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The 2010 Demographic Survey Results Are In ...

By Dustin Rowles | Miscellaneous | June 7, 2010 |

By Dustin Rowles | Miscellaneous | June 7, 2010 |


Who knew all it took to throw a mean shindig around these parts was to post a survey? You folks fucking dig on demographics. We had a much bigger turn-out than I was expecting, and while the results mostly confirmed our suspicions about the nature of our readership, there were a few surprises.

The male/female make-up of the site still skewed heavily female, though not as heavily female as in years past — it’s about 60/40, which always comes as as surprise to me. The writing staff is well mixed, gender-wise, but save for Stacey and Agent Bedhead (and Ranylt), most of the female writers are more recent additions. I’m going to take it as a compliment, meaning that the male writers here generally do not attract the same crowds that dominate other male-dominated sites, like Fark. The age demographic was in line with expectations, too: Nearly half fell into the 25-35 bracket, while a tidy 30 percent were between 19-24. I appreciate, too, the two percent of our high-school readership, who must hold some disdain for their own age bracket to camp out here very often, especially where the 19 percent of the older readers keep telling them to get off their goddamn lawns.

Most of the regular commenters were probably surprised to learn that they make up only 4 percent of the readership, and I suspect it’s much lower than even that, as the regular commenters were more likely to participate in the survey. There is a silent majority here, folks. And they’re quietly judging us.

The genre question I obviously fucked up by including romantic comedy and drama in the same category, which is why I tried to make up for it with the follow-up survey. Combining the results from both questions reveals that indie fans and sci-fi geeks are heavily represented, and if you add the comic-book geeks and the gamer geeks together (assuming, as I do, that there’s a lot of crossover) that’s a fairly heavy segment of the readership, too. The latter is not so quiet about their judgment of me (thank God for TK, who has the comic knowledge, and Steven, who has the sci-fi knowledge, and Prisco, who covers the hell out of those unseen indies). Horror movies are not particularly that popular around here, although from my own observations of the overall site statistics, reviews of mainstream horror movies are not as well trafficked, relative to their mainstream exposure, as the indie horror flicks are. I’m always pleased by that statistic, and the Splice review confirms that.

The readership is also a left-leaning and independent one; props to the conservatives for tolerating the rest of us (and to most of the liberals for not pissing in the conservatives’ Cheerios on a daily basis).

More than half of you attend the movies at least once a month, while the other half gets to the multiplex less than a handful of times per year. Another survey question revealed that there are far more of you that see movies on Netflix or by downloading them than see them in theaters. We’re going to work on syncing ourselves a little better with the online movie-watching crowd, though I’m not so sure how to yet.

What else? Oh, 64 percent of you really read the site at home instead of at work? I honestly thought it be closer to 80 percent reading at work, considering that our traffic numbers peak during the time that both the East and West coast readers are at their offices (12 - 4 EST). You’re also a cynical, very well-educated bunch with fewer tattoos, overall, than I expected. The literary snob contingent — among a lot of other factors — also suggests that you’re very well read.

The most telling statistic for me, really, was the question about what your other blog preferences are: About 70 percent put down either Go Fug Yourself or the AV Club. I can’t really describe why that’s telling, but it sure feels like it must be. Right?

And, as far as the celebrity questions go: Your preferences are Jennifer Aniston, Robert Downey, Jr. and Team Jacob. Jacob? Really? (I’d have said the same thing if it were an Edward majority).

So, how could we describe the average Pajiba reader? I dunno. I doubt you could distill it, but I’d say: Well-educated, liberal leaning, well-read, cynical smaller-budget movie fans that really don’t care for The Human Centipede and are very judgmental.

How’s that for a target audience?