I
want you, for just a moment, to consider percentages when it comes
to popularity. After all, we’ve been taught time and again that
the majority rules. Right?
Well,
of course not. That’s absolutely not true.
Yes,
the idea is that the majority rules. But as we all know, not everyone
is included. Some people don’t, for whatever reason, don’t take
part. And the result is that the idea of a majority isn’t a majority
of all, but rather becomes clearing fifty percent of those taking
part.
Now,
for purposes of this little essay, we aren’t going to wander too
deeply into material. Just looking to have a pleasant conversation.
So rather than wondering too much about it, let’s shift into an
example to get some ideas in place for later.
Game
of Thrones. That was just a massive part of the entertainment
landscape for many years. We all heard about it. Do you know which
episode is noted as having the most viewers, and, how many viewers
that is? As you might expect, it’s the final episode. Cleared
19 million viewers.
That’s
pretty impressive.
Actually
though, it’s estimated that about 13 million watched it live,
and the final total of 19.3 million is arrived at thanks to on
demand access and such.
Still,
13 million, 19 million, Game of Thrones, great stuff.
Right? (Hint: this is where we are going to bring in that fluctuating
numbers of a majority concept.)
Game
of Thrones was a massive cultural experience during its run.
Massive. Huge. Impossible to escape even if you weren’t watching
it huge.
In
the United States during the seasons it aired, the population
was over 300 million people. That means, for this pop culture
juggernaut of a must watch, less than 10 percent of the population
watched it end. In fact, more precisely…
19.3
million is the specific credited figure… U.S. population at time
of airing was roughly just above 325 million… and that means less
than 6 percent of the American population watched it.
This,
however, isn’t about Game of Thrones. I’m just fascinated
about how some of the biggest pieces of entertainment news often
only require a relatively small percentage of the whole to pay
attention for it to be considered a runaway success story.
Game
of Thrones never broadcast an episode where viewing figures
were determined to be above ten percent of the population. And
yet if you walked around the country, looked at the entertainment
news and internet, you would think it was being watched by a vast
majority of the population.
Truth
is, numbers are funny things. If you got one-third of a percent
of the population to buy something you made, in the United States
alone you’d clear one million sales.
So…
if 94 percent of the population didn’t see it… if 99.7 percent
of the population didn’t buy it… where are we drawing the lines
to measure success? And, how are we determining what everyone
is paying attention to… must pay attention to… when an
insanely strong percentage have shown they don’t care.
Success,
that’s a tough word. But the concept is there. We get told something
is all the rage. Who set the marks to determine that?
In
the end, you shouldn’t feel ashamed or left out if you happened
to miss the latest thing. Whatever it is, the reality is, most
of us missed it.