Girls are currently taking a global lead across social media fandom as they ‘reshape the landscape of digital expression’, with 45% actively participating in the medium, in contrast to 37% of boys.
Research from strategy agency Kids Industries also revealed this disparity is particularly visible across TikTok, where girls make up 58% of active users, as opposed to only 42% of boys.
The agency also discovered that girls will typically lead the way in creativity, producing more fan art, fan videos and fan fiction than boys.
But boys dominate the gaming space, with 84% taking part regularly – although this was significantly impacted by the higher proportion of console ownership among boys (68%) in comparison to girls (49%).
Social media platform YouTube was found to be the favourite video content platform across genders (57% for boys and 39% for girls), with TikTok coming in a close second for girls (only 11% for boys and 28% for girls).
“As we commemorate International Women’s Day, these insights underscore the importance of recognising and celebrating the diverse interests and creative expressions of young enthusiasts,” Kids Industries strategy director, Jelena Sosic said.
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“In a time where social media engagement presents numerous challenges to mental health, some of these more community or creativity driven initiatives are really welcome and quite important too.
“Girls are emerging as real trailblazers, spearheading the charge with unparalleled creativity, a love for puzzles, and a passion for creating fan art. They really are shaping the future of online engagement and creative expression – showing once again that they are the true pioneers of fan creativity!”
The report also indicated that girls’ fandom was much more closely aligned with social media, music stars and creativity, whil boys’ fandom tended to be focused more on gaming (26% of boys have a gaming fandom vs. 8% of girls).
The most likely preferred fandom for girls was found to be either a cartoon or animated show (18%), with musicians or bands being the second most common fandom (16% of girls instead of just 1% of boys).
