Gawker: charts and graphs

100 Jamie Lynn Spears Headlines Analyzed

marypilon — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:15:14 EST

With the news that Britney's little sister Jamie Lynn Spears was preggers came an avalanche of media insanity. Will we have not one, but two Spears vaginas to keep track of now? Whose baby will fetch more cash for tabloid photos? Whose baby's daddy will have the worse rap career? And what about Gramma Spears' bookdeal? Let's take a look at the sibling rivalry and the JLS reaction.

Click to enlarge!

This chart reveals the thrust of more than 100 of the most recent headlines for stories on "Jamie Lynn Spears." Even though a hearty 12 percent of headlines were generic announcements of her being impregnated, 15 percent were comments about her getting knocked up as Brit's sister.

Some highlights:

TMZ interviewed Uncle Odus:

He tells us the family was "shocked' and yet "we aren't." As a pastor, Uncle Odus says he's seen "this type of thing" more often than he'd like.

Papa Bear O'Lielly added her to the pinhead club:
On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet. Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves.

But Mary J. Blige was there to offer support:
"Stay strong, baby girl. If that's her choice (to keep the baby) then congratulations. Hope she's responsible and I hope she understands what that brings.

So what's older brother Bryan Spears up to these days?

What Is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Blogging About?

marypilon — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 11:30:50 EST

Now that it's clear that Iran stopped building nukes in 2003, one wonders what everyone's favorite muppet-like (and perhaps hot) dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has really been up to. Well, he's sure been busy blogging! Ahmadinejad's Personal Memos manages to hit on everything from the Zionist conspiracy to clumsy Shakespeare references—and of course he's very popular with the commenters. Let's take a closer look!

Begun in 2006, Ahmad's blog contains a mere 13 posts. But each entry is epic in length and is available in four languages. (Though cat pictures speak in many languages!) Here are some highlights, in his own words:

From Autobiography, 8/8/06:
I remember one day, when I was in first grade, by looking through a newspaper - with the help of the adults in our house- I read the news of the capitulation passage by the shah's so called "parliament."
With hope in God, I intend to wholeheartedly complete my talk in future with allotted fifteen minutes.

From Some Notes, 10/1/06:
I thank you for your remarks and explanations. Of course you reconfirmed that you are an independent council. It's interesting for me.

On the Holocaust:
The question is that in the world war the second more than sixty million people were killed. Out of these sixty millions two millions were among military personnel and the rest were civilians who did not have anything to do with war. These civilians were killed differently and they were respected. Now why we shall focus on certain number of people. Another question was that if you claim that this incident is real, why no impartial groups are allowed to investigate on it? Why European citizens are put behind bars only because of expressing their views? This occurs while we are allowed to question the most proved realities of the world. We allow every one to investigate and raise questions on God, prophets, freedom of human being, human being democracy and human rights but we do not allow anyone to question or investigate a historical event which happened sixty years ago. This is a big question. We think if this is a real incident we can present and prove it more clearly through researches and investigations. But here we face the main question which is raised by no one: this incident happened in Europe but the Palestinians are paying the price.

From Meeting with University Students, 10/18/06
A young student is pure, unpolluted and sincere. He is just and the supporter ‎of oppressed people. The spirit and vitality of these youth and their hopes for the ‎future can bring any obstacle down to its knees.

From Bureaucracy at People's Service, Not the People Serving Bureaucracy 11/21/06:
But in reality, the people's problems have not been solved. This is a dangerous issue which I have noticed since I was the mayor of Tehran and even before that time it bothered me. And I have tried to break with these erroneous customs and wrong ‎imported "innovations", and free the government administration from the web which ‎has tangled its operations. Sometimes I succeeded and sometimes I could not.

And like any new media guru, Ahmadinejad invites commenter participation from around the world. Here's what the followers of the hottest .ir are saying:

"I knew you were telling the truth."

"I come to your blog just for a glance, its so liberal of you to think of the idea of setting a blog. I didnt pay much attention to international politics before, but I find you a very intelligent and smart president~ Wish Iran and you all the best!"

"die slow ..."

"You are a nigger"

"I hate you. you are retarted. that simple mentally retarted"

Consider this RSS feed subscribed!

For Thanksgiving, A Craigslist- Pumpkin Pie Chart!

marypilon — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 11:48:59 EST

Sure, Craigslist can tell us where to find that missed connection, a holiday gig, an iPhone or a strictly platonic encounter, but can it tell us what New Yorkers are thankful for this year? The answer lies in Craigslist's Rants and Raves section, where the lively banter revolves around everything from burning a hoo ha to images of hippos. Out of gratitude, I've concocted a festive pie chart of over 100 recent Rants and Raves. Full breakdown and exerpts after the jump.

