market research, talking points, and candied yams
You can vote for me here. By the way, someone completely shuffled the membership of all the tribes between the time I posted this entry-- which is more or less entirely based on the membership / prior-week polling dynamic of my previous tribe-- and the time the polls for this week were set up. Thanks a lot, Gary.
"God-DAMMit, Rev." I punctuated the second syllable, slamming the printout on Rev. LaRock's desk. My "goddammit" was so aggressive, so drawn out in its timing and pitch contour, it would have impressed even Bob Odenkirk. "Tied for 22nd place? How am I ever supposed to win back my hotanalcheerleaders.com sponsorship with numbers like these? Christ, Rev, I'm not even going to make it to week five at this rate." I laid my head down on the huge slab of glossy mahogany veneer and sobbed softly as visions of the week's single-digit percentage returns flashed in my head.
But Rev. LaRock just smirked, adjusted his JC Penney tie, stroked his neck flap gently and disturbingly. "Not to worry, Mr. Bidness. This race is just beginning... and so is our analysis. You got in touch with the right experts for the job, and did so just in time to save your campaign."
I managed to count my blessings and choke back my tears. "Rev, tell me what you know. How bad is it, really? Where did it all go wrong last week?"
"In some senses, Mr. Bidness, it's not nearly as dire as it looks. Of the 33 contestants in your so-called tribe last week, only six received greater than 20% approval from the voting base. And of course, it's difficult to ignore the fact that the winner of the round, rm, is packing no fewer than 565 mutual friends-- the largest friendbase of anyone in your tribe by a nearly 100% margin, and 21 times larger than your own 27-member friend list. If we adjust your polling result accordingly for this rm-friends-list differential, well, congratulations, Mr. Bidness! You've won the round handily, as you have just managed to win votes from 176.4% of last week's voters."
I spat and kicked his desk. "Christ, Rev... it figures. I haven't been around long, but seems in this business, it's never about who you know, is it? It's about how many people you know that are still pathetic enough to still be stuck on LJ in 2008. You know, all the people who are too nerdy or too insatiable in their comment-whore drive to have moved over to Facebook or something by now."
"Actually, Mr. Bidness, while rm's personal voter base is certainly awesome in terms of number, and this factor undoubtedly helped her landslide victory along as per usual, the top results from the first few weeks don't generally bear out such direct correlation of friend-list size to final measurable performance at the polls. baxophobia pulled down second place in tribe last week with only 141 friends, and kathrynrose was right behind her with merely 101 friends to count on. These are both well below the Tribe Five mutual-friend-list average of 184.73 friends, and most of the folks with 200+ friends placed solidly in the middle of the pack. Nearly identical results were seen in the first week of polling, too. So more friends does not necessarily equate to a higher polling rank, at least not at this stage."
"...Well, shit, Rev... your analysis just killed the convenient scapegoat of everyone who's gonna lose in the first ten rounds. So if it's not just a popularity contest this time out, then just what the hell is going on?"
"Mr. Bidness, my analysts believe that a more significant factor in your lackluster performance last week may involve your entry's unfortunate brevity."
"Look, Rev. I know I used to write more in my old entries, but thinking it over, most days, I really do believe less is more. And when I was a kid, my dad taught me something important. He said, 'Srs, once you go pointlessly making up lame fetish porn of any kind, end that fucking entry right away... before anyone's eyes pop out of their sockets from the uncontrollable rolling... and don't ever look back.'"
"Well, your father may have had a point, and in some sorts of races a connection with the adult entertainment industry can actually be more of a boon to poll performance than you might expect. But here's what we do know about last week's results.
"The bottom six entrants in the race-- at least, the bottom six who left their entries up for further analysis, as both gypsy_moon and changed_4good removed their entries following the polling-- these entrants all posted entries having an average length of 435.33 words. You were right in line with that losing word-count number at merely 461 words. The top six entrants in your tribe, on the other hand, averaged 1117.5 words in length with their entries."
My eyes rolled. "Yeah, Rev, I fucking noticed. Talk about an epidemic of tl;dr. Seriously, who the hell in today's troubled economy has the attention span to skim over 1118 words, let alone to actually comprehend or read any of it? You mean to tell me that the readers are just mindlessly voting for the entries that look like the most serious writing, just because they require scroll-wheel cruise control? This competition is nothing like the LJ real world. I once shot and killed a man for putting more than four consecutive paragraphs onto my friends page without an LJ-cut."
"Well, hrm, yes... it's actually true that there is a point of diminishing returns here, Mr. Bidness. The top three entrants averaged only 702.67 words-- still markedly more than the average length down at your losing end of the tribe, but not excessively so. As we move down into fourth, fifth and sixth place-- spydielives, lilmissmagic71, monkeysugarmama-- the word count goes up sharply into the 1000+ word range, with a direct correlation between more words and lower placement.
