this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
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Mildly Interesting

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[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (2 children)

........ Honestly, this isn't too surprising with how saturated the media is with minority groups. Almost every show I see on various streaming products ends up having heavy LGBTQ+ plots rammed in, trans characters showin up, always a multicultural combo of characters and fewer and fewer generic CIS white people. When the media is constantly blasting you with minorities and minority issues, in a highly biased way, it's totally not surprising at all that people would start thinking they're a way bigger slice of the population.

Like someone once pointed out that there were more airplane pilots in North America than trans people. So imagine if every TV show you watched, suddenly had an airplane pilot show up and talk about airplanes a bunch, had whole episodes dedicated to his occupational trauma, regardless of what the main plot of the show may be. That would be more representative of the general public, than having trans people in every fucking show going on about trans trauma.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 hours ago

I agree. Undoubtedly someone is going to get very mad with your opinion and intentionally miss the point. Representation is fine. Shoehorning a specific minority into every plot line then beating the viewer over the head with the most juvenile and hamfisted messaging imaginable isn't helping anyone. It just makes for bad content. We have many examples of women and minorities in movies and shows written well for decades. It's only quite recently that writers appear to value representation and ideological messaging over the story, and I think for that they deserve criticism.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

its called corporate virtue signalling, or rainbow capitalism, alot of people complained how it ruins shows, and i do agree, its a distraction from poor writing and plots.

[–] JasSmith@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

It's also used as a deflection of criticism. "Of you don't like my show? Racist! Homophobe! Transphobe!" These accusations used to work quite effectively but they were so overused that people have kind of become numb to them now.

[–] wampus@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 minutes ago

Yeah -- agreed. I tried watching "The Magicians" because it was highly recommended. No CIS white male characters in the show really. They had a white bisexual guy who spent a lot of time sleeping with gay dudes. Wasn't much of an issue / commented on for the first few seasons, and it was 'ok' viewing, if sorta stupid. But then in season 3 and 4 they were super heavy handed in breaking the fourth wall and saying cis white guys who identified with just that one bisexual white guy character were being racist/sexist for not looking at other characters, in part because that character gets killed off in season 4.

Why they thought that their cis white guy audience was going to identify with a bi-sexual neuro-divergent sort, one who'd spent like an entire (time loopy) life time with his gay lover, I'm not sure. But the heavy handed 4th wall breaking to talk-down to that audience demographic did end up making me not bother with seasons 5.

[–] sircac@lemmy.world 1 points 5 hours ago

I think this bias happens a bit anywhere where there is a limited range to opinion about, may be the interesting part is where is the tilt point, with the corresponding error estimation...

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

People think 30% of the U.S population lives in New York?

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

That's what actually brought me to the comments. The fuck? OK, so now NYC pop is about 10mil, non-NYC NY is about 10 mil, and non-NYC NYC metro is about 10 mil. How do you get even 30 mil to represent 30% of 350mil? Confuse it with the Iranian population of 92mil? And 30% is the average of the responses!

[–] CoffeeJunkie@lemmy.cafe 35 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Holy, holy, holy...they actually thought 21% of people are transgender? 1 in 5?? The only thing this proves is the polled Americans are stupid AF. 🙄🙄🙄

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 points 5 hours ago

seems like they polled mostly boomers or conservatives.

[–] teolan@lemmy.world 18 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

Americans believe a single city (New York) represents 30% of the American population?

[–] darthelmet@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

I was kind of curious if this was close to true in any countries with higher urban population densities and the first one I checked was Japan since it has a rural depopulation issue and Tokyo is a pretty populous city and… it was right on the money. Japan’s pop is ~124 million and Tokyo’s is ~ 37 million. So roughly 30% of Japan’s population lives in one city/metro area. Not that this means anything for US population distribution, but I suppose it’s not THAT crazy to think the numbers could be in that ballpark if you weren’t really thinking about it too hard.

[–] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 7 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

Forget that. They think one out of their first 3 friends they have is gay. Assuming they're straight that means 50% of their friends are gay. Fuck that means they think 25% of their first 4 friends are trans.

Math is not their strong point apparently

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago

TBF if you join random chat groups to meet people you might find abkut that proportion, but not roaming the parks and streets, no.

[–] agent_nycto@lemmy.world 6 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

Another third lives in all of Texas?

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 22 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Okay but Americans are numerically illiterate.

