New Study Reveals Animation Has Been Most-Watched Genre During Coronavirus Pandemic

As you might expect from one of the most bizarre times of our lifetime, animated movies and television shows have seen the highest rate of growth over the course of the past few months. A new study published by stream-tracking website Reelgood reveals no genre has been watched more frequently than animation across the ever-expanding world of streaming. According to the numbers included in the study, animation has grown just under 22-percent compared to its pre-quarantine numbers. It's followed by family-friendly movies (16.95-percent growth) and cult classics (15.3-percent growth) while musicals (12.59-percent growth) and fantasy (11.36-percent growth) round out the top five.

On the flipside, genres many would consider "downers" of sorts took pretty hefty hits in decreased activity. The crime genre (11.8-percent decrease) led the way for genres suffering the most viewership loss and it was followed by horror (8.38-percent decrease) and history (8.01-percent decrease).

When it comes to the most-popular "feel good" movies and shows being binged in the past month or two, Rick and Morty comes out on top, with a 12.7-percent increase over its pre-quarantine numbers. Other shows in the top ten on the chart include Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Community, Steven Universe, The Office, and Modern Family. That full chart can be seen below.

Luckily for fans of Community, the show was finally added to Netflix in its entirety at the beginning of April. It's quickly become a favorite with bingers and has the prospects of the fabled Community movie back in the limelight. In fact, series star Joel McHale previously told us he thinks a feature film is entirely possible now that the show's fanbase has been reenergized.

"Well, because I think people started getting calls from Sony about it," McHale told ComicBook.com. "I didn't, which is disturbing, but I know Alison [Brie] tweeted out that she got an actual call from Sony. So that's really cool. And that's why I think it's even more real than ever, because if Sony's going get behind it and then it could happen. I don't know if we're going to get Donald [Glover] because he's the busiest person. He turned into one of the most famous people on the planet. If we could get him for an hour, that would be great. So I do think it's more real than it's ever been. For a long time, I was like 'There's not a chance.' Then all of a sudden, in the last few months I was like, 'Holy crap. There's a chance.'"