"It's because of this research," the Rev said cautiously, "that my fellow analysts and I think that there may be a magic length of entry that perfectly fits the expectations of an LJ Idol reader, and causes them to automatically associate the entry with good writing. It's early in the game, but we're starting with the hypothesis that an entry with the maximum chance of receiving votes should be exactly 702 and 2/3rds words in length."
"Wow. That sounds perhaps, um... less than credible scientifically... sort of like this 'intelligent design' thing I heard about a couple years back. So anyway, how are you planning to test out this hypothesis? Are you expecting me to sit there and count out every word I write for the next round?"
"No, Mr. Bidness. We would never use a paying client as a guinea pig. Using last week's top six ranked performances from within Tribe Five, we used our Markov-chaining speechwriting software to analyze the texts. This particular software package, while unable to write prose that can persuade or compel a listener of above-average intelligence, has written some carefully-modeled speeches that have proven very popular with Joe Six-Pack lately. We told the software to fully parse these six winning entries of the round, and then write an entry that has the appeal of all six winning entries through its own study and emulation-- an entry exactly 702 and 2/3rds words in length.
"If our theory is correct," the Rev continued, "then LJ Idol voters should be helplessly drawn to this synthetic-composite entry like a moth to flame. They will comment helplessly, finding meaning and universality in the prose, saying things like, 'This was SUCH a moving entry,' and they won't know why. They will find themselves adding our software to their friends list, as if an invisible force were controlling their hand in front of a touch-screen voting machine made by Diebold. They may even demand that clauderainsrm begin to include idol_hans as a mid-season write-in candidate. If this strategy proves successful enough with the polling base on our independently-operating platform, we can begin to incorporate some of these theories and technologies into a sure-fire winning campaign for you, Mr. Bidness."
"It really sounds like your team has thought of everything, Rev." I really was in awe-- compared to Morty, Rev. LaRock and his think tank seemed like the ultimate in consummate, and consummately sinister, professionals. "Is there anything else I should know going into the third round?"
"Yes, Mr. Bidness." At this, the Rev looked down sheepishly at his pile of bar graphs. "As we have been familiarizing ourselves with the happenings so far, the members of my team have noticed a certain... negativity in your campaign. Now, we also realize that this has been part of your platform from your very first press release in the previous season, and certain kinds of... 'dramatically' negative campaigning are certainly par for the course in the world of LiveJournal."
"Tell me about it," I chuckled. "Only two rounds into this thing and I've already OD'd on reading Darkly Profound Personal Confessions. I swear I haven't hated the world or wanted to off myself this badly since Disintegration dropped in '89. And I was in fucking high school when that happened."
The Rev was not to be derailed. "...However, Mr. Bidness, your unique brand of cynicism has grown more pronounced this season, and we worry this may not be playing well with voters in your key demos. We think something needs to be done to lighten the mood generally in your campaign... perhaps... well, perhaps something needs to be done to you."
Sure, OK, what do I have to lose, I thought. I've always wondered, personally, if an old-fashioned lunch-hour lobotomy might do me some good. The door to the right of the desk opened up, and I cringed, expecting to see perhaps an ex-televangelist with a sterile icepick in hand.
Instead, it was... OMFG, it was Cherille. CHERILLE!
She had always been my favorite Hot Anal Cheerleader®. And now, some time had passed - hell, she might actually be past the age of consent now.
I'm sure that my eyes lit up the entire office. "Rev! How did you know? How did... how did you get this through HAC.com HR? They have strict policies, these exclusivity agreements..."
The Rev smiled and put his hopefully-recently-washed finger to my lips. "Never underestimate the power of Rev. LaRock. You can thank me later. Just enjoy her... and use this energy for your campaign." He flicked his neck flap slightly, leered at Cherille noticeably, and then left us in his office to ourselves.
Cherille beamed at me, did the splits backwards on LaRock's desk, and perkily placed her poms in such a fashion as to direct my attention to the hidden yet willing cavity I'd had the chance to trace so intimately in our too-brief secret moments the previous season. Then she fell backward into my arms.
Our endless love, with all of its giggling and jiggling, had been forbidden back then. Well, just the love was forbidden, of course... the anal sex was sorta unofficially part of the whole endorsement deal.
And as my first "moment of bliss" in... waaaay too many months unfolded deliciously right onto my lap, I couldn't help but be amazed at the Rev's strategic blunder. If I had Cherille, well... what the fuck did I care about getting back to endorsing hotanalcheerleaders.com?
