In your opinion, what makes a villager popular, and what defines them being popular to you?

[Bilaz]

I just wanted to add that I don’t agree entirely with the idea that every villager with the same personality is the same so people like the nicest looking.

You see, animal crossing villagers are characters, and with characters like these, design is a big factor in *interpretation* of personality and fleshing out of the character. These villagers don’t tell us anything about their age, hobbies, motives, goals in life. We need to interpret all this from how they look.

Take jock villagers for example. Scoot, Teddy and Coach all have a jock personality. Scoot as a tiny little duckling with a cap gives me the impression of a small dude constantly bragging over his non existent fitness. Teddy with his large and friendly appearance gives me the vibe of someone who’s my friendly work-out buddy, whereas Coach makes me think of a serious personal trainer.

Of course people also like to have aesthetically pleasing villagers but I also don’t see what’s wrong with that. I’m just saying:
Looks + personality = personality
personality + looks = likability

 

[Akeath]

I honestly don't get the popular tier ratings. It seems almost random to me. I do notice that a lot of the humorous looking villagers are low tier. I'm assuming because people have so many different types of humor, it's hard to widely hit appeal with humor as compared to say cuteness. I do know that all the villagers of the same personality have the same dialogue. For me at least, they may say the same exact thing but I might read it with different emphasis. If Sasha, who is young and cute looking, talks about the bugs in his house I might let it go as, "well, he looks like a kid so of course his house keeping isn't the best, and he's being imaginative." Whereas if a villager like Barold who has a really unkempt design says the same thing I might think "ugh, he clearly is being gross with his own hygiene and his house is gross too". The dialogue is the same, but I'm interpreting it differently based on the looks of the villager who said it. Another example is Ribbot, who is a Robot Jock. I find the jock lines funny with him because as a robot, no matter how much he works out his physique isn't going to change. I think in addition to the cuteness factor how the design fits with the personality's dialogue is important, and the animated expressions are also important. For awhile I thought it was purely a cuteness factor, but the more villagers I try in my town the more I see myself reacting differently to them based on small elements of their design.

 

[Goldi Locks]

My most popular villager is Judy. I do not know why she's so popular. She's a brat. She should be grounded for life.

 

[ZeldaCrossing64]

For me, it simply has to do with appearance and how much people talk about and like the villagers. They're usually the ones with cute designs (like Marshal or Molly) or cool / unique ones (like Raymond or Ankha). I think just about almost every villager has their fans, but if they're always sought out in villager hunts and trading sites, have a lot of fan stuff made of them, constantly talked about positively, and are very common on other people's islands, that's a popular villager in my eyes.
Of course, there are some people who like a certain villager because they're considered hated generally, like Barold or Rodney, but I guess the same rules can apply, to a certain extent.
I think it might also have to do with personality, despite the fact that the villagers are really bland in NH. I find that smug and lazy villagers are adored and loved the most, but I'm personally not a huge fan of either. Cranky and snooty villagers definitely have mixed opinions - Some people don't like how they used to be in older AC games because they were rude, and some people don't like them now because of how they are in more recent AC games (particularly NL, PC, and NH).

 

[moon_child]

Appearance and just overall how they fit their personality types and hobbies. For example, I really find that Audie is designed very well so I was very happy when I found her on a mystery island and invited her. However, her being a peppy wolf with a fitness hobby just didn’t click well with me in the long run like I don’t dislike her but my eagerness to have her in my island decreased significantly to the point I let her go when she wanted to leave. There are just other peppy villagers that I would love to have more than her.

Marshal as a smug is super endearing. In NH, dialogues are more tame but in NL, smugs’ dialogues can be pretty flirty and forward and while hearing them from villagers who looked like Marshal can be super cute and funny, hearing them from other villagers like Klaus or Beardo or Chops can just be a bit uncomfortable, sometimes disturbing and creepy. No offense to lovers of those villagers but I think it has something to do with how anthropomorphic they are? Notice how the most popular villagers are usually those with quite simple, basic or natural designs that really resemble animals more than humans and the least popular ones are those who are more human in appearance (those with hair, facial hairs etc) because they maybe creep people out or remind them of actual humans they know that they don’t really feel comfortable playing the game and seeing those very humanoid animals everyday. Like I personally would prefer looking at a villager who looks cute and cuddly like a stuffed toy rather than a villager that reminds me of a creepy boss or officemate from real life who’s always hitting on the girls at the office or something like that.

 

[ShawnFuzz]

I started a thread a while back similar to this, but opposite. I asked who was people's favorite unpopular villager. It is funny to see that most people's answers were the less desirable villagers design-wise. But, people still love them.

For me it has to do with the circumstances in which I found my villager. Aesthetics matter, but sometimes a random villager move-in wins me over and I become loyal to them, despite appearance.

 

[TN4U]

As others mentioned, I personally believe that looks, nostalgia, and theme-matching play a big part in how popular a villager is, and if a villager fails to meet at least two of those categories, they won't get much love. For me, it's mainly looks, and 9/10 of my current villagers on my island were invited via amiibo cards because of that. The lone villager I did not invite (Patty, also my longest tenured) I've kept, despite my initial thoughts when I first saw her. She eventually grew on me the most out of everyone else because she's such a cute looking brown cow with a bubbly personality and also happens to be the most popular of the bovines for that reason. I like her so much, I actually re-tooled an area of my island to have a pseudo-farm theme where her house is.

