Obscure Popularity

When a work has a large and active fanbase, but seems to be virtually unknown by mainstream audiences, who are often surprised the work in question has a fanbase at all, much less such a large one.

Essentially an inverse of Mainstream Obscurity. Where a work suffering from Mainstream Obscurity has had a huge influence on popular culture and is often referenced by all kinds of people, but has a comparatively small fan base who have actually seen/read/played the work in question, works suffering from Obscure Popularity are almost never referenced in the mainstream, and don't seem to ring a bell for a lot of people not actively involved in the fandom, but said fandom actually has a lot of members.

There are many types of media that are prone to this, but some more than others. Casual Video Games are prone to this in general. Series are played by millions of people worldwide and are amongst the most popular series out there, but video game fans and websites almost never discuss these games. Internet personalities are also prone to this, since they often have hundreds of thousands, or even millions of followers/subscribers, but are seldom acknowledged by mainstream media.

Much of this is largely down to the types of audiences the work in question is aimed at. A work can have a very large fanbase, but said work won't leave much of an impact if the fanbase in question is either disinterested in taking about it or are incapable of doing so. Media aimed at kids (very young kids in particular) or at older (particularly elderly) audiences are especially prone to this, especially in the age of the internet, as long as it does not have a Periphery Demographic appeal. Since your average internet user is usually in their pre-teens at the youngest and in their forties at the eldest.

Can overlap with First Installment Wins, when mainstream audiences know about the first work in a series or franchise, but are unaware that there are other works in it. Related to Americans Hate Tingle and Pop-Culture Isolation.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Air is an iconic visual novel, but the only thing anyone ever brings up is Misuzu's death at the very end.
• Gundam is one of the most profitable franchises in the world, and very big on the modeling scene, but it barely gets talked about within the western anime community. The fact that it is a long-running series spanning 40 years worth of TV shows, OVAs, and theatrical movies makes it difficult for the average anime fan to get into, even though the majority of installments are standalone. This has started seeing a notable turnaround with Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, though.
  • For that matter, SD Gundam. Because Toonami aired SD Gundam Force around the same time after showing more typical Gundam shows like Mobile Suit Gundam Wing and Mobile Fighter G Gundam, many overseas fans wrote it off as being childish drivel and, even after finding out that there's more to the sub-franchise than just that one show, still aren't willing to give it a chance due to expecting more of the same as well as not taking the more cutesy "pupils in the eyes" designs for the Gundams seriously. Not to mention general information about most of the works in this sub-franchise is very tricky to come by unless you look hard enough. All this, in spite of having as big of a presence on the modeling scene as its parent franchise, the previously-mentioned "pupils in the eyes" design for the Gundams being infamous, and even being partly responsible for starting a trend for more Super-Deformed Humongous Mecha works, most notably Super Robot Wars and one of its many clones SD Gundam G Generation, all while being only around a decade younger than Gundam.
• Pokémon Adventures is seemingly "the manga" for the most profitable media franchise on earth, but is rarely talked about even amongst the Pokémon fans. Forums and fan-sites prefer to focus on the anime. The little exposure the manga usually gets either talks about the original Kanto (and maybe Johto) arc or contrasts it with the anime by calling it "better" because it's Darker and Edgier.
• YuYu Hakusho was a very famous anime from The '90s and only Shonen of its era that could rival the monolith that was Dragon Ball Z in Japan. But the success was predominantly in Japan. It was influential in the 1990s English-language anime Newbie Boom but never reached the popularity levels of works like Sailor Moon, Pokémon, or even Ranma 1/2. It became obscure in the 2000s and was later overshadowed in the 2010s by the second (and most successful) creation of Yoshihiro Togashi: Hunter × Hunter. Even with the worldwide distribution and translation during the 2000s (mostly thanks to Toonami that emitted the series in parts like USA and Latin America), only fans discuss the series nowadays.

