My Little Statistics

[Starswirl the Trixie 974]

On another pony forum I saw someone post a Google Trends graph showing the growing popularity of MLP:FiM. I decided I'd make some of my own

 

For those who don't know, Google Trends analyzes the volume of Google searches for certain terms and compares their popularity. In other words, it shows changes in the number of times terms are searched for online. So here we go...

 

http://www.google.co...ate=2012&sort=0

MLP is more commonly searched for than Obama. Well, his first and last name at least; the term "Obama", naturally, receives more searches.

 

http://www.google.co...ate=2012&sort=0

Equestria Daily is more popular than four former US Presidents, all having served within the past 45 years.

 

http://www.google.co...ate=2012&sort=1

Who's the best villian: Nightmare Moon or the leader of al-Qaeda? Seems that the internet has decided.

 

http://www.google.co...ate=2012&sort=0

Rainbow Dash beats out the top three US government officials below the President: Vice President Joe Biden, Speaker of the House John Boehner, and President Pro Tempore Harry Reid. In fact, Rainbow was only beaten once during 2012 after a major news story (I think the State of the Union address).

 

Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh!

 

http://www.google.co...ate=2012&sort=0

Both princesses are more searched for than the President of China.

 

Pony Index

 

To monitor the changing popularity of MLP:FiM and Bronyism, I've created the Pony Index, a collection of five search terms related to the show and Bronies. For these graphs I used Google Insights, a tool very similar to Google Trends. Insights is better for this type of comparison because it allows one to look at the ratios of search terms for any given week much more easily. It's this quantitative analysis I'm looking for.

 

Here are the five terms:

*Equestria Daily, for obvious reasons

*Ponibooru, as I believe that it's the second top Brony website, and something Bronies will often search for.

 

*Friendship is Magic; I put this instead of "My Little Pony" because the latter refers to all four generations. The search volume could change drastically due to something totally unrelated to

MLP:FiM, throwing off the results.

 

*Rainbow Dash, to make the charts 20% cooler.

 

*Brony, for obvious reasons.

 

On Google Insights, 100 is the highest search volume at any date for any of the search terms. The search terms, for every date, have a number; this is the search volume for that term/date divided by the top term/date as a percent. The sum of all five terms makes up the Pony Index. A Google account is needed to view the numbers on the graphs. I measured the sum for each week in which a new month begins; for instance, the February number measures the week of January 28th-February 4th.

 

http://www.google.co...2012 12m&cmpt=q

 

2012

January- 208

February- 207

March- 221

April- 237

Halfway through April: 225

Incomplete data for this week (will have full data within 12 hours): 254

 

The March/April numbers are a bit high because those months just so happened to begin on temporary increases. But we can see that popularity for the show is steadily increasing, even if it's not at the rate we saw in Summer 2011.

_____

 

Please post any fun comparisons you have that illustrate the popularity of MLP or Bronies.

[Champion RD92 8,655]

Well, honestly, who cares enough about government officials to search them on Google?

[Twiliscael 3,960]

The government<ponies.

'nuff said.

Honestly, besides the government themselves, who looks that stuff up on the net?

[Starswirl the Trixie 974]

The government<ponies.

'nuff said.

Honestly, besides the government themselves, who looks that stuff up on the net?

 

Me.

 

And two other people in the world, I think.

[caesar15 231]

Try comparing it to...games?

[Raptor_a22 83]

I've decided to do an analysis about who thinks who is best pony in Australia

 

As Insight doesn't allow for six search terms at once, I've done thisfirst by comparing races (earth, unicorn and pegasus), then comapring the 'winners' to get Overall Most Popular Pony

 

Earth Ponies

Applejack: 27

Pinkie Pie: 36

http://www.google.co...;date=today 12-m&cmpt=q

Pinkie Pie is most popular Earth Pony with a 7.1% lead over Applejack

 

Unicorns

Rarity: 59

Twilight Sparkle: 19

http://www.google.co...;date=today 12-m&cmpt=q

Rarity has an overwhelming lead over Twilight Sparkle. 25.6%!

 

Pegasi

Fluttershy: 38

Rainbow Dash: 54

http://www.google.co...;date=today 12-m&cmpt=q

Rainbow Dash takes a 8.6% lead ahead of Fluttershy

 

Using some mathematics, I compared the popularity (based on the total number of google searches over the most recent 12 months)

It was a close one, but Rarity is the most popular pony in Australia, with a total score of 25.3%, closely followed by Rainbow Dash, with 23.1%

 

Looking at the trends of popularity for the five currently most popular ponies, it looks like Rarity and Rainbow Dash might have to face competition from none other than Fluttershy, as the number of searches for the quiet yellow pegasus has spiked this month, with everyone but Applejack getting less searches!

 

EDIT: I'll take a look at state specific as well.

Edited April 29, 2012 by Raptor_a22

[MVC NVMXD JVRXD 2,406]

I have never googled obama. I google all of those pony things in a day.

[FlutterDerpy582 89]

Well everypony, we did it. Ponies are officailly bigger then the president. Soon ponys will takeover the world, and the world will be a happier place.

 

Would put Sweetiebellsoon.gif here, but im on my phone Dx. A little pegisistance please!

[Whiteshade 1,426]

Rainbow Dash wants more ponies

[caesar15 231]

Australians would like rarity.

[Raptor_a22 83]

Okay, I've done the analysis of state specific, and it just goes to show how close the popularity of Rainbow Dash and Rarity actually is.

 

Excel Spreadsheet in my Dropbox

 

There isn't enough data from ACT, NT, SA and Tazzie to make a proper analysis though.

[letterone 1,203]

That made me laugh. A LOT. I guess people care more about ponies than the government. And ya know what? I'd rather have it this way.

[JhonHipster 124]

its intresting but who cares about goverment stuff. what about comparing us to other communitys and internet memes?

[Aureity 3,055]

Ehh...

There are lies.

There are bigger lies.

And then there are statistics.

[Raptor_a22 83]

72% of statistics are made up

4.8461% of statistics are too accurate to be true

I have a 4.5% inconfidence in the hypothesis that both of the above statements are false.

[I used to be a stranger 7,989]

This post has been redacted by the author.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Blue

[Raptor_a22 83]

Made this for a lark.

--snip--

 

This is awesome.

[Titan Rising 2,156]

Rainbow Dash and her pet tortoise 2012

[Simcity11100 771]

I actually took a look at what's being searched and compared Rarity with Rainbow Dash, and actually the reason why Rarity has more searches is because there are actually events that use the word rarity, so of course she has more searches.

 

Did you know that Russia and Chile are the only ones on the top ten to search Rainbow Dash only.

[Radiance64 7,052]

Ponies > Presidents, I thought that was common knowledge...

[I used to be a stranger 7,989]

This post has been redacted by the author.

Edited April 28, 2021 by Blue