Turns out that Facebook’s motivations for mining users’ personal information weren’t so sinister after all—it was just doing research for a standup bit. The social media behemoth released a new set of data analyzing the cultural differences between Democrats and Republicans Monday, revealing that there’s only one person who can take the burden of ending the culture wars on her delicate, milky-white shoulders, and that person is chart-topping singer-songwriter and official New York City ambassador Taylor Swift.
Swift, along with Metallica, AC/DC, Aerosmith, and Journey, represents the happy median between Republican and Democratic Facebook users’ musical tastes, proving that no matter their political affiliations, Americans are loyal to the Rock Nation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the more polarizing artists leaned country on the Republican side (George Strait being the most Republican artist of them all) and dorm-room classic rock (Bob Marley and The Beatles both ranked highly) on the Democratic side:
Similar results for books (Democrats like The Great Gatsby, Republicans like Heaven Is For Real) and authors (Democrats like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Maya Angelou, Republicans like…no one, apparently) were both equally predictable. But there’s one thing that brings Americans together like no other, and that’s TV. Obviously politically-charged shows like The Rachel Maddow Show and Duck Dynasty aside, U.S. Facebook users can all agree that TV is great:
To get this data, Facebook started by isolating users in the U.S. who had “liked” the campaign page of a Republican or Democratic congressional or gubernatorial candidate, then delved into those users’ accounts to find out what else those people “like.” Studies on how black people use Facebook like this while white people use Facebook like this and why male Facebook users refuse to put the toilet seat down are, presumably, still forthcoming.
[via The Hollywood Reporter]