Comic Books

• Archie Comics has been thriving for over 50 years in the American market, which is predominantly focused on superhero comics. The comic sells itself on nostalgia and being a fun, easy read for all ages. It also helps that they're more accessible than a lot of other comics (which are usually found at comic book stores or online). Still, Archie's rarely gets discussed much exactly because they're so accessible and episodic: there aren't plotlines or character arcs to discuss. The only times the franchise gets mentioned much is when there's some sort of gimmick or quirk (such as the Gender Flip issue, the spinoff comics such as Life With Archie: The Married Life^note Especially the issue where Archie dies Taking the Bullet meant for his politician friend Kevin Keller and Afterlife with Archie, the Weird Crossover Archie Meets the Punisher, or the 2015 reboot).
• Disney Mouse and Duck Comics. Ignoring their lack of popularity in North America, they are a mainstay in Europe, commonly sold in magazine format in newspaper stands, supermarkets and bookstores. Many stories are produced locally including Italy, Netherlands and France. Almost every European child has read a Disney comic. Despite this, those Disney comics have very restrained fandoms. Like Archie comics, they are fun, easy read and thrive on nostalgia. However, due to the Fleeting Demographic Rule, they lack solid continuity and world-building (in spite of the efforts of some creators). Most readers tend to outgrow them and focus on "mainstream" serialized comic series such as Franco-Belgian Comics or simply manga. While there has been effort starting from The New '10s to re-release classic Disney comics in paperback collections in acknowledgement of their legacy, it tends to be focused on the same authors such as Carl Barks and Don Rosa, as they tend to be the common denominator to readers. Italy is one notable exception, as its own Disney comic industry has created many acclaimed plotlines and arcs, but they are the exception to the rule.
• It regularly comes off as a surprise to most people that Lucky Luke has had a Spinoff Babies series since 1995, titled Kid Lucky. It's been popular enough to still be ongoing.

Eastern European Animation

• Masha and the Bear is the biggest worldwide hit of Russian animation ever made and the most watched Preschool Show in the world ahead of genre juggernaut Peppa Pig, and yet it's not talked about as much as the latter and countless examples of pre-schooler Western Animation that draw considerably less viewing. It's especially a genuine killer on YouTube, the episode "Recipe for Disaster" has 4.5 billion views as of this writing, putting it well ahead of Gangnam Style despite the latter being far more culturally acknowledged (it also ended up the most watched non-music video ever on the website).

Films — Animation

• The Alpha and Omega films have a large fanbase, particularly among furries and wolf fans. However, most non-furries have never heard of it (much less watched it), and those who have seen it usually regard it as mediocre at best.
• The Rescuers was the most successful animated film ever made at the time of its release, and it was the first in the Disney Animated Canon to get a sequel, but its characters are conspicuously absent from the parks and it never receives much in the way of merchandising (likely because the sequel was the one Box Office flop during the Disney Renaissance).

Films — Live-Action

• Avatar is the highest grossing film of all time worldwide.^note It was displaced by Avengers: Endgame for two years, but regained the title following a rerelease. Even when adjusting for inflation only Gone with the Wind beats it. It's also the second best selling live-action film on home video, behind only James Cameron's previous film Titanic (1997). It was praised for its ground-breaking visual effects and use of 3D, but despite all this it left little lasting impression on those who watched it. Most people who have watched it can only vaguely describe the plot at best, and even recalling the name of one character from the film is a challenge. What makes Avatar such a strange case is that even back when it was relatively new, the actual plot of the film was glossed over by many. Today, while the movie hasn't aged poorly at all, it is still remembered mainly for its achievements, and you won't really find anyone who'd recommend it. It probably also doesn't help that during the 13-year Sequel Gap between it and Avatar: The Way of Water, there was surprisingly little in the way of an Expanded Universe or merchandising compared with other popular sci-fi movie franchises like Star Wars. This all factored in the doomsaying discourse preceding The Way of Water... only for the sequel to defy it all at the box office, clearing $2 billion in just over one month, and becoming the third highest grossing film ever, behind only the first film and Avengers: Endgame. Reception-wise, history repeated; once again the visuals and box office are all people actually choose to discuss about the film, with the plot and characters being mostly ignored in conversation.

