715: Numbers

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Numbers

Title text: The typical internet user (who wants to share) has an IQ of 147 and a 9-inch penis. Better than the reverse, I guess

Explanation

This comic use the popular search engine Google to show how many hits (or web pages) are returned as relevant based on a given search replacing <X> by different numbers.

Bottles of beer

The top one is of the old drinking song 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. In this song, the singers begin with 99 bottles and with each repeat of the verse, decrease the bottles of beer by one. The graph shows a slowdown at 66 bottles of beer, something highlighted. A spike occurs at 49 bottles of beer, which seems to be a popular variant (possibly due to 49 bottles taking about half the time that 99 would).

Boy/girlfriends

On the second row, the left graph represents how many girlfriends or boyfriends someone has had. They seem pretty similar, though the logarithmic chart may be working on that. There is a clear peak at four girlfriends.

School grade

In the middle of second row is a curve for how old (in grade) Internet users seem to be. Going purely by grade, the average is at 7th grade. However, using the notation of Freshman (9)/Sophomore (10)/Junior (11)/Senior (12), there's a notable resurgence.

Penis length

The graph on the far right of the second row describes Internet users talking about the lengths of penises that they have. 5-6 inches (~13-15 cm) is generally considered average, but it doesn't appear that way on the Internet. There is a general trend (also shown by the line), but the maximum, 9 inches (23 cm), peaks way above the trend line - indicating that guys think they can pull this one off, although 12 inches (30 cm) peaks way above the trend line as well. Probably because 12 inches equals a foot.

Cup size

The third row contains four graphs. The far left is the breast size of the Internet user. (This presumably refers to female users, since male breasts are not typically measured in cup size.) The actual breast size is generally considered a bell curve around a B or C cup, yet the hits on Google describe almost an exact opposite trend. Taken with the above male penis length and this describes a trend where either the "average" person posting information seems to embellish or the majority stay quiet. Typically those with small breast will complain, and those with large breast will complain or brag. Those that are content with a C cup do not need to do either.

I have never had a boyfriend

The second graph on row three is number of hits per (mostly) female Internet users talking about how old they are without having a boyfriend. There's a spike at 18. The comic was written in 2010; as of 2014 the spike does not exist. Google behaves very strangely in this case, as it shows two very different numbers for each search.

Age	First number reported by Google	Actual number of pages after advancing to the last one	First number reported by Google after clicking on "More results from answers.yahoo.com"	Actual number of pages after advancing to the last one (Yahoo Answers)
15	4	4	56,000	35
16	29,200	16	66,300	51
17	25,900	11	62,900	49
18	22,600	18	33,900	31
19	16,600	16	25,300	30
20	13,700	18	8,110	25
21	13,600	18	11,700	46

Glasses of water a day

Third from the left in row three is the number of glasses drunk per day. Many "health authorities" claim that 8 glasses of water a day should be the most healthy. This common misconception is not supported by scientific research. This is the subject of 1708: Dehydration and is also mentioned 1853: Once Per Day. In both these six glasses of water is mentioned first rather than eight. (New research...)

Number of lights

On the far right is a description of the number of lights. The spike at four is due to a famous scene from Star Trek: The Next Generation, episode Chain of Command Part II where Captain Picard answers that there are four lights, despite pressure to answer that there are five. This is itself a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, where Winston Smith is tortured until he "learns" to be unsure of the number of fingers being held up by his torturer, despite him only holding up four.

Number of problems

Bottom left is a reference to the popular Jay-Z rap song 99 Problems. It is the only reason that 100 problems only ends up second by more than a factor of 100.

IQ

Bottom right describes the IQ of the Internet goer compared to the average. By the definition of the test the average is 100 with a standard deviation of 15. However, the comic implies that the average claimed IQ closes in on 133 more than 2 standard deviations above the real average! This high average are thanks mainly to the million who has given their IQ as 147. There are four other peaks that are also labeled, and these peaks are the only other above 100,000 hits, but neither of these have much more than 200,000 hits. Apart from these five there are only 5 more with more than 50,000 hits. Note the log scale of the y.axis!

Many studies have shown that people today would score a higher average than 100 if they took the earlier test - an effect know as the Flynn effect. However, new tests from today should still average out to 100, as an IQ of 100 is defined as the average of any given IQ test.

The five labels: Why is 147 so popular? The maximum break in snooker is 147, but it is unlikely that this is known by enough to make a difference here. There is also a frequently repeated factoid that Albert Einstein scored an IQ of 147 but there's no real record or consensus of this. The 100 (the average) peaks out is obvious. 110 - ten more also makes sense. In general there are almost always more hits at every 5 and 10, than the two values before or after. 133 is a third of the way to 200, and also it will take you clear of the Mensa requirement for membership of 132 on the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales. Why 142 is popular is also difficult to say. Of course 42 is a special number for fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, so 142 for an IQ score could be helped to peak for this reason. Although then it is no longer 42... (But an IQ of 42 would be really bad!)