See the data behind this entry: http://stashbox.org/255078/LJI-T5-week2.xls. If you don't have Excel, just Google-and-grab OpenOffice already, or you could just try to read the delimited text version.
"God-DAMMit, Rev." I punctuated the second syllable, slamming the printout on Rev. LaRock's desk. My "goddammit" was so aggressive, so drawn out in its timing and pitch contour, it would have impressed even Bob Odenkirk. "Tied for 22nd place? How am I ever supposed to win back my hotanalcheerleaders.com sponsorship with numbers like these? Christ, Rev, I'm not even going to make it to week five at this rate." I laid my head down on the huge slab of glossy mahogany veneer and sobbed softly as visions of the week's single-digit percentage returns flashed in my head.
But Rev. LaRock just smirked, adjusted his JC Penney tie, stroked his neck flap gently and disturbingly. "Not to worry, Mr. Bidness. This race is just beginning... and so is our analysis. You got in touch with the right experts for the job, and did so just in time to save your campaign."
I managed to count my blessings and choke back my tears. "Rev, tell me what you know. How bad is it, really? Where did it all go wrong last week?"
"In some senses, Mr. Bidness, it's not nearly as dire as it looks. Of the 33 contestants in your so-called tribe last week, only six received greater than 20% approval from the voting base. And of course, it's difficult to ignore the fact that the winner of the round, rm, is packing no fewer than 565 mutual friends-- the largest friendbase of anyone in your tribe by a nearly 100% margin, and 21 times larger than your own 27-member friend list. If we adjust your polling result accordingly for this rm-friends-list differential, well, congratulations, Mr. Bidness! You've won the round handily, as you have just managed to win votes from 176.4% of last week's voters."
I spat and kicked his desk. "Christ, Rev... it figures. I haven't been around long, but seems in this business, it's never about who you know, is it? It's about how many people you know that are still pathetic enough to still be stuck on LJ in 2008. You know, all the people who are too nerdy or too insatiable in their comment-whore drive to have moved over to Facebook or something by now."
"Actually, Mr. Bidness, while rm's personal voter base is certainly awesome in terms of number, and this factor undoubtedly helped her landslide victory along as per usual, the top results from the first few weeks don't generally bear out such direct correlation of friend-list size to final measurable performance at the polls. baxophobia pulled down second place in tribe last week with only 141 friends, and kathrynrose was right behind her with merely 101 friends to count on. These are both well below the Tribe Five mutual-friend-list average of 184.73 friends, and most of the folks with 200+ friends placed solidly in the middle of the pack. Nearly identical results were seen in the first week of polling, too. So more friends does not necessarily equate to a higher polling rank, at least not at this stage."
"...Well, shit, Rev... your analysis just killed the convenient scapegoat of everyone who's gonna lose in the first ten rounds. So if it's not just a popularity contest this time out, then just what the hell is going on?"
"Mr. Bidness, my analysts believe that a more significant factor in your lackluster performance last week may involve your entry's unfortunate brevity."
"Look, Rev. I know I used to write more in my old entries, but thinking it over, most days, I really do believe less is more. And when I was a kid, my dad taught me something important. He said, 'Srs, once you go pointlessly making up lame fetish porn of any kind, end that fucking entry right away... before anyone's eyes pop out of their sockets from the uncontrollable rolling... and don't ever look back.'"
"Well, your father may have had a point, and in some sorts of races a connection with the adult entertainment industry can actually be more of a boon to poll performance than you might expect. But here's what we do know about last week's results.
"The bottom six entrants in the race-- at least, the bottom six who left their entries up for further analysis, as both gypsy_moon and changed_4good removed their entries following the polling-- these entrants all posted entries having an average length of 435.33 words. You were right in line with that losing word-count number at merely 461 words. The top six entrants in your tribe, on the other hand, averaged 1117.5 words in length with their entries."
My eyes rolled. "Yeah, Rev, I fucking noticed. Talk about an epidemic of tl;dr. Seriously, who the hell in today's troubled economy has the attention span to skim over 1118 words, let alone to actually comprehend or read any of it? You mean to tell me that the readers are just mindlessly voting for the entries that look like the most serious writing, just because they require scroll-wheel cruise control? This competition is nothing like the LJ real world. I once shot and killed a man for putting more than four consecutive paragraphs onto my friends page without an LJ-cut."
"Well, hrm, yes... it's actually true that there is a point of diminishing returns here, Mr. Bidness. The top three entrants averaged only 702.67 words-- still markedly more than the average length down at your losing end of the tribe, but not excessively so. As we move down into fourth, fifth and sixth place-- spydielives, lilmissmagic71, monkeysugarmama-- the word count goes up sharply into the 1000+ word range, with a direct correlation between more words and lower placement.
