Bruce Banner Syndrome

Bruce Banner Syndrome describes the situation where the character tag for a secondary canon character (usually on Archive of Our Own) is overrun by fics in which they're a minor character — sometimes so minor that they don't even have a speaking part or appear in a scene. It therefore becomes difficult or even impossible to find works where they play a major role, much to the frustration of fans who love the character. 
This is a typical result of overtagging. It is one of the reasons that many fans have advocated for a secondary characters field on AO3. Overtagging was rarely an issue on FanFiction.Net and other fanfiction archives that only allow limited tags, but Bruce Banner Syndrome may also occur on Wattpad.
This term is mostly used on the anon meme fail_fandomanon, where it was coined following one anonymous user's struggle to navigate the "Bruce Banner" tag:
Nonnies in 2017 discussing the same kind of problem with a different Marvel Cinematic Universe pairing also noted that Bruce Banner was far from the only character to have this problem. 
An update to the Archive of Our Own's search and filtering system in 2018Upcoming changes to the search & filter functionality, Archive of Our Own, June 6, 2018 (Accessed February 24, 2019). made it easier for fans to filter out juggernaut ships and popular characters in the quest for fics focusing on Bruce Banner (or other characters and ships who might suffer from his syndrome). However, this does not solve the fundamental issue of overtagging that leads to Bruce Banner Syndrome, as users are still free to add whichever tags they please to a work regardless of how "necessary" they are. It also does not mean there will be more works focusing on that specific character or ship, only that it might be easier to locate them.
==Origin==
The nonnie referred to above who went through Bruce Banner's tag was probably the one who started the November 2015 thread "Today in World of AO3". The OP comment read:
The same nonnie then made a subthread about the "Bruce Banner" tag, saying that the contents of the first page of works for the tag that day were "low even by the standards of MCU"Anonymous in the Today in World of AO3 on post 320. 2015-11-11. and then giving a rundown of the contents of the page. At the end of the comment, the nonnie finishes with:
Anonymous comments from the Bruce Banner tag nonnie"Bruce Banner anon" and variations thereof started to be used several months after the nonnie in question started posting reports on the "Bruce Banner" AO3 tag. Users on fail_fandomanon don't have usernames, of course, and all post anonymously. However, memorable or reoccuring nonnies sometimes become "named anons" for ease of discussion and identification. continued on into 2016, mostly posted to the recurring thread "Summary Executions, Tag Madness, and Other WTFeries"Like all recurring FFA threads, this one is subject to title drift. Sometimes it's just called "summary executions", and recently it's been called "WTF Tags, Summary Executions, Author Notes".Sample comments: 2016-01-26, 2016-02-11, 2016-03-22 The nonnie noted, "If you haunt a character tag for someone in a juggernaut fandom who isn't, like, Steve or Tony level popular, you pretty rapidly begin to understand why people are outright desperate for a Secondary Characters field."Anonymous in Summary Executions, Tag Madness, and Other WTFeries thread. 2016-01-27
In February 2016, another nonnie asked:
Bruce Banner tag anon replied:
Late in February, other nonnies began to occasionally delve into the Bruce Banner tag themselves. One nonnie noted, "I'm not even that into Bruce Banner but if I could think of some kind of plot I would write a story for Bruce Banner tag anon just so there was something in the tag that DIDN'T COMPLETELY SUCK. And was about Bruce."Anonymous, Re: Summary Executions, Tag Madness, and Other WTFeries. 2016-02-25. 
Bruce Banner tag anon described the worse example of needlessly tagged Bruce Banner they'd seen after months of browsing the tag:
In May 2016, one anon referred to this as "the Bruce Banner Phenomenon".Anonymous in Re: Fandom Venting. 2016-05-07. In August 2016, two nonnies discussed "the Bruce Banner tag situation"Anonymous in Re: Unpopular Opinions About Marvel. 2016-08-08. and in March 2017 a nonnie used the phrase "the Bruce Banner Effect"Re: Steve/Bucky Thread - Fic Discussion 2017-03-21.
The first usage of "Bruce Banner syndrome" was in post #615's thread "Re: Ten most recent fics for your OTP/fave" in March of 2017, almost two years after Bruce Banner nonnie's first post, in reference to fics tagged Georgi Popovich.Re: Ten most recent fics for your OTP/fave. 2017-03-07. Another nonnie replied, "There's a Bruce Banner analog in every fandom!"Re: Ten most recent fics for your OTP/fave. 2017-03-08. Subsequent uses occurred in November 2017;here on 2017-11-27. January,Re: Fic Recs - Gavroche. 2018-01-31. March,Re: 10 most recent fanworks in your fave's tag. 2018-03-27. May,Re: AO3. 2018-05-08 JuneRe: Fandom Venting. 2018-06-15 and NovemberRe: The Online Free Speech Debate is Raging in Fan Fiction, Too on 2018-11-10 and Re: Fandom Venting on 2018-11-14. 2018.
Bruce Banner Anon's long struggle with the Bruce Banner tag was also frequently referenced at this time. For example:
==Other Frequent Sufferers==
While Bruce Banner is the originator of the syndrome, many characters in various other fandoms have also been noted as suffering from the same affliction. Some examples cited by fans include:
Elrond (Tolkien):
Aradia Megido (Homestuck):
Gavroche (Les Miserables):
In 2019, a nonnie started a thread called "Bruce Banner Syndrome" in post #1012, asking:
Characters nominated in the replies included:
*Coran and Hunk (Voltron: Legendary Defender)
*Aiber and Wedy (Death Note)
*Winston Zeddemore (Ghostbusters)
*Sam Wilson (Marvel Cinematic Universe)
*Nate Heywood (Arrowverse)
*Jason Mendoza (The Good Place)
*Father Bennett (The Exorcist)
*Iida Tenya (Boku No Hero Academia)
*Aburame Shino (Naruto)
*Cassandra Cain (DC Comics)
*Bolin (Legend of Korra)
*Hercules (Atlantis (TV))
===Dream SMP's TommyInnit Problem===
While the term is usually not used in the Dream SMP fandom, many characters fall victim to this same concept, due to the exteme prevalence of works focusing on TommyInnit, often from young authors who will tag every DSMP character, even if they do not show up in the fic. This is frequently complained about by fans of less popular characters, such as Purpled"do you have any c!purpled fic recs I struggle with finding good fic about him :(". 2022-03-23., CaptainPuffy, Jack Manifold"the problem with trying to find jack manifold centric fics". 2023-09-17., and ConnorEatsPants"what do y'all exclude when searching for your dsmp blorbo on ao3". 2023-05-13..
Other fans, particularly fans of Tommy, object to the association of this problem with Tommy specifically rather than just bad tagging.
Tumblr user apollos-boyfriend created a spreadsheet known as the Tommy Panama Papers, which documents the number of fics in a MCYT character tag after excluding Tommy, what percentage is left, and if the character has more without Tommy than they do with him.
==AO3 Tag Limits==
When tag limits were introduced to AO3 in 2021, fan discussions about the merits of the new policy revealed that a number of authors seemed to be unaware that their preference for tagging every character mentioned in the fic was bothering the majority of readers.
*, started by Ariana Deralte, 25 August 2021
==Notes & References==
===Notes===
===References===
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