Anonymous said: Yes, most of the people I know are spuffy shippers, they make most of the fandom and still whine about how spuffy did not win their much deserved awards. Did you just imply casual viewers don't notice spuffy as a canon couple, I don't think that's true at all. *Cue in a heap of viewers watching for Spike* I don't mind how Joss contradicts himself, I personally thought spuffy was endgame in Buffy anyway. A very distorted one but still. Enough to make you guys happy.

No, I implied that most casual viewers assume that BA is the most popular ship, or (as mentioned below) that they stopped watching after the high school years and treat Spuffy with the same disdain that some non-fans of the comics treat Xander/Dawn. Fandom culture is a whole different place than regular popular culture, and I know that it’s a little shocking to realize those differences.

People watching for Spike had to have heard of Spike in the first place, or decided that it’s worth it. I’ve heard great things about Dan/Blair, but it doesn’t mean that I’m going to commit myself to watching the 2+ seasons of Gossip Girl since I gave up on the show to watch it. And the staggering number of viewers who say they stopped watching BtVS after S3 aren’t going to care about Spuffy.

The numbers speak for themselves [x]:

That’s nearly a million fewer viewers from S3 to S5. And in the fan culture we have now, people don’t drop it so quickly, but this is the basis of all the media attention and legitimacy lent to BA. BA was king back then, and that’s always going to give them a head start.