IT was in 1992 that the idea for South Park first came to be after creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone posted two short films entitled The Spirit of Christmas, which would soon turn into what many know and love as South Park. 

Revolving around the crazy lives of four young boys named Stan, Eric, Kyle, and Kenny in a small town named South Park, the show has been running on Comedy Central since 1997 and continues to stay strong. The show continues to stay relevant as it uses its episodes to discuss current matters like elections, school shootings, and even the growing popularity of climate change.

Despite the large fanbase of the show, many were surprised to learn that its ratings have been getting lower and lower with each season; in fact, the most recent seasons only have an average of 0.65 million views per episode, while during their first few seasons, it would get up to 3 million views.

But even though a decline in views has been evident, the fandom continues to live on. What’s especially surprising is that TikTok has helped bring in the Gen Zs to start watching the show. 

How exactly has the app been able to do so?

Free streaming on TikTok

One particular trend going around on TikTok at the moment–which many have probably seen on their own For You page once or twice–is the showing of entire movies and TV shows, broken down into clips for users to watch. 

Most popularly shown, according to a report in The State Times, are Family Guy, Shameless, and South Park.

Why has this become a thing? The State Times report says that it all boils down to one thing: the convenience to the viewer.

In the past, people had cable TV, and then they slowly started to replace this with streaming services because the latter was easier to deal with as compared to the former. And now, almost every show can be accessed just by tapping your finger, even when you aren’t actively looking for it.

Another aspect of these clips is that many of them end on cliffhangers, like the way this particular user posts clips of South Park. With each piece, the viewer is left wanting more. 

It’s no wonder then why so many Gen Zs (who make up a majority of the users on TikTok) have started to fall in love with the show.

The appeal to Gen Zs

Kopi, a 17-year-old senior high school student currently studying at the De La Salle University of Antipolo, shared with republicasia how they got to be part of the South Park fandom.

Their interest in South Park started a year ago after they would see a number of clips of the show on TikTok. Eventually, they started watching the show in March. It was at that same time that they joined the fandom.

Their love for the show has grown so strong that they often put in time and effort to post TikToks cosplaying popular, beloved South Park Characters like Kenny, Clyde, Craig, and Tweek.

Kopi believes that a big part of the resurgence of the show is due to its episodes being posted on TikTok. As they would scroll through the app, they would often see parts of the show, eventually scrolling through the accounts that posted them so they’d end up watching an entire episode in one sitting. 

It’s also through TikTok that Kopi found mutuals similar to them, who only grew interested in the show after seeing it on the app. But aside from how frequently it’s posted, they also believe that the show has grown in popularity with Gen Zs because of how entertaining it is.

“The characters have their own personalities and traits that make them unique to Gen Zs,” Kopi explained. “I think it’s also how they use dark humor and the way they tackle certain issues.”

Not up for cancelation 

Given the way the show uses dark humor so freely, it’s hard not to think that South Park may be the next victim of the ever-strengthening “cancel culture.”

The show isn’t free of controversies; several episodes have been banned in the past for their sensitive content, such as the episode Super Best Friends which featured religious figures Jesus, Buddha, Moses, and Muhammad as a superhero group akin to DC’s Super Friends. 

From that description alone, it’s not difficult to figure out why that episode, in particular, was banned. 

People have even tried to make petitions in the past to cancel the show; one pleaded for the show’s cancellation because it supposedly teaches kids bad things that they shouldn’t be learning. 

Despite cancel culture’s prevalence in the modern day, the show’s creators are far from worried, even going so far as to say that they’ve been waiting to be canceled for the last 30 years.

Even Kopi, who is well aware of cancel culture given that they’re a part of Generation Z, believes that the show won’t be canceled any time soon.

They say that South Park has a lot of dark humor as well as offensive jokes, but that’s the point of the entire series: that it’s satire.

Kopi added: “It’s hard to actually get offended when its goal is to offend everyone; with satirical jokes, they prove a point every episode.”