Literature

• Erin Hunter:
  • Warriors routinely sells well, has literally dozens of books spanning nearly two decades, has a series of comics, and has one of the largest fandoms among YA literature, yet its mainstream exposure is next-to-none. This is likely due to its premise as a Stray Animal Story and a lack of any TV or film adaptations.
  • Warriors' sister series Seekers, Survivors, and Bravelands do well in sales but have almost no online exposure. They don't even have much in terms of fandoms.
• Felidae became a best-seller in Germany, has eleven sequels, and has sold millions of copies worldwide. It's mainly known, especially through English speakers, for its animated film adaptation.

Live-Action TV

• Despite being a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Agent Carter isn't as widely known as the Marvel Netflix series (for example, Jessica Jones), the later (much more advertised) Disney+ series or even its sister ABC show Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which, granted, lasted much longer), and people are surprised it even has a fanbase as the series isn't as widely publicized as other Marvel series (in fact, it was canceled due to dwindling audience ratings). When it is mentioned, it's usually about the main actress, Hayley Atwell.
• The Blacklist gets publicity in the U.S. and Canada and the United Kingdom, yet its fanbase is a small, dedicated one, and it's more often discussed on Reddit than mainstream with Fanon and Fan Wank being popular there.
• Charmed (1998) lasted eight seasons and has a dedicated fandom, also proving quite successful when it was put on VOD in the 2010s. However, it's often left out of discussions in terms of shows of the day, barely referenced in anything, and if it's ever mentioned, often compared unfavourably to the bigger Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Likely because it was primarily female led, leading to it being dismissed through the Girl-Show Ghetto.
• The Good Doctor was suddenly catapaulted to attention online by the infamous "I AM A SURGEON" scene becoming a meme in 2023. This was many people's first exposure to the show, and many were shocked to discover that The Good Doctor had not only been running for several years but was one of the most successful shows on network television, with one tweet pointing out that more than nineteen million people^note That figure includes people who watched it via DVR, live viewership was just over eleven million watched the pilot episode, while viewership for the more critically lauded and memed Succession peaked at just over two-and-a-half million. While those numbers can't be directly compared to one another as Succession is on HBO and Good Doctor is on ABC, it still came as a shock that a show that seemingly no one had ever heard of was watched by so many people.
  • The Good Doctor serves as a good example of the divide between network television and streaming services (and, to an extent, premium cable channels like HBO); given that the television-obsessed people on the Internet tend to skew on the younger side and that cable subscriptions are increasingly rare among that demographic, it makes sense that most of them would have no knowledge of a network television show since they tend to get their TV on streaming services.
• Zig-Zagged with Police, Camera, Action!, which does have mainstream recognition, but is more known for piracy on torrent sites and lack of availability on streaming services. Yet, the show is well-known enough and was well-liked from 1994 to 2003 in the United Kingdom and then 2007-2008, before fading into obscurity in 2010 after the final series aired. It's also a Cult Classic too.
• Saturday Night Live did a skit involving a Game Show called What is Burn Notice?, built on the idea that it exemplified this trope: at the time, it was the eighth-highest-rated show on cable and was in its fourth season (of seven), and yet nobody can tell you anything about it. After watching a commercial for the show, the only thing the contestants could successfully guess about Burn Notice was that it took place in Miami.
• Street Signs, a CNBC programme about financial markets (not roads or street signs, making it a Non-Indicative Name - it refers to Wall Street) is popular, and has some knowledge amongst the general public. It's more known for its Ms. Fanservice, although that aspect is downplayed.
• Yellowstone is a prestige Western drama from acclaimed writer Taylor Sheridan and with a big-name leading man in Kevin Costner that has the misfortune of airing on basic cable and skewing much older in its viewer base in a time where streaming-exclusive shows aimed at younger viewers have become the darlings of the television industry. As such, despite plaudits from those critics who've taken the time to watch it and massive ratings that grow with each new season (in 2022, it was the most watched scripted show on linear television in the U.S., garnering more viewers than any show on a major broadcast network), by the show's fourth season it had become notable for this trope: a megahit drama of the sort that would've been a blockbuster ten years prior that nonetheless did not get talked about much by TV journalists or on social media. Time will tell if the show will earn more recognition over the remainder of its run, especially through streaming.

