a largely pointless exercise

a note on language

I (a random fan of Dungeons and Daddies) am Australian; I spell accordingly; I use y’all throughout because English hasn't had an agreed-upon gender neutral second-person plural pronoun since 'you' stopped doing that job and muscled in on thou's turf (thanks FRENCH), and I didn't think y'all would be familiar with the Aussie variant 'youse'.

All that to say:
a) stop messaging me about spelling, you dorks, and
b) if you think pronouns can't evolve you are simply wrong, and I invite you to go suck somewhere else.

Seriously though: this survey asks about sex and gender, and I've tried to retain respondants' self-identification as much as possible. I am not trans OR a data anylst, but I am sincerely trying not to be a dickhead; please let me know if I am.

Thank you, I love you, you’re so pretty!

For reference, the 12 survey questions

Attentive readers will notice a marked decline in quality betwen the first section of questions ('The Basics') and the rest, which are very dumb. Please bear this in mind as you review the results presented elsewhere on this site.

The basics

How old are you? Multiple choiceWhere do you live? Write-in responsehow did you hear about the podcast? if word-of-mouth, was it via a specifically gaming or TTRPG community? were you trawling for BDSM podcasts and thought it was an exceptionally slow burn? Originally multiple choice, changed to write-in after iniital feedbackRoughly when did you start listening? Multiple choice

How do you identify your gender? Selection of 'male', 'female', 'nb or fluid', 'just a lil guy, you know?' or write-inHow do you identify your sexuality? Selection of "I love them ladies", "I love them gentlemen", "I love a range of ladies, gentlemen, and points in between", "I certainly enjoy my friendship with them ladies and gentlemen", "I have no interest in romance, but I would like to be held" and write-in

Do you game, bro?

do you play dnd? Selection of "...not really, no", "I listen to or watch actual-play shows but haven't played", "Oh man, I'm in scheduling hell for three campaigns right now, but I had SUCH a cool character idea-" and "Oh, actully I prefer TTRPGS with non-combat-oriented mechanics and the smoother statisical curve of 3d6 over 1d20 because I'm BETTER THAN YOU"do you play video games? Selection of "...not really, no", "Sure, I love a round of shooty-bangbang when I visit my friend with [new console]", "I AM the friend with [new console]; sometimes I have Too Many Thoughts about graphics cards" and "uh, infantile labels like 'shooty-bangbang' undermine the artistic decisions required to orchestrate tension and release within combat mechanics, and create a false dichotamy that stunts video games as a medium because I'M BETTER THAN YOU"

How much of a fan are you, tho?

hey, did you hear Anthony Burch started waxing his butthole? Selection of "Sure did, bud" and "...Sure didn't until just now, bud"do you think he kept up maintenance over the holiday, and if not do you think the resulting itchiness will mean a more emotionally devastating start to Season 2? Selection of "A smooth man is a happy man, and I know a smooth man when hear one!" and "Getting a TPK could be a Total Party Kill... or it could mean That's (a) Prickly Keister. Get ready."are you uncomfortable with how parasocial this survey has become ? Selection of "No, this is fine", "Totally normal" and "I don't give a para-fuck, these people are my best friends"who is your favourite, and why is it Beth May? Write-in

tl;dr:

2,000 respondants to this surveyRoughly halvsies men/not menRoughly halvsies queer/not queer155 people found out via this survey that Anothony waxes his butthole

Audience basics

Places with one reported listener include the Bailiwick of Jersey, the Isle of Man, Latvia, Turkey and Jersusalem.

At the other end of the spectrum, the 10 countries with the biggest audience are: the US (1,352), Canada (155), UK (143), Australia (61), the Netherlands (31), Germany (23), New Zealand (18), Denmark (17), Ireland (16) and Sweden (10).

Are we all adults? No? GASP!

Gender? I hardly know er!*

*haaaahahahahahaha

finding the pod

The vast majority of all age-groups found the pod through TTRPG-related sources, particularly: Spotify recommendations, various subreddits, NADDPOD, TAZ and word of mouth from other players.
The 25-36 group was most likely to already be following a cast member from Story Break, HAWP, Rocket Jump or another project (see chart below for a rough distribution).
Exactly 69 people total cited "comedy" in how they found the podcast (nice)

One young listener found the pod through her dad, and an older listener started because of her daughter. Isn't that sweet? I think that's sweet. (Those respondants live on different continents, so I don't think I'm counting one heavily invested family twice.)
The older you are, the more likely you are to abbreviate dungeons and dragons with '&' rather than 'n', which proves nothing but is interesting.

But... are we even gamers, bro?

