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This is insanely cool. A social-networks theorist has studied the interlinkings between rappers — and found that their social ties are quite different from other people’s. Apparently, the most famous, well-connected rappers tend to avoid one another.
This isn’t how things normally work amongst creative professionals. In creative industries, we often see a supercharged version of the “six degrees” effect, because well-known creators frequently collaborate with one another. Their linkages are thus shorter than usual: Studies show that movie actors have only 2.5 links on average between them, versus 3.6 for company board directors and 5.9 for high-energy physicists.
So Reginald Smith at MIT crunched the figures on 30,000 rap songs to see what data he could glean. Sure enough, the artists had close linkages — it only took 2.9 links on average to connect together rappers together. But then he found an interesting quirk, as news@Nature reports:
Where the rap network differs from these others, however, is in a property called assortativity. This is a measure of how mixed the collaborations are between highly connected and less connected people. In assortative networks, well-connected individuals tend to prefer to make links with others similar to themselves. [snip]
There seems to be no such pattern for rappers. Smith suggests that this might be partly due to commercial competition between successful artists, who are reluctant to lend their cachet to a rival.
But he points out that the aversions of successful rap artists may go deeper than that. Feuds are common in the business, such as that which existed in the mid-1990s between artists signed to Death Row Records in Los Angeles and those with Bad Boy Records in New York. Such rivalries have sometimes led to violence and even murder.
It’s also true that hip-hop producers frequently spend their creative time nurturing new talent, which would be a much more benign reason for their lower assortativity. Either way, it’s a damn interesting piece of research.
(Thanks to Steve Emrich for this one!)
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
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January 31, 2010 » 07:29 PM
V. A. To me death seems to be an evil.
M. What, to those who are already dead? or to those who must die?
A. To both.
M. It is a misery, then, because an evil?
A. Certainly.
M. Then those who have already died, and those who have still got to die, are both miserable?
A. So it appears to me.
M. Then all are miserable?
A. Every one.
January 24, 2010 » 03:22 PM
One of the more interesting trends is family, which came in at number five. Specifically, discussion about family, moms, dads, daughters, etc. jumped during 2009. With Facebook users getting older, this isn’t a big surprise. However, the fact that the mention of “kids” jumped by a factor of five this year is rather dramatic. It’s tough to know what this means, though. (via Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009
)
January 15, 2010 » 01:36 PM
BEYOND AWESOME. They are announcing a recall of the Plush Uterus “due to a potential choking hazard for children”. To apply for it, “Please send an email to the address below with the subject line, ‘UTERUS OPT OUT’”.
January 14, 2010 » 10:04 PM
“To order, please TYPE “YES” IN CHECKBOX BELOW TO AGREE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS PLUSH MUST BE KEPT AWAY FROM KIDS (it is a sex organ, after all). If it is not checked, WE WILL NOT SEND THE UTERUS.” (via @ibogost)
January 11, 2010 » 01:45 PM
I watched Space: 1999 back in the day, but I swear to god I do not remember this scene.
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