South Park

South Park is an animated sitcom that tells the adventures of four ten-year old boys (who had been eight and nine-years old in previous seasons). Known for its incredibly foul language, sexual references and satirical humor, it is supposedly directed toward more mature audiences, falling into the same genre as Family Guy and Futurama. 
A movie for the cartoon was released in 1999, called South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
On November 25, 2021, South Park: Post Covid was released exclusively on Paramount Plus. It was followed up on December 16, 2021 with the second part titled South Park: The Return of Covid. On June 1, 2022, South Park: The Streaming Wars was released along with South Park: The Streaming Wars Part 2 on July 13, 2022.
==Canon==
The four main characters are Stanley Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, Eric Cartman (usually referred to by his last name) and Kenneth McCormick, as the show normally centers around them. South Park is a small mountain town in Colorado, though it is not like other towns - strange and bizarre things often happen in South Park, such as random cavemen appearing, being attacked by a giant robot of Barbara Streisand, an affair between a five-year old Canadian and a Kindergarten teacher, as well as the constant reappearances of a Christmas poo and a towel that enjoys getting high.
The series has always had a strong undercurrent of socio-political commentary, but in the early seasons it was blended into the simple, vulgar humor the show was more known for. The socio-political leanings became stronger around season 7, and in season 18 the show went from an episodic format to season-long arcs and tighter continuity.
===Fandom nods===
A season 19 episode was focused on the yaoi sector of fandom and highlighted the supposed relationship between characters Craig Tucker and Tweek Tweak, whom the Asian exchange students drew fanart of. The art featured in the episode was actually submitted by fans of the show, at the request of the writers.
==Fandom==
South Park's general fandom has existed since 1997, when the show premiered. It quickly became deluged with OCs on early websites that have now been deleted.See I was thinking about the ghosts of fandoms past
It also had an RP community on Yahoo! Groups as early as 2004.sprpgroup on Yahoo! Groups
South Park's slash fandom began receiving significant attention on Fanfiction.net in 2008, where it presently has 18,600 fanworks and is the seventh most popular cartoon fandom on FFn. Notable FFn authors at the time were IndianaBeachBum, BroflovskiFan, Fermata, Seaouryou, Fletset, BratChild3, Ben Barrett, The English Professor, and Faery Goddyss. SekritOMG also remained a pervasive writer in the fandom from 2008 to 2016.
The slash fandom gained a revival in late 2011-2012, especially with the genesis of a kink memesouthparkkink on LiveJournal and a big bang challenge, which debuted in 2012, with successive challenges running in 2013, 2014, and 2016.South Park Big Bang at LiveJournal South Park Big Bang There also was briefly a forum for South Park slash fansArchived, as well as a South Park Prom eventSouth Park Prom on Tumblr in the same year.
There is a booru for fan art of the show; it is currently inactive and posting is moderated, however, as of October 2017 the site houses over 62,000 images.soft pork booru
Mary Sue fanfiction is (was?) also popular on FFn.South Park High by CiaxliaMysterion & Friends by SkyeRockette
As for fanart, South Park has a sizeable fandom on DeviantArt"south park" search comes up with over 100,000 results for English-speaking fans. There has also been a large Japanese fandom on Pixivサウスパーク OR ( south park ) on Pixiv, and a Chinese fandom on Lofter."southpark" tag on Lofter There is also a significant presence on Tumblr.
===Age and Target Audience===
Though South Park's target audience is 18-24Comedy Centra: Target Audiences on MediaWiki, and tends to be more classically male, the audience in fannish spaces tends to lean heavily amongst female fans (in slash fandom especially) between the ages of 13-25. There is a pattern of fans either discovering the fandom on Fanfiction.net as young as 12-13, or in early adulthood on Tumblr and AO3.
====Minors and the Fandom====
