try different categories based on this knowledge.

I don't think anyone can really determine quality of writing in a truly objective sense regarding these types of stories.

[animefan78]

That is interesting I wonder why people keep writing bimbo stories when the data shows that they are not popular. I suppose it's due to writers writing what they want and the inertia of past trends.

I suspected that might be the case with chav, as I don't see that many but the ones that are seem pretty good. A limited selection makes sense as well the fans will all read the same ones. Though one wonders if this post might inspire some writers to try different categories based on this knowledge.

I don't think anyone can really determine quality of writing in a truly objective sense regarding these types of stories.