I always laugh when
something is presented as a cultural must, only to find out the
numbers don’t really agree.
As one example, hit
albums.
Selling one million
records earns the designation of platinum status. It is absolutely
an impressive accomplishment.
In the United States,
the population is currently estimated to be around 330 million
people. So, if you sell ten million albums in the United States,
the media will be presenting you as an unavoidable steamroller
of success. There is simply no way, those same sources will argue,
that you don’t own the album. And yet, only three percent… 3%...
of the population will have purchased it.
We are being told
that the music is a monster, inescapable, everyone loves it success
while also getting statistics that show it was purchased by three
people out of every hundred.
Does that seem like
an everyone is buying in figure to you? Seriously, even if everyone
that purchased it made ten illegal copies of the album for friends,
we’d still only be around a third of the population having a copy.
We’d still be significantly short of reaching a majority having
possession of the album.
You may know the songs.
You may have heard it on the radio or even looked to see if you
could find a video of it being performed. That doesn’t mean it’s
what everyone is talking about.
The same idea applies
to movies and television shows and books and more. The reality
is top of the charts wildly successful does not honestly equate
to massively popular. But watch those with the pom poms and you’ll
see a different story.
This isn’t a critique
of things. The reality is best seller lists and box office tallies
can be impressive. I said it already, selling a million copies
of an album is impressive.
What I’m missing is
the math: If twenty million people are watching a television show
and two-hundred-eighty million aren’t watching it, how does not
watching it make you “one of the few” that isn’t?
Is it because we crave
discussion and disagreement, while finding comfort in agreement?
Consider pizza.
There are corners
of our communities where the discussion about pineapple on a pizza
reaches a threat at biblical swarm of locusts levels. Some people
take the abomination of a pineapple slice as an act worthy of
a fight. And yet, we all seem to believe that everyone loves pizza.
We may not all order pepperoni on it, but we all love it.
Pizza. We discuss
and disagree, but it’s because we all love it.
Right?
Of course not. Believe
it or not, there are people out there that don’t like pizza.
I have a belief about
puppies and young children. If a puppy or a child doesn’t like
you, that on its own is an acceptable reason for me to question
your character. (And if turns out you don’t like puppies… well…
strike two and it’s not looking good.)
And yet, it’s really
more a way of finding out what I have in common with people. We’re
all different, even when we have some similarities. (Although,
if you don’t like pizza or puppies, chances are very good we shouldn’t
be discussing the new show you’ve been watching.)