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‘Duck Dynasty’ vs. ‘Modern Family’: 50 Maps of the U.S. Cultural Divide
- VLM 10y agoMany of the shows are based on affinity or identity politics so the results are not terribly interesting. Unsurprisingly a TV show based on affinity for Louisiana or affinity for LA will have by far the strongest signal be predictable affinity for either LA area. Likewise the identity politics, its very hard to express surprise that a TV show carefully engineered to appeal to black people, successfully sells to black people, therefore the map of viewers extremely strongly resembles a population map of black people. If they had corrected for those effects THEN they would have had interesting data. I did find it interesting that "deadliest catch" correlates more strongly with latitude than distance from the coasts. I've never watched, but I'd assume its mostly set on a boat?
- vec 10y agoAs always, there is an XKCD that sends up this phenomenon: https://xkcd.com/1138/ https://xkcd.com/1138/.
- landryraccoon 10y agoI think the point is that the urban vs rural divide has not been the dominant conflict in America up until now. In the past other identity politics such as black and white or north vs south have dominated. Every state has rural and urban areas - why is it just now, in the early 2000s, that the urban vs rural cultural divide now dominates the cultural discourse? Duck Dynasty and Modern Family is just one more symptom of the cultural divide. It's interesting because it's a small part of a much larger conflict with major political and economic implications that have already been felt (most obviously, the recent US election). Also for me it's personally very interesting. I'm going to start watching shows that it would not have occured to me to watch, because it's one way to escape my own cultural bubble. Normally Duck Dynasty and Empire wouldn't be on my list, now they are - because it's a way to understand a culture that would normally be somewhat alien to me.
- protomyth 10y ago> I think the point is that the urban vs rural divide has not been the dominant conflict in America up until now Given the Connecticut Compromise at the start of the union, urban vs rural have been a part of the USA since the beginning.
- LyndsySimon 10y agoIt was also basically the conflict that began the Civil War. The South was predominately agrarian/rural and the North was mostly industrial/urban.
- kolbe 10y agoThey didn't mention it in the article, but a cursory glance makes Tosh.0 look like the battle ground map.
- 24gttghh 10y agoI really dislike these county maps. Darker color is shown as more fans, when in reality some of the largest, more intensely shaded counties have relatively few people in them. I believe it imparts a false impression of whatever the map is trying to inform the viewer on. edit: douche points out that these maps are not purely based on county lines.
- thomashusa 10y agoBut if you don't normalize by population, you just end up with a map of the most populous locations instead of a map of the highest popularity
- evgen 10y agoI think you don't understand what that word 'popularity' means...
- gmu3 10y agoI guess you don't believe something can be popular in a small community.
- evgen 10y agoIt can be, that doesn't make it popular in general. Duck Dynasty has zero viewers in my living room, does that make it an unpopular show? Having a small number of absolute fans in isolated clumps does not make something popular unless you specifically scope the definition to make it appear so.
- hellogoodbyeeee 10y agoI think some HN commenters are having issue with how the map legend is labeled. The key labels darker colors as 'more fans' when they mean 'larger fraction of fans'. I think NYT chose the right methodology, they just got lazy with the labeling.
- douche 10y ago
- minimaxir 10y ago> When we looked at how many active Facebook users in a given ZIP code “liked” certain TV shows How are they getting Like data from Facebook Pages that granular from Facebook?
- untog 10y agoBy asking them for it. IIRC, they did the same with various sports fandoms a while back.
- pklausler 10y agoThe maps are somewhat (ok, a lot) misleading because they show land area, not population. Duck Dynasty looks like a giant hit in Harney County, Oregon, but come on, there's only 7,146 people living there (2013).
- rubyfan 10y agoBut if almost everyone that lived there loved it the the the label is accurate. You think it's misleading because it doesn't convey a population density component?
- pklausler 10y agoYes, that's exactly what I'm saying. That map, at least at first glance, makes Duck Dynasty look like a giant hit in Oregon. You have to read the fine print to find out that it's essentially just because a bar in Burns has a satellite dish.
- pkaeding 10y ago> That map, at least at first glance, makes Duck Dynasty look like a giant hit in Oregon Well, it makes it look like a big hit in Harney County, OR, and a flop in Portland. Which appears to be accurate-- of the people in Harney County, lots of them watch Duck Dynasty. There isn't much fine print there.
