“Lore” Overtakes “Trivia” in 2020s Fan Culture as Online Fandom Turns Facts Into Myth
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Aug 20
“Lore” Overtakes “Trivia” in 2020s Fan Culture as Online Fandom Turns Facts Into Myth
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Aug 20
Summary
“Lore” has emerged as the preferred online label for fan knowledge and backstory, displacing the more self-mocking “trivia” in 2020s internet culture.
The shift reflects a change in tone: “trivia” treats facts as minor baubles, while “lore” gives even stray details—from JFK theories to BTS canon—a mock-epic, mythic weight.
The word itself is old, tracing to Old English meanings of learned knowledge, but it gradually picked up an archaic, quasi-legendary feel that made it fit fantasy worlds.
By the 1970s, Dungeons & Dragons and later fandoms expanded “lore” from arcane tales to entire fictional histories, a habit now reinforced by wikis and forums that catalog every canonical detail.