I spent 9 hours studying this subreddit and the GI Wiki for a paper - here are my findings!
Hello everyone! First off:
AI disclaimer: I used AI (Claude) in the process of writing my research paper. It was used only as a tool to help, and NOT to write/generate.
Hi guys! For my ENC 1102 college writing course, I conducted a qualitative study on lore hunters in the Genshin community, specifically how this subreddit (r/Genshin_Lore) and the GI Wiki work together to piece together the game’s story outside of the game itself.
I spent around 9 hrs collecting data across both platforms. It was mostly analyzing Reddit posts and Wiki pages to understand how the community builds and shares lore knowledge collaboratively.
Some things I found interesting:
- Both platforms have their own standards for credibility. Reddit debates ideas through upvotes, citations, and community feedback, while the Wiki relies on edit patterns, standardized disclaimers about canon vs. speculation, and version-tracked changes
- The community celebrates good theorycrafting (hooray)! For example, the words “they cooked” is basically like a quality stamp :D
- One of my Reddit examples was a Celestia theory post that got proven right by later game content, which I used as an example of how lore speculation functions as collaborative storytelling
- We the fans connect info across platforms and even across games (hello HI3 lore connections)
I primarily drew inspo from Paul A. Thomas’ ethnographic study on this very subreddit, so shoutout to that paper for basically being the reason this study exists.
The reason I’m sharing this is mostly because I’m proud of it despite the chaos of finishing it mid-burnout, and I’d genuinely love to hear what this community thinks! Whether that’s about the findings, things I might’ve missed, or just your own experiences as lore hunters. Please be kind though, this was primarily a class assignment and I’m just one person with hours of data 😅
TLDR: I expected you to actually read this post in its entirely bc it’s my first time typing up a post this long, but fine! Here’s the summary of my research summary >:(
I wrote a research paper studying how this subreddit and the GI Wiki collaborate to build lore knowledge. Here are my main findings. Would love (or not?) your thoughts! :D
