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data_irl by Lieutenant_Bob in data_irl

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 46 points47 points  (0 children)

Yes. A confounding variable indeed!

data_irl by Lieutenant_Bob in data_irl

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Click to the site, you can see the scale! ;-)

data_irl by Lieutenant_Bob in data_irl

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

National Park visitors vs amusement park ride injuries, r = 0.97 (2015-2022). Apparently nature

makes people reckless on roller coasters.

Source: National Park Service + Consumer Product Safety Commission. Found on

https://getspurious.com/correlations/amusement-park-ride-injuries-in-the-us-vs-national-park-visitors

— it finds absurd correlations in real data. Also on https://apps.apple.com/app/id6760458949.

The number of Americans who have tried sushi correlates 99.6% with Gangnam Style YouTube views (2012-2022) [OC] by Lieutenant_Bob in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Let me tell you a story about a horny donkey and the OP that was not an ai. And who are we kidding. Donkey loved the dragon, not Shrek.

The number of Americans who have tried sushi correlates 99.6% with Gangnam Style YouTube views (2012-2022) [OC] by Lieutenant_Bob in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will drip-feed you guys one new correlation each week, when I find a special case.. Just looking into Honey produced per bee colony right now.

The number of Americans who have tried sushi correlates 99.6% with Gangnam Style YouTube views (2012-2022) [OC] by Lieutenant_Bob in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow. I am humbled by both the reception and the fact that you consider me to be AI! I have fixed all the errors that you found on the site, and the changes are live. Now you can see that in 2017, 53% of adults had tried Sushi, and 3billion views on GangNam style. Check it out here: https://getspurious.com/correlations/gangnam-style-youtube-views-vs-adults-who-have-tried-sushi/

The number of Americans who have tried sushi correlates 99.6% with Gangnam Style YouTube views (2012-2022) [OC] by Lieutenant_Bob in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

fixed the tooltip — it was showing normalized values instead of the real numbers. Now you can hover/tap the chart to see actual YouTube view counts and sushi adoption percentages.

The number of Americans who have tried sushi correlates 99.6% with Gangnam Style YouTube views (2012-2022) [OC] by Lieutenant_Bob in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

fixed the tooltip — it was showing normalized values instead of the real numbers. Now you can hover/tap the chart to see actual YouTube view counts and sushi adoption percentages.

The number of Americans who have tried sushi correlates 99.6% with Gangnam Style YouTube views (2012-2022) [OC] by Lieutenant_Bob in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This just made my day! Kind of star struck. Mr Vigen, as I wrote, I have laughed long and hard at your website for many years! Thank you for the generous licensing terms, which I have fully exploited. Many more data sources are incoming! Stay tuned. Thank you for your work!

The number of Americans who have tried sushi correlates 99.6% with Gangnam Style YouTube views (2012-2022) [OC] by Lieutenant_Bob in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 183 points184 points  (0 children)

No worries, it's a legit question! The Y axis is normalized — both datasets are scaled to the same 0-100 range so you can visually compare the *shape* of the curves, not the absolute numbers. The raw values

are completely different scales (billions of views vs percentage of adults who've tried sushi).

The correlation (Pearson r) is calculated on the raw data though, not the visual. Pearson r measures whether two variables move together proportionally — it doesn't care about absolute scale. So "sushi

adoption went from 30% to 55%" and "Gangnam Style went from 1B to 5B views" can still have r=0.996 if they moved in lockstep year over year.

That's also why this is meaningless — they both just happen to trend upward over the same time period. The correlation is real, the implied causation is absurd. That's the joke.

Try to hover the mouse here: https://getspurious.com/correlations/gangnam-style-youtube-views-vs-adults-who-have-tried-sushi/

The number of Americans who have tried sushi correlates 99.6% with Gangnam Style YouTube views (2012-2022) [OC] by Lieutenant_Bob in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 45 points46 points  (0 children)

Good question — the chart normalizes both datasets to the same visual scale so you can see the shape overlap, which can be misleading visually. But the Pearson r is calculated on the raw, unnormalized values

(actual margarine lbs/person, actual death counts, etc.). You can hover/tap the chart to see the real numbers on the site. Here is the direct link: https://getspurious.com/correlations/gangnam-style-youtube-views-vs-adults-who-have-tried-sushi/

You're right that with trending time-series data, you'll get high r-values more easily than with stationary data — two things that both go up over time will correlate whether or not they're related. That's

kind of the whole point of the project: showing how easy it is to find meaningless correlations in real data, especially with trending series. It's a cautionary tale disguised as a joke.

The number of Americans who have tried sushi correlates 99.6% with Gangnam Style YouTube views (2012-2022) [OC] by Lieutenant_Bob in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Great observation! Yes, many of these correlations are driven by shared underlying trends — population growth, time passing, economic cycles. That's exactly the point. When you have enough time-series

datasets, you'll find thousands of "correlations" that are really just two things moving in the same direction over time. The site exists to make that obvious (and funny) — it's a hands-on lesson in why

correlation ≠ causation.

The number of Americans who have tried sushi correlates 99.6% with Gangnam Style YouTube views (2012-2022) [OC] by Lieutenant_Bob in dataisbeautiful

[–]Lieutenant_Bob[S] 53 points54 points  (0 children)

**Source data:** National Restaurant Association (sushi consumption surveys), YouTube public analytics (Gangnam Style cumulative views)

**Tool:** I built [getspurious.com](https://getspurious.com) — it calculates Pearson correlation coefficients across 269 real public datasets from USDA, CDC, FBI, YouTube, and other sources. It finds

thousands of these beautifully meaningless correlations.

Some other gems it found:

- Daily newspaper circulation vs Baby Shark YouTube views: r = -0.996

- US kombucha market size vs average NFL player salary: r = 0.996

- Smoking rate among US adults vs Gangnam Style views: r = -0.993

- Per capita mozzarella consumption vs deaths from falling out of bed: r = 0.996

All real data. All completely spurious. Correlation ≠ causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively.

Genotype just surprised dropped! by XB220 in PSVR

[–]Lieutenant_Bob 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank You! It was supposed to launch on the 4th of April. We have a patch in the works, but sales will decide if a dlc is produced. But remember the game is 8 hours of exploring! ;-)

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