Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Shocking Stat of the Day

Through an unexplainable series of events, I currently find myself looking at the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) listing for O.J. Simpson. From this page, you can access information on all movies and television programs that Mr. Simpson has ever appeared in (including an episode of Circus of the Stars!).

While it's certainly useful to know that O.J. appeared as himself in a 1977 episode of Celebrity Challenge of the Sexes, today's interesting stat relates to the website's STARmeter. As stated on imdb.com, the STARmeter reflects "what people are interested in, based not on small statistical samplings, but on the actual behavior of millions of IMDb users." In other words, if people check out your profile, your STARmeter rating will jump.

Now it's time to prepare to be shocked and appalled. If you're standing, sit down; if you're sitting, stand up; if you're drinking something, take a big swig so that your spit-take will be worthwhile. Yes, dear readers, this stat will leave you bewildered.

You see, O.J.'s popularity is down six-percent this week.

(Insert collective gasp from all readers of The Writings here.)

Yes, you read that correctly. Mr. Simpson's popularity is down six-percent.

This is horrifying.

How can people be so disinterested in O.J.'s acting career? Granted, his last acting role in a major motion picture was in Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult, which was released 15 years ago. And, granted, he's been involved in a couple moderately publicized legal snafus since that film's release, but does that really call for a decrease of interest in the man's filmography? The man was in Hambone and Hillie, after all: a film that's drawn a respectable 4.8/10 rating on imdb.com. 4.8! That's almost 5!

A six-percent drop in popularity... Crazy.



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