Wednesday, April 09, 2014

random sample

I was in my pronunciation class early this afternoon when I asked, out of the blue, whether anyone in the class had seen "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug."

Not a single person raised a hand.

I was floored. If that class counts as a more or less random sample of Koreans of moviegoing age (and let me tell you, Korean college kids do love going to the movies), then scoring a zero out of eighteen is a significant result. It makes me curious, too: I'd love to survey more classes and get a much larger sample size. I'd also like to find out how well "Smaug" did during its run in Korea. How much did it earn here?*

I suppose this means I'll have to hold back on using too many "Hobbit" references in class. No one will know who Radagast the Brown is, and only a few will recognize Bilbo. I was joking with a colleague, earlier today, about the fact that I'm walking around with a walking stick for a cane, but I can't do any Yoda impressions because none of these kids knows who the hell Yoda was. How sad. And thus the huge Kevin fades slowly but inexorably into irrelevancy.



*One stat, from early in the movie's run in Korea, is here.


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1 comment:

John said...

It must be an epidemic for academics!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/08/opinion/bruni-the-water-cooler-runs-dry.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0