Am I a little too into this numbers thing? Probably. But whatever.
The subject of this, the third post in the Fun With Numbers series, is the recently released “The Celebrity 100” list by Forbes.
Forbes subtitles the article “The World’s Most Powerful Celebrities,” which intrigued me. How exactly would one measure “power?” Kilowatt hours seems like not such an appropriate measure in this case. So how exactly would they do it?
I looked at the list and decided that however they had done it had been wrong. Mostly because, for example, “Grey’s Anatomy Cast” came in 12th (it seems bullshit to lump them together, btw, but whatever), Bon Jovi (the band, not the guy) ranked 18th, and Phil Mickelson was 16th. This seemed wrong to me given that, by point of comparison for each of those examples, Jerry Bruckheimer ranked 39th (he could buy the entire “Grey’s Anatomy Cast” and have them put down and turned into glue if he wanted), U2 was 22nd (how they rank below Bon fucking Jovi with Bono running around saving Africa and convincing Bill Gates to give him money is beyond me), and, well, Phil Mickelson is Phil Mickelson (although if I must, Michael Jordan, an international icon who played a sport with more international reach, ranked 35th).
More? Fine. Michelle Wie, the most over-hyped, under-achieving, inconsiderate, disgraceful excuse for a golfer who has now been eclipsed (in skill, at least) by younger peers, ranked 70th. LARRY THE CABLE GUY, who might have power over a pack of beef jerky and a case of Busch Light, ranked 81st.
Most curiously, however, Bill Clinton ranked 55th. Right below Gisele Bundchen and Vince Vaughn, and right above Gore Verbinski and Will Smith. Right.
After my initial wave of confusion subsided, I went back and looked at the article text. It turns out that they rank the celebrities as follows:
“To generate the list, Forbes analyzes celebrity earnings, plus media metrics like Google hits, press mentions as compiled by Lexis/Nexis, TV/radio mentions from Factiva and the number of times an A-lister appears on the cover of 32 major consumer magazines.”
So there are 4 categories: Earnings, Web, Press, and TV. Fine. Even if you give Forbes’ people the benefit of the doubt by assuming they meant well when they defined web popularity by “Google hits” (whatever that means), press popularity as mentions “compiled by Lexis/Nexis” (which I’m pretty sure doesn’t archive The National Enquirer, or even Esquire or Cosmo–though I’m certainly not saying it should), and TV/radio popularity by, apparently, magazine appearances (which seems not so relevant), consider the following: Bill Clinton, who ranks 55th overall, ranked 5th in the Web category, 2nd in the Press category, and 2nd in the TV category. Gisele Bundchen, 2 spots ahead of him in the overall, ranked 41st, 92nd, and 92nd respectively in those categories.
The only discrepancy? Gisele banked $33 million during the calendar year starting in June 2006 (my clothes hangers are much cheaper, btw), while Clinton earned “only” $7 million.
I, sufficiently interested by that point, decided to do some statistical analysis. I won’t bore you, but for those who care, after I converted the money columns to a ranking (Forbes originally reported earnings in $ value terms) so the categories would be comparable, I ran a regression in Excel (yes, Excel does regression… I didn’t know either until a couple weeks ago). The equation I got had an adjusted R^2 of .974 (which is really good–1 is perfect on a 0-1 scale), and looked like this:
Overall = Earnings Rank (.68) + Web Rank (.22) + Press Rank (.18) + TV Rank (.20) – 14.4
The standard errors for the variables were all about .02, which makes me think that they weighted earnings somewhere between 3 and 4 times as much as the other three (and more than the other three combined), which they weighted equally.
How is this a good system?
If you’re basing this process on the idea that money is power, why even have the other categories? Particularly given that, for a really long time, Anna Kournikova and Britney Spears regularly dueled for the “most frequent search” title at Google (and even at their respective apexes they were hardly “powerful”), it would seem that the web category is largely useless. On the other hand, if you are going to have them, why not weight them in such a way that they make a difference in the way that the rankings come out? As it currently stands, the earnings rankings have an 87% correlation to overall ranking. Which, for example, explains how Phil Mickelson and his $42 million year ranked 16th.
I would have expected more from Forbes, but, after I thought about it, realized that was pretty stupid of me, given what Forbes is and does. But I don’t think it was too much to ask that they at least cast an eye over the results and realize that one of the most powerful people in the world, an internationally respected (although maybe that’s not the right word) goodwill ambassador, a compelling speaker, and, possibly, future first First Gentleman (I’m giddy about the prospect of that, btw) should rank higher than a model, the casts of Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives (can you name all 5 off the top of your head? Or all 6? I don’t even know how many there are), Alex Rodriguez (who, while able to hit home runs and able to almost singlehandedly keep my fantasy baseball team afloat, can’t even keep the NY Post off his ass), and Rush Limbaugh (who is a big fat idiot).
Although at least Oprah was number 1. So all is right in the world, right?
June 15, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Because you’re nitpicking, and because I have nothing better to do, I’ll nitpick too. Killowatt hours are a measure of energy, not power. Power is energy per unit time (watts), so watts times hours is energy again.
June 15, 2007 at 10:02 pm
DAMN IT. I was casting about in the far recesses of my head, where I pushed electromagnetism/physics and things relating to it, and I just kind of stabbed at it hoping for the best. Damn it. That was so unfortunate on my part. Clearly why I’m not an engineer. But damn it anyway.
