@mitchconner @matrix i think it probably comes from how expansive it is. mario has the better games, but sonic has always had tons of extra media and merchandise. comics, cartoons, all of that stuff. there is no shortage of sonic content that one can delve into super deep. you can actually hyper fixate on it because there is so much there, whereas with mario it's like... you just play the games, pretty much. the people who hyper fixate on mario are usually only doing that with a singular game that they speedrun or something.

when i was a kid, i would wake up early on saturday mornings to watch sonic. i had sonic pajamas, sonic sheets, sonic comics, sonic games, etc. it was a little bit before my time, but there was the whole "sonic says" PSA thing too. sonic was fucking cool, i wanted to be like sonic. mario was just some plumber dude that had fun games.