What does "be populated by" mean?
"Against all odds and social conventions, a fandom for a show for young girls, that's populated mostly by the most unlikely of audiences, specifically teenagers and young adults of both genders, has survived for five whole years today."

In this sentence, what does "that's populated mostly by the most unlikely of audiences" mean?

Question

What does "be populated by" mean?
"Against all odds and social conventions, a fandom for a show for young girls, that's populated mostly by the most unlikely of audiences, specifically teenagers and young adults of both genders, has survived for five whole years today."

In this sentence, what does "that's populated mostly by the most unlikely of audiences" mean?

Answer

If you populate a place, you place people in it.  However, "populate" is often used in the present simple passive e.g. England is populated by English people.

In this case, it means that the "fandom" (I guess, the whole group of fans) were made up of surprising and different groups of people.  For example, if the surprise is probably that the show was aimed at young girls, but many viewers are older and include young men.

Answer

To be populated by - a population is the people who live in a place but here it is would mean the people in the audience. And 'the most unlikely of audiences' means (in this context) people who you would not normally be expected to be fans.

Answers · 2

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