About MorrisonFilm

MeHello, my name is Shawn. This is where I put things. This site has been active since 2002. A lot has changed since then but basically I'm still writing ridiculous articles about ridiculous things. You can also look at my Flickr photostream which is a lot of fun if you aren't blind.

This site uses Simplelog, a simple Ruby on Rails weblog application. I explain why I use it in this entry. This site is hosted by Dreamhost.

I've made 4 short films that are currently available online. I also host a semi-regular comedic podcast with Garrett Murray that has a 5 star rating on iTunes!

Results (escape to close):

Choose a tag to view all posts with that tag.

2006, 24, 24fps, 2stars, 30fps, 3stars, 4stars, alanball, aliens, alig, americanidol, apple, archives, areyoukiddingme, autobiography, baby, baked, baseball, batman, battlestargalactica, birthday, bloglated, blurb, books, brooklyn, cardinals, cheese, childhood, christmas, cms, coffee, comedy, computers, conan, contest, conversation, death, drawing, eaten, environmentalism, etiquette, film, filming, flickr, flip4mac, food, football, freshdirect, fridaynightintervention, games, garrett, giftideas, goodnews, google, goreadthis, gowatchthis, guest, haha, halloween, harrypotter, hbo, health, help, hilarity, howto, humor, ilikethissite, imix, instructions, iphone, ipod, iwantthis, japan, justwriting, kittens, lies, links, list, listen, london, lost, maniacalrage, manny, math, matsuzaka, matt, merchandise, mets, milestone, mlbtv, money, moviereview, mrtv, music, mystery, netflix, numbers, nyc, ohjesus, omfg, oneyearagotoday, orioles, paris, photography, photos, playlist, podcast, politics, ptanderson, questions, quicktime, rants, read, reading, recipe, redesign, redsox, religion, rightnow, rogerebert, sachabaroncohen, scary, science, selfreferential, shortfilms, show, simplelog, simpsons, sixfeetunder, sketch, smoking, snl, soderburgh, sopranos, sorry, space, sports, starbucks, superbowl, supernatural, terrorism, thecity, theheavens, theonion, tips, topten, trailer, tv, vampires, vidcast, video, wallpaper, web, whoops, wii, wilco, wine, winter, woodyallen, work, writeroom, writing, wtf, xpad, yankees, youtube, zelda

Idol outvotes the president?

I think I found the source of the “More people vote for American Idol than for the president” myth. The headline of this Guardian article is “American Idol outvotes the president”. Their basis for this headline? Fox counted more votes for American Idol’s final round (which took place in 2006) than Ronald Reagan received in the 1984 presidential election. Yes, that’s as absurd a comparison as it sounds. That’s what’s commonly referred to as cherry picking. Not to even get started on the inflated nature of Idol votes.

Their copy of the Guinness Book of World Records must be a bit old too. They claim Reagan received the most votes of any US presidential winner is history. Yet, oh gee, only 2 years ago both Bush and Kerry got more votes each than Reagan did in ‘84. Their claim could not possibly be more wrong. Yet that headline got out there and people are still repeating it as fact.

Too bad I didn’t catch this 8 months ago when the article came out.

Tags: americanidol, lies, politics


A Sign of the Times

They say more people vote on American Idol than vote in the presidential election. That’s what I keep hearing at least. Then, just now, it struck me as one of those bullshit phrases that people repeat without questioning. So I looked it up. According to Wikipedia, there were a total of 63.5 million votes cast for the final round of American Idol, the highest total of any of the 5 Idol seasons. 122.3 million people voted in the 2004 presidential election. So roughly twice as many people voted for a presidential candidate as voted for an American Idol contestant. Now factor in all the under 18 votes that Idol is getting, plus the fact that you are allowed to vote as many times as you want on American Idol and suddenly it’s not only a completely invalid comparison but it’s not even close.

Likely someone heard the total vote count for the entire season of American Idol (all 12 rounds of voting — as high as 580 million votes last season) and compared that to one presidential election. Or even more likely, someone just made it up because it sounded good.

Either way, it isn’t true, and now you know.

Tags: 30fps, americanidol, ohjesus, politics