Music

• This frequently happens to music genres and artists which are primarily popular on the internet, but are either too weird to make it into the mainstream or have too much isolated cultural context to make sense to someone who doesn't spend a lot of time online. These include the aforementioned Nightcore and Vaporwave, artists who make songs based on modern internet and fandom culture like DAGames, and more recently the Cloud Rap of Drain Gang and hyperpop from artists like 100 gecs.
• Nightcore remixes and music get millions of views on YouTube and other websites, yet the genre is all but unknown outside of anyone older than their mid-20s.
• Vaporwave is popular online for the '80s inspired aesthetic it's meant to invoke but hasn't caught the attention of mainstream media.

Professional Wrestling

• Back in the 1990s, ECW was the number three American-based wrestling promotion to WWF and WCW and still has a following to this day, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who isn't a die-hard wrestling fan who has even heard of ECW let alone watched it (and if they have heard of it, they likely only learned about it via WWE's polarizing 2005-2010 revival of ECW). The only mainstream coverage that ECW received during its existence was regarding several controversial events, such as the Mass Transit Incident or Raven's Nest crucifying the Sandman, with the promotion itself being a mere footnote in those stories.
• "Nature Boy" Ric Flair is a bona fide legend within the pro wrestling fandom and many fans and wrestlers alike consider him the greatest pro wrestler of all time. Despite this, Flair hasn't received nearly as much mainstream recognition as fellow wrestling legends such as Hulk Hogan, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson^note All three of whom have stated that Flair is the greatest wrestler of all time. and most people who aren't wrestling fans have never heard of him. Even Flair himself seems to realize this, as he reluctantly admitted in an interview for the Hulk Hogan Anthology DVD that he's not as famous as Hogan. A lot of this has to do with the fact that unlike Hogan, Austin and Rock, Flair a) has mostly shied away from Hollywood and focused on entertaining fans in the ring; and b) enjoyed his greatest success and acclaim either working for Jim Crockett Promotions/WCW (which never had quite the same level of international presence as WWE, where Hogan, Austin and Rock made their names.^note Flair has had a couple stints in WWE, but his first (1991-1993) was short-lived and his second (2001-2009) took place after the end of the Monday Night Wars, when wrestling as a whole was quickly losing its mainstream appeal.) or as a travelling champion in the NWA who worked in many different territories, when television was still very localised rather than nationally consolidated.

Tabletop Games

• Bakugan was a hit tabletop game for several years and had a popular anime, but it's virtually unknown amongst adults and kids not in the fandom. The anime suffers from frequently being looked down upon as a "ripoff" of other mon and card anime.
• Beyblade is popular amongst children, with several popular anime and a successful toyline of beys. Despite this, it's rarely mentioned for being anything besides "another one of the Pokémon clones" (alongside Yu-Gi-Oh! and Digimon) and nothing but the first anime gets referenced.
• A lot of people have collected Pokémon cards when they were kids, but eventually stopped. Nowadays, the Pokémon TCG is thriving, with thousands of people of all ages attending tournaments, and the cards themselves even outselling Magic The Gathering at times. Yet, a lot of people, even from within the greater Pokémon fandom, seem surprised not just at the popularity of the game, but the mere fact that it still exists to this day.
• Flesh And Blood may not be well known compared to card games like Magic: The Gathering, or even Lorcana (released 4 years after F&B's inception) but it has a legitimate following and a supportive fanbase thanks to its unique premise of a hero battle to the death and Legend Story Studios's focus on building a community around it.

Theatre

• Elisabeth is the most successful German-language musical ever written. It's been performed in Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Russia, South Korea, Japan and China, and has multiple English fan translations. In spite of its popularity most English-speakers have never heard of it.