A prime example of an amiibo-invited villager I moved in because of looks and nostalgia would be Dotty. She's probably the most simple-looking villager I currently have (ignoring her BLARING RED EYES when she's excited or shocked), but other than looks, the main reason she also happens to be my favorite female villager is because she resembles a real-life rabbit I once had as a pet growing up. I love her so much.

For just nostalgia, not everyone is a duck fan, and Mallary isn't the most popular duck ever (but not the least popular either). However, she was one of the first villagers I remember having in City Folk, and I've moved her in to both my New Leaf and New Horizons towns with her card because of game nostalgia alone.

Other than appearances and nostalgia, there's other reasons why a certain villager may be popular to most. Scoot is basically a meme on Twitch, Rosie is a poster cat who appears in every game plus the 2006 movie, Dobie's personality matches his appearance almost perfectly, etc. Opinions vary between players for sure, but I think those three are the major ones.

 

[Spongebob]

How they look. Since the villager personalities are so nothing in New Horizons, all you can rely on anymore is solely their individual aesthetics

 

[-Blue-]

The most popular villagers are the ones that have designs that strike out the most to fans and unrated villagers are under looked because a lot of people don't even know these villagers even exist because people only talk about the something 50ish top tier villagers out of all the over 400 villagers to chose from

also it drives me up the walls when people try and say they really like one specific villager because of their personality and they dislike other specific villagers of the same personality because those villagers are ugly all because their personality makes them ugly? No appearance is everything, all villagers of the same personality talk exactly the same and subtypes are barely different. If you like Marshal because he's smug then you should like the smug personality in general? But Rodney is ugly because of his Smug personality? No it's because you like Marshal's appearance not his personality ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yup it's superficial, but people dance around the subject because they don't want to come across or painted by vanity. It'd be great if they cut back on the roster and made all of the villagers more unique. Like give them a personality and backstory akin to something like Harvest Moon and it'd be so fun to try to see all of their differences.

Instead we get a bunch of reskins of the same personalities.

 

[Hunter_Gr33n]

I feel like it's a mix of personality (you'll see a lot of normal, lazy, and smug villagers high on the popularity charts), appearance (a lot of the more popular villagers have more appealing designs, meaning that Judy & Diana are way more popular than let's say Tasha, despite all three of them being snooties), and possibly novelty (plenty of newer villagers are popular, looking at you Raymond and Sasha).

 

[oath2order]

For a lot of people, it's the purely unique appearance. Coco, Julian, Marshall, that one cat with heterochromia. All have a unique thing for them that makes people love them.

 

[Yoshi155]

One word: appearance. If a villager is “cute”, this usually results in them instantly becoming fan favorites. For example: Raymond, Marshal, Judy, and Sasha. This also applies to villagers that are hated, it’s usually because of them not having an attractive appearance. These can include Hazel, Rodney (who is completely overhated, and most people who hate him probably never interacted with him), Jambette (who I actually dislike), and practically every hippo villager. Villagers considered mid are usually just not as cute as popular villagers or are just overshadowed by them. These are usually villagers I like. I think that popular villagers as a concept are really stupid. Just because most people like or hate a villager doesn’t mean you also should. Plus you’re meant to actually build friendships with villagers, not just like them because of how they look. That’s a pretty bad relationship.

 

[moonz]

The only thing there is to judge is their design, after all villagers got the same quotes as any other of their personality type!

 

[TiredStudent]

its all just appearance imo, there are people who seek out different personalities and try to fit a theme. My first island was named New Bork and I had exclusively wolves and dogs on it

 

[pawprints]

It’s how they look. I get it. I think most “ugly” villagers are kind of cute and prefer them to the more popular ones, so I think that I, too, fall into that trap, just the reverse way of some others!

 

[QueenCobra]

I think it's a combination of "cuteness" and uniqueness. For example, villagers like Muffy, Coco, Raymond, Stitches, etc. aren't stereotypically cute, but they're popular because their appearance makes them stand out. However, these unique appearances can also make a villager either loved or hated, depending on who you ask. I love Pietro-- but a lot of people don't because they're "afraid" of clowns or just don't like him. And then, Ankha's ancient Egyptian look is captivating-- or more than captivating in some Internet communities....

Some stereotypically cute villagers:
--Molly
--Apple
--Lily
--Merengue
--Dom
--Roald
--Francine
--Chrissy
--Marshal

Some unique villagers:
--Pietro
--Coco
--Muffy
--Stitches
--Raymond
--Frita
--Ankha
--Petri
--Monique

Some criminally underrated villagers:
--Tucker
--Sprinkle
--Midge
--Bertha
--O'Hare
--Bonbon
--Shari
--Flora
--Caroline

 

[KittenNoir]

I would say how they look and the colour theme they have is what makes them popular also if it is harder to find them on mystery islands and in the campsite.