Click to enlarge.

Some highlights:

On hipsters:
What a thought. Both female and male hipsters rubbing their cheese-encrusted genitalia together, the female hipster generally disappointed with the size of the male hipster appendage and the male hipster generally pissed off that yet again, a female hipster turned out to be not so nice under all the layers of deceptively complex hipster clothing. Pasty, cheese-encrusted etc.

...Imagine two filthy hobos gyrating in mud in the buff, you're on the right track. What's that smell.....smells like boiled onions??? Yep that's right boiled onions! Every hipster knows what I'm talking about....their filthy little secrets!

On Indians:
...I now knew she did it bareback, so to speak. Anyhow, to the nasty ass Indian who just started shit on this board, CARE TO COMMENT ? Don't EVEN say anything about whores or whatever, just tell us how badly you treat YOUR women, huh ?!!!!!! You POS no deodorant wearing scum under peoples shoes. P.S. IMMIGRATION is WATCHING.........

On she males:
I really like the passable she-males I have been out to the movies with one named Valerie. She is 5'11 latina she-male and NO ONE could tell the difference she has big 38DD boobs nice hourglass figure and an ass bigger than most women I know.. She has a tattoo on her breast with the name of her ex todd. Sometimes she takes the 7 train watch for her you may see her ;)

On being a corporate executive:
I make $800,000 per year, which is well below average for most CEO's. For a forty hour week, that comes to about $384 per hour. You working class drips are just jealous they we were smart enough to take control of your nation's wealth and resources. Whether we inherited most of our money doesn't matter. You should have gone to Yale like I did instead of wasting your days working in that restaurant.

On what to do if you toast your hoo ha with Nair:
This sounds bizarre, but really works: after aloe vera to get rid of the worse stinging, save your own URINE (!) and dabb it onto the little muffin in the evening. You'll see, by the next morning it will start healing. You should dabb some urine on every day for 4-5 days.
Wont smell, just make sure you let it dry before you put undies/clothes on.
No creme will heal skin problems as fast as urine!

Happy Thanksgiving.

'ANTM' Contestants Are Growing Steadily Fatter!

Emily Gould — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:30:28 EST

No, not you, Tyra Banks! You are looking positively svelte on this cycle of ANTM, even adroitly covering up your "vagina arms" most of the time. (Your stank attitude is another story—that moment on last night's episode when you corrected Twiggy's pronunciation of "Bianca" was salty. She has a British accent, okay?) Anyway, Intern Mary has compiled the body mass indexes of every contestant on every cycle since the dawn of America's Next Top Model. A BMI of below 18.5 is considered underweight, fyi.

Exactly What Makes James Lipton So Irritating

Joshua Stein — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:05:23 EST

Our Intern Mary has applied her sharp analytical mind and excellent Excel skill to Inside Inside, the wretched memoir by Inside the Actor's Studio host James Lipton. We've already examined the man's choice in epigraphs (pretentious), his favorite holiday (ridiculous) and his taste in women (whorish). But now the hard data is in.

This data is culled only from the first chapter but one can fairly extrapolate that similar proportions will be found throughout the 464 pages of the book. In one paragraph on page 8, he mentions: Ibsen, Chekhov, Shakespeare, Moliere, Aeschylus, Goldoni, Sheridan, Wilde and Maeterlinck.

[Click to enlarge]

Marketers ID Scary New Strain Of "Super Gays"!

Choire — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 13:40:29 EDT

A marketing firm just interviewed 926 of the gays and found out some things! 70% of them preferred their T.V. shows to have some gays on them. 51% of the gay dudes were single, while only a quarter of the lesbians were. Also the gay men spent more time in bars! They all love "Grey's Anatomy" and Toyotas and Bank of America and Calvin Klein and ads with people snuggling and with rainbow flags really appealed to them! (Blargh!) AND THEN they divided respondents into different types of gays and created the best graph ever in which we discover a new virulent class of SUPER GAYS.

How can you stand the shame?

What Do Celebrities Blog About?

