Fancast

Submission 1,492

About

Fancast refers to a practice of fans picking a cast of real-life actors they imagine would fit well to portray characters in a film based on certain media, such as a cartoon or a comic book. The practice first gained popularity in the mid-2000s on DeviantArt, with fancasting gaining more prominence in through 2010s and eventually inspiring humorous fancasts and memes about it.

Origin

The earliest practice of creating fancasts, at that time referred to as "dream casts," "ideal casts" and "casting calls," achieved popularity online on DeviantArt in mid-2000s, although earlier instances are likely to exist. For example, on February 19th, 2006, DeviantArt^[1] user MoodyAngst posted one of the earliest discovered fancast posts on the site, their "ideal cast" for Final Fantasy 8. The post (shown below, left) garnered over 18,000 views and 70 favorites in 18 years. On October 30th, 2006, DeviantArt^[2] user curanica posted their "dream cast" for The Prince of Tennis that accumulated over 14,000 views and 120 favorites in the same period (shown below, right).

Spread

Fancasting remained a popular practice on DeviantArt through the 2000s and 2010s. For example, on November 4th, 2008, DeviantArt^[3] user 23MoreThanYou posted a "casting call" for Resident Evil that gained over 47,100 views and 320 favorites in 16 years (shown below, left).

The word "fancast" has been used to refer to this type of posts since at least since 2007. For example, on August 21st, 2010, DeviantArt^[4] user MoviezAreMyLife posted their fancast for Fantastic Four (shown below, right), with the title of the post using the term.

In 2010s, the trend saw further spread online, most notably on Tumblr. For example, on April 3rd, 2013, Tumblr^[5] user claryfairchilding posted their fancast for Fallen that received over 110 likes and reblogs in 11 years (shown below, left).

In late 2010s, fancasting gained initial popularity on X / Twitter, with humorous fancasts and memes about fancasts appearing since at least 2017. For example, on October 17th, 2017, X^[6] / Twitter user @majiburger posted a humorous fancast for Mob Psycho 100 which suggested Will Arnett and Michael Cera as Arataka Reigen and Mob. The post (shown below, right) gained over 740 reposts and 1,600 likes in six years.

Memes about fancasts and humorous fancasts achieved higher popularity in 2020s as fancasting achieved more prominence on social media. For example, on September 8th, 2021, Redditor vosha0 posted "the worst fancast" for The Lord of the Rings that received over 10,900 upvotes in the /r/lotrmemes^[7] subreddit in three years (shown below, left). On August 3rd, 2022, X^[8] user @ClobberinTyme made a post parodying fancasts for the Fantastic Four that gained over 7,600 reposts and 113,000 likes on the platform in two years (shown below, right).