Drudge wants to know if there even are a billion gays in the world
More proof that this Internet blog isn't (only) a waste of my time. My article in the latest New Yorker — One Billion — had its origins in this post, where I challenged the claim that the Oscars are watched by a billion people worldwide.
Close observers will note that the particular citation I was questioning on the Internet blog was from an article in The New Yorker — a fact my own New Yorker article omits. I wanted it in there — partly for full-disclosure, partly to innoculate the magazine against carpers with Internet blogs — but I was told that the magazine almost never references itself unless it absolutely has to (for example, I guess, to write puff pieces about people who were there under Mr. Ross) and that since the magazine didn't actually claim the billion figure as a fact, a mea culpa was unnecessary.
Anyway, it's not a finger-pointing kind of piece, so it's not that important.
Comments
Good piece. In that vein:
http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/showcase/la-fi-golden24feb24.column
Posted by: marquee mark | February 24, 2005 10:10 AM
Thanks for the link. I'm sure the Deep Throat claim is overstated, but I think he's lowballing the video figure. Though he couldn't find it on ebay, new copies are still widely available (froogle it if you doubt me), and I'm sure it's sold well over the years. What's more, while it's true that VCRs were rare in the early years, those early adopters bought a lot of porn (which is what made the devices a success) and my guess is that DT was one of the few tapes available for some time. And it probably cost $50-$100 back then.
Posted by: radosh | February 24, 2005 5:50 PM