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I’m a kind of data junkie but I wasn’t always one. In undergrad and graduate school I studied the least ‘data’ friendly of academic disciplines: religion. My life was spent reading and writing papers and analyzing the cultural production of texts. Blah blah *insert euphemism for overly intellectualized b.s. here* In my post-grad school life, I have worked and currently work as some kind of Excel chart making, data analyst and I love it. The beauty of number crunching is its simplicity: the margin of error for Foucault quoting and critical theory infused analysis is practically non-existent. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Michael Foucault but sometimes the b.s. levels are little too high.
More important than data analysis is data representation. Data representation is key: What is the best way to visually represent x to an audience of y? I love great data visualizations but more importantly, I love it when data junkies use their skills to have a little fun with pop culture like the example above. Randall Munroe, a data junkie, has created “some interesting (and humorous) graphics describing the paths that characters in movies (Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Primer) intertwine.” Dude, basically plotted out what happens to characters in movies. The Lord of the Rings diagram is quite impressive, even if it’s totally nerdy.
The 12 Angry Men diagram is my favorite. I feel sort of inspired to something similar with this blog and my social media behaviors. On second thought, maybe that’s a super lame idea.
Source:
Matthew Hurst -> Twitter-> Via Google Reader/Rss Feed-> XKCD
-Posted by Christina D.
