FiveThirtyEight contributor Randy Olson and senior editor Ritchie King teamed up to “parse every Reddit comment from late 2007 through August 2015.” The result was a data visulation tool that tracked the rise and fall of word, abbreviation, and internet slang popularity. Reddit’s users have posted “more than 1.7 billion comments” since launch, so the site represented a language data mine of sorts that was begging to be tapped.
We thought the tool was really cool and that it could be made even more effective by allowing the data to be interactive on the hover. Olson and King made this task quite easy as a “download the data” button conveniently rests on the right of the interface. From there, uploading the data to Plotly is simple.
Below, you’ll find some of our favorite examples. If you’ve got an interesting find, tweet it @plotlygraphs.
These interactive graphs were made using Plotly’s web app. To securely share graphs and data within a team and make interactive dashboards, sign up for a Plotly Professional plan or contact us about Plotly On-Premise.
1. Expressing Humor
The way you express humor over the web tells a lot about you. In the world of Reddit, for every 450 “haha’s” you’ll get one “hehe.” Translation: hehe-ers are a rare breed.
2. Social Media Wars
Facebook beware: After a slow, steady uphill battle, Twitter is ready to take the lead. Meanwhile, Myspace is trying to maintain the bare minimum of relevancy.
3. That Sh*t Cray
A popular Jay-Z and Kanye West jam using this word was released on September 13th, 2011. Later that year, the word’s usage skyrocketed. OxfordDictionaries.com added the word in 2014.
4. Hey Bae!
Use of the the word “babe,” slang for a woman or girl, will soon be surpassed by a shortened version “bae” if trends continue. Unlike the example in graph 3, nobody really knows where bae originated.
5. Graph, Chart… or Plot?
Many a discussion at Plotly revolved around the simple question of, “What do people call a diagram showing the relation between variable quantities, typically of two variables, each measured along one of a pair of axes at right angles?” Reddit’s usage data shows that the word plot is used about 2.5 times more frequently than chart and 5 times more frequently than graph.
6. Correlation Does Not Imply Causation
But correlation and causation are very strongly correlated!
7. Let Me Take a Selfie
According to Guardian News, the word “selfie” was “first used online by a young drunk in 2002 to describe a self-portrait photograph.” The word’s use exploded in 2013 when the Oxford English Dictionary chose the word as its Word of the Year. In 2014, selfie received the most nominations of any word added to Lake Superior State University’s List of Banished Words.
8. The Tinder Generation
Internet dating: Don’t be bashful, just about everyone is doing it these days. Tinder was released in late 2012 and observed explosive growth, especially amongst 18-30 year olds, from 2014 onward.
9. Twerk Because YOLO
Perhaps more interesting than the rapid rise to fame for these words is their origin. Notice the random spike for YOLO in mid 2008 on the graph below; similarly, twerk has some action in early 2011.
10. Less Smoking… More Vaping
The percentage of smoking adults in the U.S. has steadily decreased in recent years. A notable reduction from 17.8% in 2013 to 16.8% occurred in 2014. Perhaps this also explains the reduction in the number of times the word is uttered on Reddit. Similar word-use trends were observed in Marijuana and weed. Folks are opting to vape more, a reportedly less dangerous form of nicotine consumption.
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