Toys

• BIONICLE fans call this phenomenon "the Red One". The franchise was one of the biggest toy hits of the early 2000s, had an enormous multimedia push including LEGO's first foray into movies, and helped pull the company out of bankruptcy. It went on for 10 years and had an expansive lore and story, with dozens of books and comics (America's most widely circulated comic series at the time), four movies, multiple video and online games and a host of short stories. Yet to most people, BIONICLE was just a weird toy line that "wasn't true LEGO", consisting of colorful robots like "the Red One" or "the Blue One" (descriptions that apply to dozens of characters) or "the ones that could turn into balls" (which applies to two separate series of figures). Many were unaware that it had a story, lore or characters at all, or that the title actually meant "Biological Chronicle". The one piece of media that became somewhat recognized by lay-people is the movie Mask of Light, as it was more easily accessible than any books or comics. But most hardcore fans would tell you the movies paint a very inaccurate and surface-level picture of the brand.
• Digimon toys are considered the More Popular Spin-Off of Tamagotchi in terms of sales, but Tamagotchi is routinely referenced due to its fads while the Digimon toys are not. Even the popular anime series' haven't shaken off the stigma of being a "Pokémon clone" and many don't even know there was anything outside of the first two anime.

Video Games

• Sports games in general are consistently absurdly high sellers, but unless you're NBA Jam, the only times they tend to come up are when some kind of controversy involving a given series (such as the Loot Box mechanics in late-10's games) occurs. It's especially prevalent in the case of yearly franchises like Madden NFL or FIFA Soccer. Statistically, the latter is the sixth most popular video game franchise ever; it has sold more than The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy combined, with enough left over for Street Fighter. Now compare the size of its page on this site to the page of any given game in any of those franchises. This is likely because they’re sports simulators that don’t change much between years aside from the roster so there isn’t really much to say about them. In addition, mainstream sports games do not have much when it comes world building and characters and do not give much material for fan art.
• Brawlhalla has a very active and massive player base (easily getting over 15,000 players per month according to Steam Charts) and has its own esports league with prize pools up to $100,000. That said, Brawlhalla barely gets talked about among the Fighting Game Community or gaming community as a whole.
• Despite being one of the most downloaded mobile games out there, people seldom actually discuss Candy Crush Saga outside of criticizing its microtransactions.
  • This applies to mobile games (especially free-to-play ones) in general. Even relatively new releases have millions of downloads and generate sales and ad revenue that dwarf releases on other platforms, but discussion of mobile games tend to lump them all up into one category, and you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone who recommends a specific game.
• CAVE is more well known among the retro and hardcore gaming community as well as the Shmup community whereas Touhou is what many people come to think of when they hear about the Bullet Hell genre, as it has the Inverse trope affecting the latter.
• The 2007 South Korean online FPS game Crossfire is an astonishing example. Released in 2007, it has become one of the world's most played video games, with 1 billion users in 80 countries worldwide, and one of the most highest-grossing video games of all time, having grossed $6.8 billion in revenue. It's very, VERY popular in Asia, especially in China, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam; and it's still played by thousands even to this day, despite facing rivalry from other FPS titles like Counter-Strike and Call of Duty. One of the contributing factors to the game's immense success is its light system requirements — it can totally be played on a low-end PC, making it highly accessible to just about everyone. That being said, good luck finding actual fans of Crossfire outside of Asia, or within the mainstream FPS community for that matter.
• The original Elf Bowling game was played over 7 million times, making it a hit (especially by 1990s freeware standards), but it doesn't get talked about much aside from the Porting Disaster it suffered on Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS, or the infamously terrible film.
• Farmville was one of the most popular of the 2000s and helped codify the modern day mobile market, but few actually discuss Farmville (especially in a non-critical light). The game was marketed at people outside of the "hardcore" gaming audience, so most players only play the games without discussing them.
• Helix Jump is a game with over 500 million downloads and over 300 million players. However, the game is so little talked about that it does not even have Wikipedia page as of 2023.
• Incredibox has gotten over 1.1 million downloads and 70 millions of visitors since its launch in 2009, but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who knows much about it outside of its dedicated community.
• Mini World : With the player count exceeding 400 million, it has received almost no media attention with it not even having a Wikipedia page.
• Ninjala has, as of February 2023, reached 10 million players, a rather high number for a new IP by a third-party company on the Nintendo Switch and no other platform. However, despite the presence of very advanced players and a thriving metagame, information on this game is very hard to come by that can't be found in the in-game tutorial. It has been argued that, whereas fans of most other games are eager to share what they know, Ninjala fans tend to guard their strategies and tricks closely, leading to only a handful of players willing to make that information available online.
• While it might not have been Sega's most successful or impactful console, the Pico ended up being their longest-running console, first released in 1993 and lasting until 2005, four years after the company officially pulled out of the console market with the Sega Dreamcast. Its successor, the Advanced Pico Beena, had a similarly impressive life of six years. In spite of this, it remains a footnote in Sega's history due to the console line being geared towards a very young audience, and having a middling reception outside of Japan.
• Sniper: Ghost Warrior is a remarkably steady Cash-Cow Franchise for its publisher: by May 2022, it had sold over 13 million copies over five games, with every installments selling at least a million. Despite this apparent loyal following, the games scarcely get any discussion on mainstream social media or message boards, and even content creators focused on FPS games pay little attention it.
• The original Snood had over 50 million players. The series has also had multiple ports and sequels. Despite this, people seldom ever discuss the game and it doesn't come up much amongst gamers.
• StreetPass Mii Plaza is an odd case in that, at the peak of the Nintendo 3DS's popularity, this game had such a high penetration rate that you could walk down a street in any major city with your 3DS on Sleep Mode and passively interact with several other people in one day. However, it never actually gained a fanbase, and it was mostly ignored by the core Nintendo audiences. This is most likely due to its intense focus on Socialization Bonus and it being a collection of Casual Games, which puts it outside of the interests of most of those core audiences—people who like video games but don't care to join groups of fans.
• Super Robot Wars is one of the biggest crossovers in all of Video Games, bringing together a bunch of Humongous Mecha Anime (And then some) for a (Mostly) Turn-Based Strategy onslaught and, twenty-plus years going on thirty after its debut, is still going strong. Despite this, it's not very well-known outside of the Mecha fandom, and even in the mecha fandom there's only ever talk about the attack animations, series representation, and how the games tackle issues people had with the original stories and characters of the represented series'. Going off on the last bit, the franchise's own story and characters get nowhere near as much conversation, with only a couple of exceptions like Sanger Zonvolt and Euzeth Gozzo. This is in large part because, due to being such a massive crossover, porting it anywhere outside of Japan is a copyright nightmare - it wasn't until 30 that a non-OG game was released outside of Asia.
• The Wario Land series is one of Nintendo's consistently successful franchises to date in its prime, with every game in the series receiving widespread acclaim as being amongst Nintendo's best platformers and having sold at least a million copies, often outperforming many of Nintendo's other franchises like Metroid, Star Fox and even Kirby. Despite this, however, you'll rarely find anyone talking about the games and the series lacks the large cult followings that other less popular Nintendo franchises enjoy.

