Survey Says
Image by Marshall Reeves of Yesterday Bound and stepping up from just text on the blackboard and captions to speech balloons this time is Sean Harrington of Spying With Lana in their latest evolution of their tandem work together!
On top of learning the top ranking viewing countries of Exiern which we’ve been covering through this year, we also discovered the demographic breakdown of the Exiern audience courtesy of Google Analytics and used it to create an image of what we think our typical audience member must look like. How did we do?
During the course of 2020, we’ll be trying to enlist your help in increasing the audience size and the income of Exiern so that we can both keep bringing you the story and also making the updates as fast as we can.
Relive the experience of this year’s statistics here! See, mathematics can be fun!
We’re Number Four! (Parts 3 and 4)
Also please keep checking in regularly because there will be several new updates each week until the main story resumes!
There’s roughly 300 million Americans (93%) who are NOT Texians… and most likely don’t want to be… so… maybe not all that accurate.
Marshall’s Canadian so it’s all much of a muchness below him as far as he’s concerned, I’m guessing.
As a Jerseyite who lives in Ohio I was a little taken aback by the image at first myself, but I had to tell myself that the Survey series is about outsiders (Australia and Canada in this case) generalizing the nations on the top ten list, and we Americans sometimes need to remember the cultural impression the rest of the world sees even if we don’t see our individual selves or desired community in the entirety of the art. I’m sure there are some individuals represented in the other pieces who do not feel fully represented by how those countries were interpreted. It would be hypocritical of me to send back America’s image because of my personal in-country reaction. Also, some readers may identify fully with this America, even in Ohio, and also embrace the ideals Exiern hopes to invoke, and we need to not generalize that in our own culture.
I’m just going to totally throw Marshall under the bus here and say that even though I designed much of this image, the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag was totally his idea. I was just responsible for the boots, the blackboard, collecting the statistics, the clothes, the comics and blowing up Faden before then responsibly recycling him.
On the other hand, maybe not deliberately designed to be 100% accurate either as I suspect most of our American readers may not actually look like the main subject of this piece either …
I’m not american – but even here on the opposite side of the world we heard about the lawsuit regarding the “don’t tread on me” logo – of all the american stereotypes – maybe avoid that particular one – especially since we know nobody here is in that mindframe anyway.
Like the OK hand symbol, many of us still think of it in its original context and while I certainly disagree with its recent re-appropriation I hope we can soon have our old Franklin symbol back. As someone with friends and family in the military I know we have very different associations with the flag than the ones you refer to.
Just so you’re aware:
http://www.exiern.com hasn’t loaded for me since sometime between the 16th & 19th. Browser just times out.
archive.exiern.com (which I only found today, using a google search) works fine, however.
Annoyingly, the comment system added the http://
Not that it seems to make any difference whether it’s http:// or https:// – doesnt’ load either way.
Thank you, RBZ, it is an issue we’ve become more and more aware of. The hope is that in January we will have the time to fully switch back to Exiern.com and be done with the FWDing entirely.
Yeah, had been having ‘issues’ with the site not loading for awhile
Sometimes it will, sometimes it won’t, fortunately don’t use the actual page to do the voting (unfortunately, don’t vote as often as should 🙁 )
Have no idea what that ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flag is all about (looks like a rattler in the shape of a tree to me), and… that’s probably a good thing
Not American?
It’s a flag harking back to the days of the Revolution. The rattlesnake had previously been used in a political cartoon, cut in pieces with the caption “Join or Die” to refer to the colonies needing to come together to fight their oppressors.
Basically, it’s a big “don’t mess with me” warning.
There is an over 1 in 3 chance they are not from America.
Nope, not American, wrong hemisphere (hint, live on a continent no one knew about until about, oh, ten years or so ago? or was it twenty?)
Oh, we know where you are.
Going to choose to view that… as a positive 😀