Emily Gould — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:33:00 EDT

"That's how she rolls. Just when you least expect it, Mariska throws you a curve. Over the years, I've come to expect nothing less from the hardest working—and needless to say, hottest—perp-buster on TV." That's from the "blog" of T.V. star Mariska Hargitay, which is written solely by people who are not Mariska Hargitay (but who may know her!). "Preorder your 'XO, M' t-shirts!" reads another "blog" post. It turns out that a lot of celebrity blogs aren't blogs at all, but just a collection of markedly amateurish press releases. But! At the other end of the spectrum, some celebrity blogs are deeply personal, like Al Roker's. He recently wrote a moving eulogy of his mom there! Its gravity is only slightly undermined by the cartoon of Al in a prop plane buzzing around the screen. So what else do famous people do with their personal webjournals? Our Intern Mary applied her analytical tools to the most recent posts on 48 of these sites and came up with some findings.

Click to enlarge.

METHODOLOGY: We started with this list of 66 blogging celebrities, added a few faves, eliminated the Huffington Post bloggers, and excluded presidential contenders, because that shit is bananas. Here's the raw data:

David Beckham - recent soccer game (self promo)
Zach Braff - movies and playlists
Mark Cuban - dancing
No Doubt - recent recordings (self promo)
Moby - indecipherable poetry
Meredith Vieira - getting a mammogram
Fred Durst - indecipherable rant
Barbra Streisand - Rush Limbaugh - PR release
Jeff Bridges - recent casting (honorable mention for rad site design)
John Mayer - OJ Simpson watch
Rosie O'Donnell - "feel alright" video
Margaret Cho - Rosie O'Donnell
Dave Barry - Fun pets
Jamie Oliver - pubs
William Shatner - ShatnerVision
Alyssa Milano - Upcoming gigs
Dave Navarro - The fastest Asian-American in the world
Julia Sweeney -long-winded narrative of regular events
Donald Trump - purely self promo
Tom Green - video: hiding in a suitcase
Kevin Smith - long-winded narrative of regular events
Mariska Hargitay - purely self promo
David Byrne - sexual selection and creativity
Curt Schilling - purely self promo
Anna Kournikova - purely self promo
Roseanne - Karen Finley (awesome)
Kanye West - the "illest" shoe award
Billy Morrison - the Bahamas
Jason Mraz - whining about jetlag
Kathy Griffin - Catholic Chuch
MC Hammer - "Look University"
Pamela Anderson - purely self promo
Al Roker - eulogy to mother
Brian Williams - purely self promo (N.B.: Usually not self promo, actually quite good, we just caught him on an off moment)
The Dixie Chicks - purely self promo
Anderson Cooper - the GOP (written by minion)
Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen - purely self promo
Victoria Beckham - purely self promo
Bare Naked Ladies - photo of a ship
Deepak Chopra - genetics
Michael Moore - purely self promo
Tommy Lasorda - baseball
David Duchovny - purely self promo
Jackie Chan - purely self promo
Kirstie Alley - weight loss
Neil Gaiman - writing
Ru Paul - "THIS SHIT IS BANANAS!" (bonus points: old school blogger!)
Mark Hoppus - purely self promo

TMZ v. Perez Hilton: Which Should You Be Reading?

Emily Gould — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:44:04 EDT

There are many important factors to take into account when deciding which trash gossip blog best suits your needs. Like: how many times per day would you like to hear about Amy Winehouse? Rosie and the Gays? "Icky icky poo" Bob Barker? How do you feel about the word "shiteous?" Intern Mary has made one of her signature charts, tallying 50 consecutive posts on Friday from both Harvey Levin's AOL/Telepictures (Warner Brothers)-owned gossip site and Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr.'s own place on the web. Which queen of new media should you prefer? It's like, are you hungry for Funyuns or those Andy Capp fries?

Click to enlarge.

Going Dutch Is Never Okay, Except When It Is

Emily Gould — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:00:52 EDT

Boy, y'all sure had some feelings about whether or not it's ever acceptable for a man and a lady on a date to split the tab! As you recall, my position was "Yes, of course, what century are we living in?" Your positions ranged from "I thinks the man should pay, but only if he is getting some" to "Men should pamper me like the princess I am!" to "I am gay and happier about it because of this post" to "Is this Jezebel?" We recruited Intern Mary to help us discern the misogynist forest from the self-hating trees.

The people have spoken!

What Does Bill O'Reilly Really Say About Black People?

Choire — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 13:41:03 EDT

Fox News motormouth Bill O'Reilly is upset—he says that his recent remarks about those oh-so-well-behaved black people in Harlem were totally taken out of context! So we wondered: Well, what context were they in? Searching through the Fox transcripts, using the terms "Black, "African" and "African-American," and discarding comments about Africa (such as about Darfur or the IMF), Intern Mary itemizes the way in which Bill O'Reilly has talked about black people.