Webcomics

• Girl Genius won the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story three years in a row, and has been in the top 10 of most popular webcomics for well over a decade. Yet it's not very well-known on many parts of the internet not geared towards Science Fantasy, let alone in the outside world. It's practically a hidden gem.
• Homestuck is arguably one of the most famous works on the animation and gaming parts of the internet... and nowhere else, really. In spite of its enormous fanbase, nobody out of the internet knows about it, and even show it'll be very hard to find someone talking about Homestuck out of the dedicated or related forums. Notably, Undertale, a game that practically grew out of the Homestuck community (being developed by the composer of Homestuck and with a good chunk of its early supporters being Homestuck fans) has far eclipsed Homestuck in popularity and influence.

Web Original

• Due to the YouTube Kids program, there are many videos on the site that have view counts well into the hundreds of millions (or in some cases, billions), and nearly all their viewers are very small children.
• It seems that after 2013, The Annoying Orange has faded into obscurity as one of those "YouTube channels from back in the day" like Fred, or so it seems. Many people are surprised to find that the character's YouTube channel is not only still active after a decade, but at the same time, it is still getting a lot of views and subscribers (mainly from children).
• Battle for Dream Island: The show garners millions of views per episode (with the first episode having over 59 million views after it exploded in popularity around 2014), has spawned countless other series in a similar vein to it, created a wiki popular enough for Wikia to make an official app for it, and led Yoylecake to win Wikia's 2016 Battle of The Fantasy Foods competition. Despite the numerous feats accomplished by the fandom, you'd be hard-pressed to find it mentioned anywhere outside its corner of the Internet, and Wikipedia doesn't consider it notable enough to warrant a page.
• As far as Object Shows go, Inanimate Insanity is second only to Battle for Dream Island (which, as mentioned above, also suffers this trope) in terms of popularity and likewise has a very strong fandom. However, despite regularly earning millions of views, the series is practically unknown outside of the Object Show community and has never been mentioned by any significant news or journalism outlet.
• Jacksfilms has been a YouTuber with a ton of success, having a steady growth of subscribers, consistent video views, and even a ton of collaboration videos with more famous YouTubers; however, despite his consistent success and connections with mainstream content creators, he's never one of the YouTubers given much spotlight, such as not being featured in YouTube Rewind and not being discussed much outside of his own fanbase.
• JAMIEvstheVOID quickly established himself as a rising name in the storytime animation community during 2017-18 and got to collab with the likes of TheOdd1sOut and Get Madz, appeared at VidCon London 2019 and got a Wikitubia article. However, even with 741k subscribers (as of December 2022) and thousands of views and comments on his videos, he never quite got to the heights of his contemporaries and therefore didn't have the same impact on the online world they did. Not even giving wider exposure to the condition aphantasia - and getting interviewed by Anthony Padilla and Wired about it - seems to have helped his profile. This may have influenced Jamie's decision to quit storytime animation in 2022.
• The Music Freaks has a pretty large fanbase and each episode gets millions of views, though not a lot of people outside of the Gacha community know about it, most likely due to the infamous reputation of Gacha Life.
• Neil Cicierega, although not quite to the same extent as other examples of this trope, remains relatively obscure despite many of the individual things he's worked on (the old Animutation memes, The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny, Potter Puppet Pals, Brodyquest, Ariel Needs Legs, the various remixes on the Mouth albums) having gone viral to varying degrees. It's something of a joke in his fanbase to go "wait, he did that, too?" Given his fairly long career, about half his work being under the Lemon Demon alias, his tendency to mess around with various mediums, and him rarely showing his face, it's rather difficult for casual viewers to track any kind of Creator Thumbprint. This makes it easy to assume that any of the above are the works of random independent weirdos rather than a single prolific one.
