Hasan demands that this headline exist somewhere, and so it does. Here is a statistical analysis of over 210 million facebook accounts which one can query by country etc. Pakistan’s lists of group likes are quite instructive: Vin Diesel, for example, beats out the Prophet Muhammad. “I really hate slow computers” tells you something more.
Pakistan’s aggregated Likes contain nothing along “national” lines. Contrasted, with Afghanistan, which has “Afghanistan”, “Pushto”, “Pushtuns”, and local figures like Sardar Muhammad and Ahmad Zahir etc. India has the iconic national hero Zoozoo. Also, look at the relationships between Pakistan and US and further notice the lack between Pakistan/Bangladesh/India/Afghanistan. Bangladesh is the only country with a noticeable graph towards India.
And we are done.
Omar February 10, 2010 at 11:18 am
Very nicely done. I love it. You should dig up more of these interesting factoids…seriously.
lapata February 10, 2010 at 8:31 pm
You might even want to go on a factoid finding mission.
Qalandar February 10, 2010 at 9:52 pm
Harpers for the internet age!
BTW, what do “relationships” signify in the above map? i.e. is that people in one country emailing folks in another, doing anything that goes through servers in another country, or something else?
Conrad Barwa February 11, 2010 at 12:29 am
I am still reeling in shock that Manan would rather spend an evening with Zaid Hamid than Megan Fox!
elizabeth February 11, 2010 at 10:20 pm
more hilarity: neither Megan Fox nor any hot laydeez appear in the top ten fan pages for Turkey. Instead, we have: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; football team; another football team; Hz. Muhammad (pbuh); the Turkish Flag; Atatürk again (sans given names); yet another football team; a deceased but beloved comic actor (male); a popular television serial based on The Count of Monte Cristo; and finally (wait for it) ATATÜRK (the allcaps version).
I leave the drawing of conclusions as an exercise for the reader.
sepoy February 12, 2010 at 3:14 am
Seems like Vin Diesel enjoys far greater popularity _across_the Islamicate countries then Megan Fox. Do we have a new envoy of peace? I think so.
omar February 12, 2010 at 9:15 am
As many of you know, analysis of pooled data from social networking sites and search engines is a hot field, already being used by public health authorities to track diseases (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMp0900702) and (no surprise) by smart companies to track new trends and find new ways to make money. I know that part or most of this particular discussion is in jest, but is there serious use of such data in your areas of academia?
To the extent that Sepoy wished to imply something serious in this post, can we assume that he believes that Pakistan is a “normal country” with “normal people”, who really do spend more time with Megan Fox than the prophet Mohammed and Zaid Hamid? Are any of the anti-imperialists on the list shocked by the implications of this? Or has everyone already accepted our ironic modern world as being the norm and regards projects of establishing the United States of the Ummah as little more than “politics by other means”? Just curious…
Facebook Diva February 12, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Megan Fox has more Pakistani fans [ON FACEBOOK] than Zaid Hamid.
Facebookers posts are often boasts
To impress
Not confess