"It's because of this research," the Rev said cautiously, "that my fellow analysts and I think that there may be a magic length of entry that perfectly fits the expectations of an LJ Idol reader, and causes them to automatically associate the entry with good writing. It's early in the game, but we're starting with the hypothesis that an entry with the maximum chance of receiving votes should be exactly 702 and 2/3rds words in length."
"Wow. That sounds perhaps, um... less than credible scientifically... sort of like this 'intelligent design' thing I heard about a couple years back. So anyway, how are you planning to test out this hypothesis? Are you expecting me to sit there and count out every word I write for the next round?"
"No, Mr. Bidness. We would never use a paying client as a guinea pig. Using last week's top six ranked performances from within Tribe Five, we used our Markov-chaining speechwriting software to analyze the texts. This particular software package, while unable to write prose that can persuade or compel a listener of above-average intelligence, has written some carefully-modeled speeches that have proven very popular with Joe Six-Pack lately. We told the software to fully parse these six winning entries of the round, and then write an entry that has the appeal of all six winning entries through its own study and emulation-- an entry exactly 702 and 2/3rds words in length.
"If our theory is correct," the Rev continued, "then LJ Idol voters should be helplessly drawn to this synthetic-composite entry like a moth to flame. They will comment helplessly, finding meaning and universality in the prose, saying things like, 'This was SUCH a moving entry,' and they won't know why. They will find themselves adding our software to their friends list, as if an invisible force were controlling their hand in front of a touch-screen voting machine made by Diebold. They may even demand that clauderainsrm begin to include idol_hans as a mid-season write-in candidate. If this strategy proves successful enough with the polling base on our independently-operating platform, we can begin to incorporate some of these theories and technologies into a sure-fire winning campaign for you, Mr. Bidness."
"It really sounds like your team has thought of everything, Rev." I really was in awe-- compared to Morty, Rev. LaRock and his think tank seemed like the ultimate in consummate, and consummately sinister, professionals. "Is there anything else I should know going into the third round?"
"Yes, Mr. Bidness." At this, the Rev looked down sheepishly at his pile of bar graphs. "As we have been familiarizing ourselves with the happenings so far, the members of my team have noticed a certain... negativity in your campaign. Now, we also realize that this has been part of your platform from your very first press release in the previous season, and certain kinds of... 'dramatically' negative campaigning are certainly par for the course in the world of LiveJournal."
"Tell me about it," I chuckled. "Only two rounds into this thing and I've already OD'd on reading Darkly Profound Personal Confessions. I swear I haven't hated the world or wanted to off myself this badly since Disintegration dropped in '89. And I was in fucking high school when that happened."
The Rev was not to be derailed. "...However, Mr. Bidness, your unique brand of cynicism has grown more pronounced this season, and we worry this may not be playing well with voters in your key demos. We think something needs to be done to lighten the mood generally in your campaign... perhaps... well, perhaps something needs to be done to you."
Sure, OK, what do I have to lose, I thought. I've always wondered, personally, if an old-fashioned lunch-hour lobotomy might do me some good. The door to the right of the desk opened up, and I cringed, expecting to see perhaps an ex-televangelist with a sterile icepick in hand.
Instead, it was... OMFG, it was Cherille. CHERILLE!
She had always been my favorite Hot Anal Cheerleader®. And now, some time had passed - hell, she might actually be past the age of consent now.
I'm sure that my eyes lit up the entire office. "Rev! How did you know? How did... how did you get this through HAC.com HR? They have strict policies, these exclusivity agreements..."
The Rev smiled and put his hopefully-recently-washed finger to my lips. "Never underestimate the power of Rev. LaRock. You can thank me later. Just enjoy her... and use this energy for your campaign." He flicked his neck flap slightly, leered at Cherille noticeably, and then left us in his office to ourselves.
Cherille beamed at me, did the splits backwards on LaRock's desk, and perkily placed her poms in such a fashion as to direct my attention to the hidden yet willing cavity I'd had the chance to trace so intimately in our too-brief secret moments the previous season. Then she fell backward into my arms.
Our endless love, with all of its giggling and jiggling, had been forbidden back then. Well, just the love was forbidden, of course... the anal sex was sorta unofficially part of the whole endorsement deal.
And as my first "moment of bliss" in... waaaay too many months unfolded deliciously right onto my lap, I couldn't help but be amazed at the Rev's strategic blunder. If I had Cherille, well... what the fuck did I care about getting back to endorsing hotanalcheerleaders.com?
See the data behind this entry: http://stashbox.org/255078/LJI-T5-week2.xls. If you don't have Excel, just Google-and-grab OpenOffice already, or you could just try to read the delimited text version.