The scale of the graphs x-axis is completely off. This can easily be seen from the labeled points. Whereas 100 and 110 is close to the mark, the point labeled 133 is much closer to 140 than 130 (at about 138) and the 147 point lies clearly past 150 (at around 152). It is, however, for sure the scale that is off as there are the correct number of points between all five labeled points.

There is a clear point on the y-axis at 80, but then there seems to be a gap up to the next point, and there are also only 16 points between this first point and the point labeled 100. It thus seems that while there are in fact about 20,000 who claim as low an IQ as 80, then there are not enough who claims a score of 81-83 for them to be shown in this graph. The graph begins at around 80-90 hits because of the log scale so there could be some hits, but way less than the lowest point on the graph which lies close to 1000 hits. From an IQ of 84 and up to 168 there are a point for each IQ for a total of 86 points (with the point at 80).

Title text

The title text refers to the searches. It concludes that the average (male) internet user has a 9-inch penis and an IQ of 147. Humorously it continues to state that this is better than the reverse - having a 147-inch penis (over 12 feet or 3.7 m) and an IQ of 9 (only 2 % of the population have below 70).

Transcript

Google Result for Various Phrases:

{Each panel is a scatterplot of the described X against the number of Google hits, with trend lines. The scales vary.}

<X> Bottles of Beer on the Wall

[There are peaks at 1, 49, 73, and 99. A dip in the middle is marked "They lose steam at 66." After 99 is a steep dropoff. The largest peak is around 100,000 hits.]

I've Had <X> Boy/Girlfriends

[Both lines descend at roughly the same rate from 1 to 10, although the boyfriend graph is smoother; the girlfriend graph has a small peak at 4 and a small dip at 6. The peaks are between 100,000 and 1,000,000 hits.]

I'm in <X>st/nd/rd/th Grade

[The curve is a bell peaking at 7th grade and about 500,000 hits. A second line labeled "Including Junior, Senior, etc." follows the bell curve until the peak, then dips only slightly for 10th grade and resumes climbing.]

I Have a/an <X>-Inch Penis

[The line ascends shallowly from 100,000 hits for 3 inches to a peak of 180,000 for 9 inches, then descends steeply to 20,000 for 13 inches.]

I'm a/an <X>-Cup

[A has a few hundred thousand hits; the graph dips to a few thousand for C, peaks again around 100,000 for E, and then tails off.]

I'm <X> and Have Never Had a Boyfriend

[The graph is mostly a simple bell, starting and ending around 300,000 hits for 13 or 21, but there is a sharp peak of 700,000 at 18 (well above the trend line).]

Drink <X> Glasses of Water a Day

[There are barely any hits below 4 or above 12; between the two it rises steeply to about 1,000 hits, with a steep, narrow peak of 10,000 at 8.]

There Are <X> Lights

[The graph descends smoothly from several hundred thousand hits for 1 to about 10,000 for 10, except for a peak of about 1,000,000 for 4.]

I Got <X> Problems

[The plot is extremely jagged, with the largest peak of 10,000,000 hits at 99, another of 10,000 at 96, and 100 and 88.]

My IQ Is <X>

[A smooth curve starts and ends at a few thousand hits for around 85 and around 170, with the peak at several tens of thousands for 140, but there are several prominent outliers: 100, 110, 133, and 142 are all around 100,000 hits, and 147 is around 1,000,000.]

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Discussion

It seems pretty obvious that the spike at "I'm 18 and have never had a boyfriend" is thanks to porn sites. I don't think that has anything to do with "anxiety about reaching adulthood." ‎108.162.216.54 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I think it should be noted that many of the graphs use.an exponential scale of measurement, which destroys any credibility the visuals had in a quite posssibly intentional moment of internet satire. 199.27.128.190 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

I'm from Poland and when I was joining Mensa, the test score was in the Cattell scale, in which 148 is required to join. So that may be a reason for 147 ;) ArchieT (talk) 07:28, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I think it's a funny little coincidence, that the graph for breast size slightly resembles a pair of breasts 162.158.91.209 18:59, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Just for the record, for the people that didn't read the explanation; the correct number of glasses that you should have per day (on average) is 6. Beanie (talk) 11:49, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

The problem with any claim of a correct number of water glasses is that glass volume isn't standardized. For example, https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2d9bcf/mom_asked_for_the_largest_glass_of_water_i_can/:

The part that is always left out is that you already get that much fluid intake just from normal eating and drinking! The common misconception that you need to separately drink six glasses of water is flat out wrong and potentially even dangerous.

You should always drink 150 (german) (shot) glasses of water a day! Me^{[citation needed]} 08:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)