June 17, 2007 at 2:30 am
I must disagree with your assessment of Rush Limbaugh. I find his show quite stimulating. I’ve been following it for a couple years now and haven’t found any reason to dismiss him as a “big fat idiot.” In my experience, the way the press covers him is much worse than what he actually says on the show.
Regardless, that stuff is a matter of opinion, and we can agree to disagree. What -is- shortsighted of you, though, is to assign him the same amount of influence as A-Rod and soap opera actors. He’s in the same category as Oprah and Clinton. Consider: he revolutionized talk radio. He’s the host of the most popular show in the country, with 14-20 million listeners each week, not counting the millions of people who read his transcripts on the Internet afterward. (NBC, ABC, and CBS News combined have a weekly audience of 22 million. The New York Times has a weekly circulation of 1.1 million.) It’s a hard news program that strongly affects people’s political opinions and actions and even their votes. You can’t say that about Oprah. Furthermore, Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the conservative movement. Bill Clinton has a lot of powerful friends; he’s fuelling Hilary’s campaign, and he’s the most popular American politician in foreign circles, but is he the face of an ideology? When was the last time Clinton mobilized his base the way Limbaugh did over the immigration bill?
Maybe Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot, but he certainly deserves a spot in the Oprah-Clinton tier.
June 17, 2007 at 2:45 am
Ah yes, this post reminds me of Time leaving George Bush off its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Yes, Time is no longer an intellectually serious publication, and yes, Bush sucks at his job, but having the power to veto all legislation and to send the armed forces anywhere for 100 days has to guarantee you Top 10.
June 17, 2007 at 3:41 am
“Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” is the name of a book by Al Franken that I was referencing… although I stand by the comment.
I guess I can’t bring myself to acknowledge as powerful someone as blatantly hypocritical as Limbaugh. Limbaugh has, for years, blasted those who use drugs, and, like the latent racist he is, supported mandatory minimums for drug offenders and advocated jail sentences for drug users… until he was the one who was addicted.
And I don’t think he’s quite the same animal as Oprah or Clinton. Oprah is an empire… her TV show is the tip of the iceberg. As much as some of Rush’s mindless minions probably fervently defend his moral hypocrisy, I would argue that Oprah’s are much more loyal to her. Clinton I don’t think is in the same category as either of them, as he is not in media as much as he is the subject of media.
As for Rush’s ability to influence votes/opinions, I would argue that Rush’s ability to do that is wildly limited by the fact that the only people who listen to his show are people who agree with him in the first place. Clinton, for example, through his stature and activities, is constantly in front of an audience comprised quite diversely of people who agree with him and people who would disagree with him just because he’s Bill Clinton (and everyone in between). Oprah, for her part, doesn’t present herself as politically influential; her power isn’t based on her ability to influence politics, so that’s a specious comparison.
And Limbaugh, by now, I think is getting to be in the Falwell category–they’re the figureheads, but not the grand pooh-bahs of the conservative movement than they used to be. Bill Clinton is still the most powerful Democrat in the United States; attempts to make the Democratic Party anything other than the party of Bill Clinton have failed miserably (see: nominating John Kerry). No politician in America can galvanize a crowd of Democrats the way Clinton can… I remember reading an article about how one of Hillary’s biggest problems is getting upstaged by Bill (something like this):
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2007/01/24/hillarys_dilemma_what_to_do_with_bill
Bill Clinton is, and, for the foreseeable future, will be, the face of the Democratic Party in the United States. And in many quarters, the face of America to the world. Whether you associated him with an ideology is almost irrelevant–it’s all about perception, and people perceive him to be The Man.
I understand your points about Limbaugh, but I still object to him being placed above Clinton. In a practical sense, Clinton has a far better chance of influencing policy on wide range of issues all over the world. In a wider sense, he’s more popular, has access to a far larger segment of the population (beyond just his “base”), and has a far greater stature as a former President than Limbaugh does as, well, a big fat idiot. Or rather, a big fat drug-addled idiot.
June 18, 2007 at 9:36 pm
“Limbaugh has, for years, blasted those who use drugs, and, like the latent racist he is, supported mandatory minimums for drug offenders and advocated jail sentences for drug users… until he was the one who was addicted.”
Are you implying that certain races are more susceptible to drugs than others? How does a position on this issue show racial preference? Regardless, here is a quote from an MSNBC story on Limbaugh: During the same [1995] show, he commented that statistics that show blacks go to prison more often than whites for the same drug offenses only illustrate that “too many whites are getting away with drug use.” He did show hypocrisy in castigating drug users, then using drugs himself, so no one should consider him as a moral authority.
In response to your claim that only people who agree with him listen to his show, there is anecdotal evidence – there are a couple callers each week who “converted” after years of listening to the show – but no hard data for either side. Though his audience is sympathetic, his show is broadcast nationally, so it -could- be heard by anyone. Clinton, though appearing before mixed audiences, does not have his speeches broadcast this way anymore.
Which is nitpicking. No, I wouldn’t place Limbaugh above Clinton, either, for the reasons you mentioned, and upon further review, Oprah is also more influential. But the fat man is no lightweight.