2009..baby

The first post of the new year seems like a pretty significant event. I bet people who blog take days thinking up what their first post of the year is going to be. I guess it is symbolic. It is kinda like going to the mandir/gurudwara/masjid/church/kaballah center/generic religious gathering spot, on the first of January. Apart from thinking it will absolve you of your sins from the night before (yeah right, karma doesn't work like that...), that new year's visit to the temple is supposed to define your spiritual capital for the coming year. In a similar (perhaps blasphemous) way, the first post of the new year, often defines the blogging capital for the coming year. So, the first post is a pretty big deal.

Now, most bloggers would write their first post in January, thereby making the first post significant to the new year and new beginnings. Thus granting this first post meaning and importance beyond its actual worth. This blog, on the other hand, has completely avoided that pothole of significance. Thanks in large part to the laziness and general apathy of this blogger over the past almost two years. Not anymore! It may be March of 2009 but this blog has surged back to life and in order to showcase that surge-iness (sic), the first post of the blog will be about....drum roll, please...


Music that makes you dumb...ta, daaa!

(Click for bigger picture)

This chart compiled by a dude at Caltech takes aggregated facebook data about favorite bands from various universities and plots that against the average SAT scores. The result is this gorgeous representation of the kind of music smart people listen to and the kind of music dumb people listen to. I went to the University of Chicago, where the average SAT score is 1310-1500 (yay smart people!) so according to this chart Beethoven seems to be the predominant 'band' us UofC students patronize. I might get a lot of flack for this, but I can't help but feel that most of the people who say Beethoven is their favorite band on facebook are poseurs (for lack of a better word). I am not saying that I should be excluded from this definition of poseur - Ingmar Bergman is my favorite film maker on facebook...have I seen any of his films...not really. Who puts their actual favorite things on facebook, anyway. Isn't our facebook profile just a representation of who we want ourselves to be, what we want others to see us as, rather than who we are. I untag unflattering pictures of myself, pictures I don't want others to see. I always try to present my best side on facebook. Perhaps, these people that go to the so-called 'smart' schools feel that Beethoven is what people expect them to listen to or maybe I am just totally off base on this one...

Hey, I love Beyonce just as much as the next person but she doesn't occupy prime real estate on my facebook page...that honor goes to Dylan. Do I like Dylan more than Beyonce? Tough question...




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