- landryraccoon 10y agoIn the United States, land gets a vote because of the Electoral College and how senators are elected. Thus the map is not as misleading as you might believe. If you were only to look at population, you would conclude that Clinton won the election, but she did not.
- JPKab 10y agoAnyone on here know which Facebook API they were using for this data? I'd like to do some further research on the election outcome based on "liked" shows.
- landryraccoon 10y agoOddly enough, this map makes me think Trump is more intelligent than I thought. Educated urbanites made fun of the GOP for having a Duck Dynasty cast member as a convention speaker. In reality, that speaker probably had more appeal to the average Trump voter than any of the parade of elites that the Dems brought out for their convention.
- pjc50 10y agoSo what did the Duck Dynasty guy have to say about policy?
- virtuabhi 10y agoSo what did Sarah Silverman have to say about policy? Or any other celebrity endorsing a candidate? Looking for policy directives from celebrities is akin to taking medical advice from a barista.
- landryraccoon 10y agoUnfortunately, the Presidency is won by the most electoral college votes, not by the best policy. Optimizing a campaign for the best policy only wins to the extent that those gains translate to EC gains.
- coldtea 10y agoTheir opinion? Which is what matters in a democracy.
- pklausler 10y agoYou're right, but only because the E.C. gives disproportionate voting power to acreage. You can win the E.C. with only ~23% of the votes if you distribute them optimally.
- landryraccoon 10y agoThat's evidence that Trump's strategy was correct. The right strategy is to maximize EC votes, not the popular vote. Clinton won the wrong game.
- bostonpete 10y agoGiven the direct comparison to the result of the election in the opening paragraph, I was disappointed that they didn't quantify the similarity of each show's map to the electoral (county-by-county) map.
- golemotron 10y agoOdd that they chose African-American as a singled out demographic in addition to the urban/rural split. They could have selected Hispanic. It's a larger demographic.
- vowelless 10y agoWhich is why I find analysis of this nature to be very frustrating. I wish they could expand on why they did this.
- LyndsySimon 10y agoHispanic people tend to be more politically divided than those of African ancestry, who have historically voted as a bloc.
- Tempest1981 10y agoWatching late night TV, it's interesting how political Seth Meyers' show has become -- on par with Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah. Colbert is slightly less biting. Then Fallon, very gentle. Yet Fallon's ratings are still weak in the Duck Dynasty areas. (Being gentle doesn't buy him much?)
- danielweber 10y agoPeople know when you're making fun of them and tune out.
- vowelless 10y agoI am a liberal and even I have tuned out of these late night shows as I got sick of the low quality mockery of "the other side". I initially had high hopes from Trevor Noah but his race baiting approach to mockery (and I say this as a "person of color" if that means anything) just put me off. I've had a year without late night TV or "mainstream news" and frankly, I feel a lot better. I've been able to focus a lot on furthering my knowledge and experience in technical and scientific things.
- JPKab 10y agoMy issue with Trevor Noah and his ilk is they peddle the false, shallow version of "diversity" which is anything but. As long as a bunch of socioeconomically identical, young, childless, professional, and urban people have enough variance in the melanin content of their skin, they are a diverse group. Former military? Drive a pick-up truck? Grew up in a trailer? Yeah, nobody wants THAT kind of diversity.
- Tempest1981 10y agoThe tone of Colbert and Seth Meyers seems a bit more upbeat than Trevor Noah. I think Noah will wear on people sooner; to me his tone is more bleak/grim (ignoring content, which is sometimes insightful). His interviews have a more upbeat tone, IIRC.
- Tempest1981 10y ago
- phantarch 10y agoI'd be more interested to know which of the areas has the highest median fanbase of all the shows. Based on the conclusions this article wants us to draw, certainly that would be the "least culturally polarized" place in the U.S? Or is this just more data noise with very little signal value...
- pitt1980 10y agoTosh.0 (#10) has an interesting map seem not especially urban, but with a pretty sharp drop off right at the Mason Dixon line seems like maybe it perceived as too much making fun of southern culture? I haven't watched a ton of Ridiculousness (#13) but my impression of it is that it's a less snarky show with highly similar clip content and it seems to appeal to a much broader area of the country
- marme 10y agoSo it is confirmed watching videos of guys getting hit in the balls is universally funny among all groups. "Ow My Balls!" being most popular show in 2505 is looking like a very prophetic right now.
- racl101 10y agoNothing surprising here.