In an attempt to get some quick numbers on how much fandom has influenced canon, I performed some googleshare calculations to get an estimate of who owns how much of the mindshare of Willow and Tara on the web. Googleshare is a simple concept, simply calculating the percentage of Willow and Tara (or whatever you choose) sites that reference a particular person.
As expected, Joss comes out on top, but not by too much. Here are the numbers:
Name | Googleshare | Notes |
Joss | 5.92% | (down to 4.02% for "Joss Whedon") |
Little Willow | 5.52% | Owns several W/T sites |
fic | 2.96% | Sites that mention fan fiction |
Near Her Always | 2.23% | Willow fanfic archive |
The Bear | 1.15% | Fanfic author (avoid if you like W/T) |
Kitten | 0.71% | This may not always refer to this board |
Extra Flamey | 0.37% | W/T fanfic archive |
Xita | 0.15% | Operates the Kitten, you might have heard of her |
Hunter Ash | 0.14% | Fanfic author |
Rainbow Writers | 0.12% | Fanfic author |
Lisa Countryman | 0.08% | Fanfic author |
Tommo (Ruth) | 0.07% | Fanfic author |
Less than 6% of the W/T web mentions Joss, but a little less than 3% mentions fan fiction so canon is ahead of fandom by a 2:1 margin by those numbers. Interestingly, no single site or person has anywhere near a majority share of the W/T web and, as expected, most fan fiction authors are represented by a small number of sites.
If you're interested in calculating your own googleshares, go
here.
ETA: sorry about the spacing preceding the table, but ezboard adds that and I can't remove it.