• NoPixel has a pretty sizable fanbase, its characters are well-known and beloved among fans, it has its own internal pop culture, and it even has its own wiki. However, there is little-to-no awareness of it outside of Twitch.
• PewDiePie was the most subscribed YouTuber for several years in a row, and his videos regularly get at minimum 2 million views each. This success hasn't correlated him into becoming a celebrity; he has little mainstream discussion outside of a South Park episode featuring him, and a few news articles about him being a negative influence on kids.
• While Ryan's World (formerly Ryan ToysReview) is one of the highest paid YouTube channels of all time, is very popular with its target audience of children, and is a major Cash-Cow Franchise with a toy line, video games, a TV show on a major network, a short film with animated segments by a major anime studio, and more to its name, the channel itself is rarely ever discussed outside of said audience and its dedicated Periphery Hatedom.
• The SCP Foundation is one of the largest collaborative writing projects on the internet, one of the most well-known sources of horror and New Weird fiction in the modern age, and has coverage in seven non-English communities producing their own content, all totaling up to thousands upon thousands of main articles and even more standalone short fiction. Despite this, as well as its distinct mythos and atmosphere making "SCP-like" a vibrant genre descriptor, the wiki's influence has largely been condensed to that very specific niche of internet horror, and you'll very, very rarely ever see it alluded to offline.
• The Slender Man Mythos stories are popular online, especially with tweens and young teens, but are almost unknown otherwise. Most adults only know of Slenderman because of the real-life stabbing related to him.
• SMG4 is one of the biggest Machinima YouTube channels ever, with videos exceeding 30 million views and a huge fanbase, all this giving birth to GLITCH Productions. But despite its success, with the exception of Memetic Mutations involving Mario or talks about Glitch Productions' history, the series is rarely discussed or recognized outside of said fanbase. Not even after the series started to feature well-known voice actors in The New '20s like Lizzie Freeman or Michael Kovach seems to be enough to be recognized by the mainstream, and websites like Wikipedia often omit SMG4 from their filmographies due to being considered not notable enough.
• SuperMarioLogan has a huge and dedicated fanbase, and yet it's only known in the mainstream either for the episode "Jeffy's Tantrum!" causing a young boy to try and hang himself like Jeffy did, or for the Cease and Desist letter it got from Nintendo, which caused the Mario to be permanently removed from the series and replaced with human puppets, removing all references to their franchises, as well as deleting the entire YouTube channel and start a new one from scratch.
• The Truth About Cars, an automotive blog, isn't widely known outside automotive circles, but does have a large fanbase. However, it was mocked mercilessly on the Facebook pages of Little Mix and Ariana Grande by fans of those pop stars for being seen as Lurid Tales of Doom (although there is no evidence to support this claim), so this trope is Zig-Zagged somewhat.
• Surprisingly enough, TV Tropes itself is a case of this. While seeming like a niche website on the surface, it is consistently one of the top 100 most-visited sites of any given month, but its existence is barely even known among those who neither visit the site nor self-identify as media geeks, despite the wiki's popularization of terms or phrases like "Flanderization", "Nightmare Fuel" and "Kick the Dog". Notably, very few people in the entertainment industry (in particular A-list celebrities) either know or talk about TV Tropes, for better or for worse.
• Believe it or not, the most subbed to Virtual Youtuber is not Gawr Gura, but Cookieswirlc, who has over five times as many subs as Gura. However, due to the fact that she wasn't always a Vtuber and her target audience is children rather than vtuber fans, she is rarely acknowledged by the broader Vtuber fandom.

