Books and Music That Make You Dumb

[Tigermike 4,240]

Books and Music That Make You Dumb

Anyone who has ever sought to justify their own musical or literary taste may find some solace in the side project of Virgil Griffith, a 25-year-old Caltech graduate student known for embarrassing numerous corporations with his WikiScanner, the database that tracks the sources of anonymous edits to Wikipedia entries.

With his two Web sites (which have crashed from too much traffic), Booksthatmakeyoudumb.virgil.gr and Musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr, Griffith used aggregated Facebook data about the favorite bands and books among students of various colleges and plotted them against the average SAT scores at those schools, creating a tongue-in-cheek statistical look at taste and intelligence.

BOOKS that make you dumb

MUSIC that makes you dumb

link to article

[Streyeder 0]

Books and Music That Make You Dumb

Anyone who has ever sought to justify their own musical or literary taste may find some solace in the side project of Virgil Griffith, a 25-year-old Caltech graduate student known for embarrassing numerous corporations with his WikiScanner, the database that tracks the sources of anonymous edits to Wikipedia entries.

With his two Web sites (which have crashed from too much traffic), Booksthatmakeyoudumb.virgil.gr and Musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr, Griffith used aggregated Facebook data about the favorite bands and books among students of various colleges and plotted them against the average SAT scores at those schools, creating a tongue-in-cheek statistical look at taste and intelligence.

BOOKS that make you dumb

MUSIC that makes you dumb

link to article

Always good to see a fellow Malleteer in the news. Well done Virgil.

[Wishbone 0]

Notice the correlation b/w rap music and being a dumb-ass.

[bigsixfive 341]

Notice the correlation b/w rap music and being a dumb-ass.

"Insane in the membrane... gone insane, got no brain!"

[OldNewby 27]

No wonder I feel so dumb when I read Dick and Jane and listen to A Ring Around the Roses .

[WinCrimson 61]

Lil Wayne's music is the dumbest? That's just the thing. If you criticize it when you don't understand it or even make an attempt to, the joke is on you. Those that appreciate his lyrics get this.

And keep in mind I'm one of those Wayne drones that will take up for his flow any day of the week. I connect more with his music than most other musicians and I'm constantly amazed at his creativity. There's more to rap music than chrome and hoes and that's what he provides.

So, no, music doesn't make you dumb. I piss on that idea. The world around you makes you dumb because you allow it to. Music just provides you with an avenue to do whatever you choose. It's that choice that makes you smart or dumb. Not the music. Don't blame the gun when you're the one pulling the trigger...

[Streyeder 0]

Lil Wayne's music is the dumbest? That's just the thing. If you criticize it when you don't understand it or even make an attempt to, the joke is on you. Those that appreciate his lyrics get this.

And keep in mind I'm one of those Wayne drones that will take up for his flow any day of the week. I connect more with his music than most other musicians and I'm constantly amazed at his creativity. There's more to rap music than chrome and hoes and that's what he provides.

So, no, music doesn't make you dumb. I piss on that idea. The world around you makes you dumb because you allow it to. Music just provides you with an avenue to do whatever you choose. It's that choice that makes you smart or dumb. Not the music. Don't blame the gun when you're the one pulling the trigger...

You can't draw the connection that music makes you dumb from the graphs. You can draw the connection that, in general, dumber people listen to such music.

Then again, all of the people "surveyed" are at least in college.

[Wishbone 0]

Another interesting observation is that "African-American interest" books are at the bottom of the book list. It's controversial to have a study with an outcome like that. A career researcher wouldn't want to produce a result like that or they would never get a grant again.

[AU-Dave 7]

Lil Wayne's music is the dumbest? That's just the thing. If you criticize it when you don't understand it or even make an attempt to, the joke is on you. Those that appreciate his lyrics get this.

And keep in mind I'm one of those Wayne drones that will take up for his flow any day of the week. I connect more with his music than most other musicians and I'm constantly amazed at his creativity. There's more to rap music than chrome and hoes and that's what he provides.

So, no, music doesn't make you dumb. I piss on that idea. The world around you makes you dumb because you allow it to. Music just provides you with an avenue to do whatever you choose. It's that choice that makes you smart or dumb. Not the music. Don't blame the gun when you're the one pulling the trigger...

Agree 100%

[TitanTiger 22,249]

I'll say it. I pretty much hate rap. I don't get it. I think most of it sucks. Sure it's a talent. So is balancing a spoon on your nose. I don't put it on the same level of talent as other actual talented musicians and singers.

And it's not a black/white thing. I like old school R&B like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, Otis Redding. I dig old jazz like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly, Horace Silver. I even like some contemporary R&B (though not much of it). These are all thoroughly African American art forms. It's just rap that I don't care for.

That said, Stryeder has it right. Rap doesn't make you dumb. It's just that a whole lot of dumb people seem to really like rap. I just think it's a bottom rung artform that with few exceptions, just isn't that intellectually challenging or stimulating. Might be great to shake your booty to or push a nice set of subs, but aside from a few exceptions, it's just not much of a draw for people with more discerning and complex tastes.

[WarTiger 4,120]

I don't think the words RAP and music should be in the same sentence unless its separated by the word ISN'T... Rap ISN'T Music....

[OldNewby 27]

I consider my taste in music to be very broad. If the music is good, I usually like it. However, my ears occasional give me a noise alert.