As a bonus, some of our favorite O'Reilly moments:

"Black Americans are understandably sensitive about any racial comment made by a Caucasian because of past history. It is true that the most vile things imaginable can be said about the white majority without any consequence, but America has a different set of rules for different groups." —10/4/05

"With single black women now heading 54.4% of all African-American households, the seeds of social chaos are deeply planted... Forget about counting on parents, that's a pipe dream. The truth is that many parents are addicted to the pipe or the bottle or to pursuing an irresponsible life. Even Bill Cosby can't force a screwed up mother or father to be responsible." —7/8/04

And of course: "Senator Barack Obama seems to be a nice guy; I won't say he's 'articulate,' because some African-Americans hear that word and take offense. In fact, I won't give the Senator any compliments other than the nice guy description, just to be on the safe side." —2/8/07

Who's Advertising In the 'New York Times Book Review'?

Emily Gould — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:40:06 EDT

This weekend brought us the first iteration of the smaller, cuter Times book review. Last week we learned that the bestseller lists were being revamped and expanded, at the cost of one editorial page, in an effort to appeal more to advertisers. But who's actually placing ads in those pages?

We'd always thought, based on cursory flips through the Review and a few years of working in publishing, that putting an ad in the Times was mostly something mainstream publishers did in order to appease diva authors. Most of the ads have always seemed to us to be for books on tape and books selfpublished via iUniverse and for Bose speakers. So we had Intern Mary tally up the ads in three consecutive Reviews. And:
We were right.

Pitchfork Has Way More Reviews Written By Guys Named Mark Than By Ladies With Any Name

Sheila — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:40:49 EDT

Pitchfork, the music site "often compared to Rolling Stone in its prime," can, they say, make or break an album. But rarely do we get to see the men behind the curtain. Men, you say? Oh yes, we say. Our Intern Sheila checked genders on 10 business days of Pitchfork's bylined reviews from each of the last two months, as well as from March, 2007 and from September, 2006. In each of those periods, reviews by men named Mark appeared at least twice as frequently than any reviews by women. The good news: Pitchfork appears to have doubled its contributions by women in the last year—their lady-numbers have jumped from 4% to 8% of all bylines! Wowza!

September 2007
50 reviews sampled
4 by women - 8%
7 by dudes named Mark - 14%

August 2007
50 reviews sampled
3 by women - 6%
6 by dudes named Mark - 12%

March 2007
50 reviews sampled
2 by women - 4%
10 by dudes named Mark - 20%

September 2006
50 reviews total
2 by women - 4%
9 by dudes named Mark - 18%

I trust we've all learned something here?

Which New York Newspaper Has The Most Accurate Weather Forecasts?

abalk — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:57:14 EDT

Each morning we wake up, open the front door, grab the newspaper, look at the forecast for the day's high temperature, and dress based on that forecast. (Occasionally we also shower.) And every day, around noon, we find ourselves complaining that we're too hot because the paper was completely wrong. So we asked Intern Mary to track the weekday results of the city's three major papers and the New York Sun against the actual high temperatures over a two-week period. She also looked at the online predictions, for those of you who get your news that way. Her findings may surprise you!

Online
The Daily News was the worst offender here, deviating an average 6.78 degrees from the day's high. The Post and the Times, both of which use AccuWeather for their online predictions, were the closest, with only a two degree deviation. Overall, the online temperature matched the actual high a pathetic 10.25 percent of the time, giving a ninety percent chance that forecasts are off by at least one degree. Special mention goes to the Sun, which was 23 degrees off on Aug 21st and 21 degrees off on Aug 22nd.

Average Variation By Paper
1) Daily News: 6.78 degrees
2) Sun: 6.53 degrees
3) Times and Post 2 degrees

Print
The Post takes the title here, being off an average of almost four degrees from the day's high. The Times is the most accurate, with an average 1.54 degree difference between forecast and reality. Overall, the print temperature matched the actual high only 17.3 percent of the time. So print temperatures are more accurate than online temperatures, but are still wrong more than 80 percent of the time.

Average Variation By Paper
1) Post: 3.77 degrees
2) Daily News: 2.62 degrees
3) Sun: 2.61 degrees
4) Times: 1.54 degrees

What's the lesson here? Watch T.V. NY1's "Weather On The Ones" is usually right, right? But if you can't stand to do that, maybe you actually have to buy a newspaper!