[–] mimic_dev@lemmy.world 27 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

They think almost 25% of people are trans?? Jesus fucking christ

[–] kayohtie@pawb.social 17 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

It explains so much when it's played up so heavily in talk shows, despite the reality always having been very minor. Honestly I didn't realize me being gay was that much of a minority either. I kind of wish ADHD had been one in the list; if I remember the reality is like no more than 3-5% of the population but people assume it's over diagnosed as hell and like...not really. Maybe when there was the initial "rush" of sorts for parents during the 90's because of it seeming to help "unruly" kids, often just meaning imaginative or creative. In my case my parents didn't even know until my kindergarten teacher told them I should get evaluated, and yep.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 7 points 21 hours ago

Or vice versa, people have that perception because the media and social networks fixate on it so much.

Frequently meaning well, but the attempt to be very inclusive creates for some crazy unrealisitc representations.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 8 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Hold up.

83% have a driver's license but 88% have a car?

So 5% of Americans either have a car for the hell of it, or they drive without a license?

And there's only 3% that are atheists? More people drive without a license than are atheists?

Excuse me?

If these numbers are correct, the US is more fucked than I thought.

[–] JackFrostNCola@aussie.zone 4 points 11 hours ago

Its possible they have lost their licence and still own a car, or the car is just in their name.

[–] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 23 points 23 hours ago (8 children)

3% Atheists is such a bullshit number. There is a famous Pew poll, where they asked people two questions side by side, "are you an atheist" and "do you believe in any god", and 4% answered no to the first one and something like 20% answered no to the second one.

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

4% answered no to the first one and something like 20% answered no to the second one.

Where did the other 76% go?

[–] Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 hours ago

It's an overlapping numbers from different questioneers. A bunch people for example are christians who never been to church and don't believe in a christian god.

[–] DaedalousIlios@pawb.social 14 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I think "atheist" carries the connotations of being irreligeous, not just not believing in any gods. So some people may not believe in any gods, but maybe they do have some kind of spirituality, or believe in ghosts or something. Buddhism as a religion doesn't mandate God-belief, though some schools do interact with devas. I'm unsure if any other religions don't require gods to work, but even if they exist, I imagine they and Buddhists, despite not believing in any gods, will be very hesitant to describe themselves as "atheist."

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[–] mgtzbos@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (3 children)

How incredible to see the effect of political messaging on citizen/voter perception. It is that the exaggerations, lies, and outrage marketing clearly have an outsized effect. I wouldn’t say the US population is dumb. But I would say the manipulation of perception is too much for the average person to do their own research and come up with unbiased facts.

***To those dismissing this based on inconsistencies between topics, you can’t make those comparisons. There is some blending of data in the methodology that is appropriate in order to look at the range. This is only about the gap between perception and reality, and a stack rank.

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[–] Poxlox@lemmy.world 9 points 21 hours ago

I did a quick check on one of the facts, the christian one, this says 70% in 2022 but i see 62% for 2022, which is a lot closer to the 58% estimate. Makes me feel a bit sketched out about possible cherry picking, but cool notion still.

[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 25 points 1 day ago (2 children)

they estimated 21% of the population are trans, lol I wish 😂

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If 21% of the population was trans, republicans ain't winning elections again.

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[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 12 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

30% Jewish, 27% Muslim, 58% Christian, 33% atheist. A very odd mix to estimate.

[–] formergijoe@lemmy.world 12 points 21 hours ago

Well only 8% of the population lives outside California, Texas, and NYC.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 6 points 21 hours ago

If giving 110% is good, then giving over 148% is even better.

But I can believe it, it's not like they asked people to enumerate all at once, they presumably asked one at a time to estimate, and it's not like they are likely to try to reconcile those guesses with each other even if made in one sitting.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 14 points 23 hours ago

What morons did they ask? Holy shit.

[–] Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (3 children)

92 % of the population lives in either California, new York or Texas?

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Imagine thinking 1 in 5 people are trans... Just... This has to be a math understanding issue, right??

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 14 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Before traveling to California, I had people in my neighborhood plead with me not to go because the whole state is a "disaster area" and that the cities are burning and that there are "drug needles everywhere you walk" and that I was putting my life and those of my loved ones in serious danger. They thought with 100% certainty that Los Angeles was completely on fire from looting and I was going to some kind of Mad Max hellscape. Without exaggeration. They wouldn't listen to reassurance and were genuinely worried.

Granted some of these people were older, they weren't suffering dementia and could still drive. They just park in front of FOX news all day, every day, 24-hours a day swallowing conservative propaganda. They also have algorithmic filtering on their facebook and twitter.

Our perspectives of each others worlds has been damaged beyond repair because of this filtering. We have it on the left/progressive side too, showing us a different reflection of a pandering, emotionally validating worldview. Not as malicious maybe, but we are all trapped.

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[–] Matt3999@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Only 4% union members - no wonder the US is so fucked for workers

[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 2 points 15 hours ago

Yeah, I'd have thought there would be a lot more unions.

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