Culture Archive:
Peace Corps Volunteers
In: Culture Employment
16 Mar 2011The ebb and flow of volunteers and regions served.
What if There Weren’t So Many White People?
In: Culture
15 Mar 2011OkTrends has once again produced some interesting analysis of it’s online dating data – many pretty charts analyzing why white people are so popular. The narrative and conclusions are a bit complex, so I’ll let you go read them yourself.
Books Everyone Should Read
In: Culture
15 Mar 2011David McCandless aggregated over 15 "top 100" reading lists to see what the consensus is.
There is No God
In: Culture
11 Mar 2011The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey has some interesting statistics on the atheists, agnostics, and “spiritual but not religious” among us. Interestingly, non-belief in god does not seem to correlate with income, education, political party, or your upbringing – but is most strongly related to age and gender. Somewhat bizarrely, 33% of the “nones” are of Irish descent. (via Sociological Images)
What People are Liking on Facebook
In: Culture Internet/tech
11 Mar 2011Yahoo labs examined over 40 million likes on 45 different news/blog sites to see what people are interested in. The most popular article: “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior”; “New Zodiac Signs” was #2. Yes, this means our civilization is doomed, but in the meantime there are some interesting findings about articles’ social popularity and lifespans, and recommendations for more efficient social marketing (barf). Below are word clouds for the New York Times and Engadget – colors indicate how many likes the word received, size indicates how many articles the word appeared in. They have similar clouds for 27 different sites. (via Data Pointed)
Chart of average article social lifespans:
Artist Ward Shelly draws some fascinating cultural flow charts, as I’ve mentioned before. I’m never quite sure what the size and width of the shapes are supposed to represent, but shit — they’re done by hand, comprehensive, and gorgeous. (via via)
Middle Eastern Demographics, Part 2
9 Mar 2011The Washington Post has updated the population bulge charts I mentioned last month. This time they are interactive, and include three additional countries (Egypt, Bahrain, Tunisia). Below you can see the big differences between Egypt and the United States.
Movie Barcode Art
In: Culture Innovative
9 Mar 2011Moviebarcode takes each frame of a movie, stretches it out vertically, then squashes them all together into a uniform block. I’ve read some criticism of these for not conveying much useful information (true), but I think they have value from an aesthetic point of view — particularly when comparing them to each other.
Here’s Snow White Bambi:
Kill Bill:
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Gender Gap
8 Mar 2011The Wall Street Journal has pulled together some interesting differences between the sexes concerning marital, educational, and employment trends.
Where are the Happiest People in America?
7 Mar 2011Gallup surveyed Americans on 20 different quality of life indicators (stress, depression, health problems, job satisfaction, exercise, etc), and the New York Times threw them all on a map for contemplation. Below is the composite “Well-Being index”. Thanks to Allison Stanfill for the link! (related article)
Gallup’s website compares the indicators over time:
A similar Gallup index of “US Satisfaction” was also recently visualized by Good:
Sexual Behavior
In: Culture
3 Mar 2011A new survey of 13,500 people regarding their sexual behavior by the National Center for Health Statistics is interesting to browse. Some of the headline findings: apparently virginity is making a comeback, and women are more likely than men to have had same-sex partners. (full report-pdf; via)
Child Brides
28 Feb 2011In some parts of the world, marrying young is commonplace. I couldn’t find the exact comparison for the United States, but the median age when married is 26 (2009). Wikipedia lists data for additional countries, if you’re interested.
Timeline: How Star Wars Changed the World
In: Culture
24 Feb 2011
Most Americans Don’t Have Passports
24 Feb 2011Only 30 percent of Americans have passports. The differences by state are about what you would expect (because of income, proximity to border, and small-mindedness). None of the states are very high – New Jersey was the highest, with just under 46%. (via)
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