Recently, talk about The Hunger Games, a popular book and movie franchise, trended on social media. TikTok and Instagram were the starts of this trend, and the discussion spread across platforms. The trend seems to have passed, or at least settled, but it has undoubtedly caused new interest in the franchise.

146 DHS students filled out a poll sharing how long they’ve been interested in the books and movies, as well as if they’ve seen The Hunger Games on social media recently. Here are the results:

91 respondents said that they have read at least one of The Hunger Games books. This number is almost even to the 100 who have seen at least one of The Hunger Games movies. Considering surveys often have proven movies to be more popular than books, the fact that almost the same amount of students have read the books as watched the movies, these numbers are incredible. And out of those who have both seen and watched The Hunger Games, the majority say that they read the books before watching any of the movies.

Out of those who have read the books, 35 students say they’ve never reread any of the books, meaning 56 have reread at least one of them. The majority of these readers have reread their favorite twice, but many have reread even more.

The movies had even more rewatching. All three movies have been rewatched over 10 times by certain students, with all of the movies being watched at least twice by the majority of students.

Could this have been a marketing strategy for the new Hunger Games Movie, the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes?

According to the form, 51% of respondents have seen The Hunger Games mentioned on social media recently. 75% of the people saw the mention on TikTok. Out of these people, only 31 have seen mention of the new movie coming out, and only 40 of the responders even knew about the movie.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, The Hunger Games prequel movie based on the novel by Suzzane Collins, comes out November 17, 2023.

If getting The Hunger Games to trend online was a marketing strategy, it failed… kind of. The trend seems to have passed and less people are talking about it online. Now that teenagers and young adults have gained interest in the franchise though, perhaps when the new movie arrives in theaters those who grew interest through the media will decide to go see it. 

Most likely answer is that this was not planned marketing, however all press is good press and it will likely draw new attention to the new movie. Only 24 respondents have read the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, but if you have any interest in watching the movie when it’s out, it’s a great read.