Western Animation

• Ninjago is a Long Runner and its fanbase is enormous, but it doesn't have much mainstream recognition and is seen by most Cartoon Network fans as "that one show that's still airing for some reason". Not even the movie received much recognition.
• Numberblocks has a large Periphery Demographic, especially on Scratch and is one of CBeebies' most popular shows in its home country. However, the show does not get discussed outside of its fandom, mainly because of the fandom's infamous status of being immature.
• Winx Club is one of the most successful cartoons from the 2000s and is a Cash-Cow Franchise in several countries. Despite this, it seldom gets discussed outside of its dedicated fandom, largely due to the Girl-Show Ghetto.
• Zig & Sharko is a very popular cartoon series, with its official YouTube channel having over 14 million suscribers, but it is not talked about much nor does it have the same level of recognition as other Xilam productions such as Oggy and the Cockroaches.

Real Life

• Belgian Malinois have been an obscure name in dog breeds, but they're ubiquitous in police and military forces. Those unfamiliar with the breed have likely seen them and mistaken them for the similar German Shepherd.^note Belgian Malinois are smaller, have shorter hair, and lack the black spot on their back. Malinois enthusiasts have been keen on preventing the breed from becoming popular as a household pet, due to their aggressive temperment and extreme demands, although demand for this breed increased after one, named Cairo, assisted in the raid on Osama bin Laden.
• Juliana Tatelbaum, German-born presenter of CNBC series Street Signs is popular, with a substantial fanbase, but she isn't widely known outside of CNBC fans. Like the above example, she is known more for her work than any Scandal Gate controversies.
• British actress Natalie Gavin, from Buttershaw, near Bradford, Oop North, in England, is not an A-lister. Not yet. However, she was interviewed by a major magazine, Northern Life. In the United Kingdom, she has quite a fanbase, but is known more for her acting, rather than any controversies, as with individuals like Miley Cyrus or Russell Brand, and people are surprised she even has one. People know her from dramas such as Line of Duty (BBC).

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