Because a part of the South Park fandom are underage fans interacting with a sexually explicit show and content, some adults both in and outside of the fandom may be uncomfortable with it (see Minors in Fandom). This issue is present in many fandoms that involve minors, either as characters or as a portion of the fan base. Fandom members may age the characters up for art and fanfiction, though there is still debate regarding whether explicit content of the characters is problematic.As someone in NSFW and cartoon fandom circles for some time, the concept of "aging up" characters who are minors in canon in order to draw/write NSFW of them is a hot topic of debate. If someone ends up with a "call out post," and they also have practiced aging up minors, that will usually be on the call out post among everything else. (Patchlamb 8/2/2020)
==Ships and Characters==
The fandom's most popular ship is Stan/Kyle, or StyleThis is based on the combination of deviantART, FFn, and AO3 tags. Craig/Tweek is currently the most popular ship on AO3. Runner-ups include Butters/Kenny, Craig/Tweek, Kyle/Cartman, and Kyle/Kenny. Other largely known ships are Craig/Kenny, Cartman/Wendy, Stan/Wendy (which is canon), Greg/Christophe, and Cartman/Butters. Twenny aka Kenny/Tweek, is a rare pair.
Pairings are usually made by combining the characters' names, which makes several pairing names words, such as: Style (Stan/Kyle), Creek (Craig/Tweek), Bunny (Butters/Kenny), Candy (Cartman/Wendy), Bendy (Bebe/Wendy), and Dip (Damien/Pip). 
In the fandom, appearances of adult characters are very rare, and they are typically minor characters. Many OCs are child characters.
==Fanwork Examples==
===Fanfiction===
*Short Stories with Tragic Endings by Faery Goddyss
*Where No Leaf Blooms by Genis Aurion
*Life is Better Under a Totalitarian Regime by Seaouryou
*Breaking Up Sucks by damianwayne
*The Scenic Route by hollycomb
*Like Pinning Butterflies by superfeypower
*Pandemic 3: Craig Tucker Must Die by Jenny DeVic
*Daywalkerpox by Zormikea
===Fanart===
* & by RimmBurglar – Animated Gif. Craig thinking about Tweek, Creek masturbation smut, NSFW (09 December 2018)
* by RimmBurglar – Sleepover, Creek smut, NSFW (13 March 2020)
* by Hidesbreak
* by mishytato
* FingerBang by giobobobo
* lonery by azngirlLH
===Meta===
* by guest_age – A Stan/Kyle ship manifesto (21 March 2009)
*The Ballad of Tweek and Craig - or, how the South Park fandom (yes, you read that right) got a crackship canonized. by UnusualTechnician111 on r/HobbyDrama (2 September 2022)
==Reactions to Socio-Political Commentary==
Fans' reactions to South Park are largely passive in response to the socio-political commentary of the show. Some fans hold similar libertarian views as the creators, while others separate their political opinions from their enjoyment of the show.
The social justice attitude wrought by early 2010's Tumblr fandom became a heated discussion when South Park aired 'The Cissy' on October 8, 2014, an episode discussing the large discussion of gender, particularly nonbinary identities, that had been primarily on Tumblr at the time. A blog called safeparksafepark on Tumblr was created in reaction to the episode, and cites itself as "a place for south park fans who feel persecuted in the fandom for being critical & anxious about the issues it tackles and how it tackles them. the priority is to make you feel safe and loved in this fandom."
Coincidentally, South Park launched an episode about and entitled 'Safe Space' the following year, on October 15, 2015. safepark was also featured on /r/TumblrInActionSafepark, the safe space for South Park fans who don't want reality to interfere with their headmates, mischaracterizations and shipping thread on Reddit (also see Plurality for broader contexts), resulting in backlash such as:
One mod's response was:
The blog has been inactive since 2015.
==Doujinshi and Fanzines==
 	
===Doujinshi===
Yaoi:
 	
*Koiyomi
 	
*Mainichi Honebuto
===Fanzines===
* Book of Love: A Creek Zine
==Links and Resources==
* Official website
* South Park Archives, the South Park Wiki
* South Park Fanon Wikia
* South Park fic recs at TV Tropes
*South Park Big Bang archive
==Notes and References==
===Notes===
===References===
Category:South Park