This year’s hot summer fandom was NBC’s Hannibal. The show came on while a lot of others were on hiatus and the fans flocked readily to its dark themes and gore.  A rabid fan base quickly spread the popularity across the internet straight from the first episode; even rivalling the response to BBC’s Sherlock.

The ‘Fannibals’ are an international community, and are most active on Tumblr. While the content of the show is deep, dark and serious the fandom has a surprisingly upbeat feel with the creation of funny fan-videos or satirically captioning of screenshots of the show.  One of the most popular Fannibal Blogs is the official NBC Tumblr, which is effectively managed to keep the fans interested; releasing teasers and updates while the show is airing.

There are some of slash fan-works for Will/Hannibal which caused an initial outcry of older, traditional Hannibal fans but that soon settled down. Plus the strong female characters in this mean that there are plenty of other ships in this fandom too and the slash fiction is not the driving force  (Especially when compared to Sherlock and the ‘Johnlock’ slash).

While there was some conflict from the other big and popular fandoms (Supernatural, Dr Who, Sherlock) as they realised this growing fan base is crossing into their territories, it was not the fans’ biggest problem. The show risked cancellation after just the first season, but at the last minute it was renewed and gearing up for a second season. 

 

 

ID-TV Top 3 Hannibal Fandoms:

 

#1 NBC Hannibal

#2 Actual Hannibal

#3 Hannibal More Like Cannibal