Some conclusions

If you want to start a podcast in the year of our lord 2022 you have simply got to have an eye-catching name, a concise premise, and preferably one recognisable person attached. Anything less and you're actually just masturbating into a microphone (which has its own, far more lucrative, marketplace).
Multiple recommendations or name recognition (especially of Freddie) were important to get people over the line for the first listen. On the other hand, a suprising number of people report being 'trapped' into listening during some kind of road-trip scenario. NB: this survey has an obvious bias towards successful examples of this strategy.
Younger listeners were way more likely than any other group to be introduced by fan creations on tiktok and tumblr, including animatics, lip-syncs or cosplay. For other groups, guest spots on other podcasts were more likely to be influential.
Y'all are lucky so many TAZ fans had feelings about that one arc, because that came up a lot. Shoutout r/tazcirclejerk, I guess.

Good reasons to listen

Beth, do you remember meeting a 30-something dude in the vicinity of Van nuys California, some time before October 2019? Turns out he actually started listening to the show ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Shoutout to a high-school drama teacher in the Southern US, this is a pretty fuckin raunchy podcast to recommend to your students. That's either cool or extremely not cool, hard to say at this point.
On the other hand, an actual shoutout to the UK teacher who started listening after a student recommended it, that's legitimately very cool.
"I was working in a cannabis dispensary, and one of my favorite patients had an enamel pin with the title on it."
"Went out for a one night stand with this chick and she had a dungeons and daddies shirt on her dresser. Looked it up and started the podcast on the way home."
"I saw a Beth May tweet once."

What is gender? finally, a definitive answer

Obivously, Ron Stampler as played by Beth May is clearly gender, and probably praxis.
To a slightly lesser extent, so is Beth May as played by Anthony Burch.
As a community, we need to recognise a criminally-overlooked counterweight to these virtuoso performances; a wholesome trill of gender: Will Campos as two vaguely-30s-era gals, the plucky sort that burst into the world kloo horn in hand and a scoop in her eye.
For reference, this the origin of just a lil guy, a lil fella, but I think we all come to a unique sense of lil-guy-ness within ourselves.

a fucking word cloud? really?

Check it out, it's the cop-out of data visualisations! Close readers will clock a shrug emoji in the cloud, right above genderfluid, strongly and unreliable narrator.

notable write-ins:

non-committal handwave
"I’m not a tomboy, I’m a full grown thomasman"
"F.A.G: Fire Aiation Guy" (ed note: I'm assuming this is the same person who also identified as a Fire Aiation Gay. If not, boy oh boy could I start the world's most specific matchmaking service!)
"gender is lame, simply not doing it"
"Male, but I also heavily relate to jus a lil guy, ya know?"
"that thing that happens when you squeeze a clowns nose (genderfluid)"
"cisapathetic"

*paedon voice* let's talk about sex, bay-bee

I asked people who they like to get with without reference to their own gender identification.

I briefly contemplated charting sexual attraction against gender to arrive at some kind of queer quotient (queertient?) but that would imply some unfortunate things imo – such as, all 'males' and 'females' are cis – so I've kept the categories separate.

Fortunately, a lot of y'all had my back and just wrote "GAY I'M GAY JUST 100% GAY" in this field (appreciate u <3).

Here's my top-level analysis though: no matter how you squint at the numbers, I don't think it's possible for more than half the audience are straight cis dudes.

So by the authority invested in me by your dad's ween, I now declare this fandom: A QUEER SPACE

Hooray! Now everyone's a queer icon! Die mad about it, cucks!

christ, another one

notable write-ins

I particularly appreciate the peace sign and the crying emoji; y'all made me realise the futility of quantative analysis here.

"I love men that are feminine and women that could kill me"
"Just gay. Just completely and one hundred percent gay. pure gayness at all times"
"horny for Bois n gurls" [sic]
"Life's a mystery"
"I don't." / "simply not" (ed note: a lot of powerful ace representation in this survey)

We really like this podcast <3

Just a compilation of complimentation to contemplate.

a section called 'Bethony Arnpos'

"I love them all. Beth being hilarious, Matt's character building, Will's emotional nut-punches, Freddy's sheer off-the-wall bullshit and, I hate it to call it this, power-gaming. All tied together by Anthony and his absolute brilliant world and improvisation. Perfect comedy team 10/10"

"Real talk tho. They're all fucking amazing. They all (except Freddy) have a hard time taking in positive feedback but I hope they see whatever good feedback you get from this survey. They deserve so many accolades for how much attention they pay to nuance and creative license. They could easily just have played a silly campaign with a shitload of butt jokes but they approach this like adept film writers even though they didn't need to - and because they did, it is so much more fulfilling of an experience."

ready, willing and (emotionally st)able

"Babe, Will Campos has THE RANGE""He sounds unwholesomely wholesome""His one-liners and cultural call outs kill me everytime""His in-character debates with his kids and his dad were genuinely the closest the show came to a well-written scripted drama""Will Campos ride or die suck my gonads""Will Campos is an icon, you monster.""Will Campos is a cool young man""He made me happy to embrace my hippie Dippie vegetable Gardner nature loser side. Also Keens> Birkenstocks.""Will Campos 💚💚💚""My heart goes out to Will""I too am an anxious liberal who projects myself onto my characters""Justice for William Motherfuckin Campos""I admit, I slept on how good Will is on this podcast at the beginning. The longer I listen though, especially to Talking Dad, I realize how much he's the glue that holds this together.""My favorite is will campos because henry oak is sweet and kind and stupid and has the best kids""A super funny leftist."

