Goncharov

Submission 49,107

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About

Goncharov is a non-existent 1973 movie about a Russia-born Mafia boss named Goncharov directed by Martin Scorsese, which spawned a spontaneous collective writing project and an unreality fandom on Tumblr in November 2022. As a part of the fandom efforts, users collectively outlined the central themes, plot elements and homoerotic undertones of the film and then created fan soundtracks, posters and other content for it. Goncharov has also since been referenced in numerous memes and other jokes.

Origin

Prior to August 22nd, 2020, Tumblr^[1]^[2] user zootycoon posted a photograph of their knockoff boots they had bought online. Instead of a brand name on the tag, the boots had a name of a non-existent movie presented by Martin Scorsese, titled Goncharov, together with some additional information about the film (shown below, left). On the tag, the film is referred to as "the greatest mafia movie ever made."

On August 22nd, 2020, Tumblr^[1] user losermo replied to zootycoon's post with a screenshot of a comment by Tumblr user abandonedambition reading, "this idiot hasn't seen goncharov" (shown below, left).

On October 25th, 2022, Tumblr user dogsuffrage^[3] made a post saying that the tag referenced a poster for the 2008 crime drama film Gomorrah by director Domenico Procacci to which Scorsese lent his name to boost its sales (shown below, right). The post together with its replies ultimately accumulated over 150,000 likes and reblogs on Tumblr over two years.

Spread

On November 10th, 2022, Twitter^[4] user @ai_curio shared several AI-generated stills from the film, with the tweet gaining over 100 retweets and 390 likes in 10 days. On November 18th, Tumblr^[5] user beelzeebub posted a fan-made poster for Goncharov, which included the main characters and the cast of the film (shown below). The post received over 15,700 reblogs and 19,900 likes in three days.

Robert de Niro as Lo Straniero / Goncharov
Al Pacino as Mario Ambrosini
Harvey Keitel as Andrey "The Banker" Daddano
Gene Hackman as Valery Michailov
John Cazale as Joseph "Ice Pick Joe" Morelli
Cybill Shepherd as Katya

On November 19th, Tumblr^[6] user castanierprosper then made a fake movie GIFs post for the film, which garnered over 23,600 likes and reblogs in two days (shown below).

The posts resulted in a spontaneous collective writing project and an unreality fandom surrounding the film as users developed major themes and plot details of the movie and created fan art and other fan labor for it. Homoerotic undertones within Goncharov – Andrey and Katya – Sofia plotlines were outlined. On November 21st, Tumblr^[7] user tsscat created a master post for the collectively written lore of the film (shown below).

Starting on November 20th, 2022, multiple posts about the film went viral on Tumblr, with the Goncharov unreality fandom becoming the dominant subject of posts on the platform. For example, on that day, Tumblr^[8] user fishfingersandscarves shared fan art for "Andrey and Goncharov's final scene" that gained over 6,800 likes and reblogs in one day (shown below, left). Also that day, Tumblr^[9] user adreadfulidea made a text post in which she imagined explaining Goncharov to a "non-internet person." The post gained over 3,100 likes and reblogs in one day (shown below, right).

On November 21st, Tumblr^[10] user caramiaddio posted a fan-made main theme for the film in a post that received over 29,200 likes and reblogs in seven hours (shown below).

On November 20th, Twitter^[11] user @SailorHannibal made a tweet about the Goncharov fandom, helping spread awareness of the meme to that platform. Some joked about the difficulty of spreading Goncharov memery due to the cultural differences between the platforms. For example, Twitter's @curlysquare earned almost 1,500 likes for remarking (seen below left) on the differences (seen below) on November 25th, 2022.^[16] @dr_nicodemus, tweeting on November 21st, compared the vitality of the Goncharov meme on Tumblr to the goings-on at Twitter that month, which was reeling from chaos created by new owner Elon Musk. This tweet (seen below right) earned over 32,000 like in less than a week.^[17]

By November 28th, 2022, there were over 600 Goncharov (1973) fan fiction works on the fan fiction site Archive of Our Own.^[18]

Neil Gaiman Spamming

On November 22nd, as Goncharov dominated Tumblr's trends and almost all discourse on the platform, author Neil Gaiman found himself inundated with Goncharov questions in his "Ask" section (an example seen below).
A Reddit repost celebrating the volume of Goncharov posts trolling Gaiman received over 1,000 upvotes on /r/curatedtumblr.^[14] Gaiman's response to the Goncharov questions was negative.

Martin Scorsese Confirmation

In a November 26th TikTok, Francesca Scorsese, the daughter of the director, posted a screenshot of a text conversation with her father where he acknowledges Goncharov as one of his films (seen below).^[12] She shared with Martin a New York Times article published on November 22nd, 2022, which described the film using many of the same examples from this entry.^[13]

Posters on Tumblr rejoiced at Scorsese's embrace of their unreality project, with user thebusylilbee on November 26th calling it "the most satisfying ending this Goncharov madness could have gotten" (seen below) and receiving over 24,400 notes in two days.^[15]