ClancyBoy

There have been so many people who conflate wide readership with quality. If many people like something, that is proof it is good! They must be doing something right! Yes? No?

Maybe not.

I have a different theory. It's a complicated theory, but I made some charts to try to illustrate my point. My theory is that popularity is more a function of how information travels through a group.

Imagine a matrix of people. Every person is a node in that matrix and is connected to other nodes.
If someone reads something they like, they will suggest that their friends read it. If that friend also likes it, he or she will pass it on. If not, the books fails to spread to the next node.

I have prepared three examples:





As you can see, this work of literature has failed to spread beyond a core group of people. There are others out there who would enjoy it, but they will likely never hear about it.




A wider readership, but there is still an idiot buffer that prevents it from being universally enjoyed.





As you can see, the drooling idiot network has made this book reach critical mass. Reasonably intelligent people will read it and recommend it, though less enthusiastically. The isolated brilliant persons who know it is dreck are no impediment at all to its spread.

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"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

mrd00d

lol - good theory

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Shawn

So, really, your point is: "I'm brilliant and educated... you're not!"

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The most frightening part of leaving a parent's home, to me, is not knowing where one's own home is.

mandax

I don't even have the energy to type all that is wrong with this theory. =]

Merforga

that's my opinion as well

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" Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great." ~ Mark Twain

HarryG

Nancy boy , you’re just a prat.

Mystery

You do realize you are in the middle group, so you are probably wrong, and if you aren't you are part of the "idiot buffet".

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Imagine what you could do if you didn't require sleep... Now calculate all the hours you've lost so far with sleep, Insomnia ain't seeming so bad now is it?

Truth-Teller

There are some insane people on these boards.

PaPa

Another white-hot report from the Professor of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Tediously Obvious.

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+1

Amour

Yeah, but the inclination to express his brilliance and superiority can usually be suppressed for a post or two, so we only have to deal with it like every other, or every third post.

Eloquent, PaPa.

Did you make those diagrams yourself, Clancy?

ClancyBoy

I did. It was a slow Friday morning at work.

Sorry you kids were so offended, it was merely an overproduced joke.

Edit:
And when did I ever express my brilliance and superiority? I'm just an unpublished hack.

__________________
"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

ClancyBoy

Since I have read 6 3/4 of the the Harry Potter books and never finished The Wasteland, I am in the middle group.

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"Mother Hitton's Littul Kittons wait for you down there. Little pets they are, little little little pets. Cute little things, they say. Don't you believe it. No man ever saw them and walked away alive. You won't either. That's the final dash, flash. That's the utter clobber, cobber." --Cordwainer Smith, Norstrillia.

Shawn

Yay!

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The most frightening part of leaving a parent's home, to me, is not knowing where one's own home is.

jesterscourt

I could see where you were going with this joke from the get-go, but nonetheless it was funny in its own way

Amour

Well, you certainly get some kudos for that, then.
I don't think anyone's offended. I'm certainly not.
Just needed to squeeze out an overproduced response to your overproduced joke.