If loving you is Wong...

"Freddie brings the energy I need.""guy is a powerhouse and does so much work mixing, editing, and managing a lot of the patreon, its next level. also his laugh is great and i aspire to his shamelessness""Freddy kills me everytime he talks""I love how talented he is with the edits and engineering side of the podcast""I actually like Freddie because both of us like being contrarian for the sheer sake of it""Beth May consistently makes the best jokes that are ignored by the others but Freddy hears in editing and keeps it, and I think that's great."Heh, Freddie""Freddie, cause he fucking rules baby"

just a fun extra question

This question was from a pre-season-2 context, asking if the audience thought we would get Smooth or Itchy Anthony and whether that would mean a more emotionally devastating first episode.

Opinions were evenly divided, which makes for a boring chart, but I do appreciate the data point that 155 people filled in a survey for a podcast they clearly haven't listened to past episode 58.

That's a kind of recklessness I just can't understand (what if there were real spoilers?) but I guess life is a rich tapestry.

"I’m a teacher and there are days when life just sucks ass. These young people are struggling and are close to giving up already and that’s without reminding us the climate change is killing the planet and the coronavirus has affected people they know and people still don’t wear masks and protest shit and make people feel bad for giving a fuck.

And then there are days where they are hopeful, and they make their own life and my life better. That’s this podcast for me. That’s the five of them coming together every two weeks.

I cannot imagine the hard work that they put into this, and the social stress and anxiety they feel when they make decisions for their characters in a game. But I love and appreciate all of them."

The Betht of Uth*

*Please consider this a blanket acknowledgement of the many many (many) people who wrote "Beth May is the Beth-t (like best but beth)"

"Beth May is a solid contender for funniest person on any actual play podcast.""Beth made me forget what FOMO actually stands for""I wish Beth May was my mom AND dad""Nobody can slam dunk a set-up, shattering the glass of the backboard, cutting the orphans in the front row for orphan day at the hoop stadium, quite like Beth May.""Beth May makes the funny heehoo man hide in pant""the 'ron stampler' in the intro is the funniest thing of all time""Love how Beth can slide a comment in under everyone's radar. She keeps my thumb over the "skip 15s back" button.""shes a goddamn gamble every minute and i love it. absolutely no radar for if shes gonna say smthing sweet or heartbreaking or insane. shoutout beth""Everyone else is normal funny and Beth May is 'quiet for a while then says something physically devastating' funny""fuckin' Beth May, right?"
For brevity I have omitted compliments about Beth's poetry (lots), comments I personally found uncomfortable (a few) and the several hundred people just saying Beth is their favourite (~300).

this matth just adds up

"he is the best straight man this group desperately needs""the man is an RP GOD.""👌""Matt makes me feel small and safe.""Matt is fantastic at role playing, and his in-character jokes are so well done. I always get too attached to his characters, I love them so much.""Dude knows exactly what a scene needs. ""He is so committed to making his decisions in character, even when he certainly would not choose that himself""Matt Arnold, but fucking god damnit guys stop making me feel feelings""Matt 4 lyf""No one represents the term "loveable" better than Matt Arnold.""I would die to protect Matt at all costs, he’s a sweetie pie"

ant'Honey'burch

"Anthony can turn me into a BDSM podcast""Anthony is my everything sometimes""my favourite is Anthony but shhh - don't tell him, he scares me slightly also""Love when Anthony can puts everyone back in their place""It's actualy Anthony, huge crush!""The heart wants what the heart wants.""I want Anthony to spit in my mouth please and thank you.""I once described Anthony "like if a young Robin Williams was hot somehow" and I stand by that.""His NPCs are amazing.""Anthony is fucking incredible""Fuck: Anthony; marry: Beth; Kill: Ron's fucking Dad""jes that kind of petty that vibes with me""Improv skills are off the charts!""I feel kinship in his indifference towards to what his players do""Dude can accommodate so much nonsense and his reactions are always great. Plus that Grant and Yeet scene""Anthony was mean to me on Discord stream once so now I will forever be desperate for his approval""Anthony is the glue""he's such a great story teller""Anthony's whole thing about donating his kidney so no one could deny that he's done something objectively good was the most hilarious act of moral superiority I've ever heard. Iconic. Original. Fundamentally actually a really selfless thing to do."