The Celebrity Economy

Nymag has a great series of analyses on "The Celebrity Economy." It's a combination of my two favorite things: statistics and pop culture. My favorite is on the cost of celebrities' kids:

Expenses:

$70K–$130KFor each nanny­­—many stars double up. They pay more for English accents and graduate degrees. And discretion will cost you, too.

$95KTutor for Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s 5-year-old in Latin, Greek, sailing, and philosophy.

$600KPart of the pampering arms race: a solid-gold rocking horse for Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Blue Ivy.

$100KAnnual cost of a 6-year-old’s stylist. After all, the kid’s look complements the star’s.

Gains:

$11M
For baby pictures (if you’re Brad and Angelina, anyway).

$8M
The net worth of child star Jaden Smith. Shouldn’t a celebrity’s kid learn to foot some bills?

How inbred are superheroes?

At one point in my life I harbored dreams of being a comic book artist. I even had a comic book I wrote and illustrated published -- albeit through  a community college art class in ninth grade. Like all childhood dreams, eventually reality set in and the demons of self-doubt convinced me that comic books just weren't worth my time.

Like any aspiring comic book artist I read every comic book I could get my hands on. One of my favorites was The Uncanny X-Men. The thing that sets the X-Men apart from other comics is the sheer number of er, relations among the characters -- this character is that character's mother, this guy is that guy's brother from the future, etc. It was all very confusing and I though I never had the time or drive to investigate it, I was pretty sure that the X-Men family tree had some pretty tangled branches, if you get my drift.

My intuition was wrong. Samuel Arbesman has used a tool from the social sciences called Social Network Analysis -- most famously used to examine the influence of friendships on obesity in the Framingham heart study (click through for a cool graphic) -- to understand the family tree of the X-Men. They aren't as inbred as I thought they were. In fact, they have next to no inbreeding at all, which is a sharp contrast to real world examples like the lineages of pharaohs in ancient Egypt.

So glad to see that someone is lending their quantitative skills to these important questions.

Podcast Episode 3: Electile Dysfunction

The guys welcome Ben A. to the podcast as a guest host to discuss the the transition into 2012, the Republican primaries/caucuses, and a trivia quiz about big events from 2011.





Links from this podcast.

• Americans Elect
• The SOPA Bill
• Caucus/Primary Schedule
• Nominate a charity in the blog post

Featuring the songs "Just Had To Let You Know" (Lorenzo's Music) / CC BY-SA 3.0 and
"Roulette" (Lorenzo's Music) / CC BY-SA 3.0

Facebook is the top search term of 2011 (sort of)

Mashable reports that "Facebook" was the top search term of 2011. They must really have a lot of "mindshare," right? Well, sort of. This study really shows what kind of people use Google (primarily) to get to their favorite website, and not necessarily that they are looking for other information about that site. Other top searches this year included "facebook login" and "www.facebook.com".

Facebook has 800 million registered users, this is a year when practically anyone with a computer and an internet connection has an account. Many of those users know very little about bookmarking, or the advanced capabilities of most web browsers. We've all seen a relative trying to "surf the web". They pull up Internet Explorer and go to Google (or maybe google is their homepage) and type the full address of the site they want, then click the first result that appears. That's not exactly any indication that the user is any more invested in that site or that brand. And, while I'm a big fan of shortcuts and timesavers to reduce repetitive tasks like entering the same search term every time I use my computer, but that might not really be a priority for many users.

This kind of report is more of a reflection on the users of search engines and how people are using technology, not what they searched for. The study by Hitwise is pretty comprehensive, and defines the majority of top searches as "navigational search," which seems to hit on what Mashable's article misses.  Its also unfortunate that the study didn't include mobile searches, which is rapidly growing and becoming the primary means of search and experiencing online content.

Podcast Episode 2: "Student" Athletes

Jordan, Ed, and Dean offer smart suggestions, discuss the smart and not-so-smart moves of the week, debate the merits of paying college athletes, have a smart showdown, and offer an apology for the last podcast. Featuring the music of Baba Brinkman. Links from this podcast:

Smart Suggestions

• Baba Brinkman's Rap Guide to Evolution (Videos | Music)
• Penny Arcade
• Downcast App

Smart/Not So Smart

• Albert Pujols/Ryan Braun
• Amazon's 5% day (Also: mTurk)/Rick Perry's "Strong" Ad (Also: Brokeback Comparison)/The Romney-Perry Wager (Also: Poverty Line)
• Alec Baldwin's SNL Appearance/NASA Missing Moon Rocks

Smart Showdown

• Proposed Element Names
• Siri Abortion Clinic Glitch
• Herman Cain Puts Campaign On Hold
• "Merry Christmas" vs. "Happy Holidays"
• Top Baby Names of 2011

Giveaway: Win $25 in Amazon cash

Watch this: America in Primetime

Oh PBS. You never cease to amaze me. Starting tonight you can see a 4 part series talking about the major archetypes of american television called America in Primetime. Here is a description of tonight's installment:

Independent Woman

The evolving portrayal of women opens this look at TV's main character archetypes. Included: remarks from Roseanne Barr ("Roseanne"); Candice Bergen ("Murphy Brown"); Eva Longoria and Felicity Huffman ("Desperate Housewives").

The remaining episodes are "Man of the House," "The Misfit," and "The Crusader." Seems like a must-watch for anyone who truly loves TV. If tonight doesn't work for you, don't fret, they are re-airing the program multiple times throughout the course of the week. You can find programming information here.

(Soure: Kottke.org, nextdraft)

Kelly Clarkston is not a Lesbian! Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Clarkston's "old maid" status (at least in the realm of pop stars) has led many to question whether or not she is a lesbian. This seems to happen to stars a lot. Kevin Spacey comes to mind. The public proclamations suggest that 1) these celebrities care very much about the public's perception of their sexuality and 2) being labeled homosexual is still considered very taboo in our society. Makes me wonder how many people have gotten married just to avoid the stigma.