Jan. 25, 2023, 8:18 p.m.
Watch the 'words against strangers' Tournament of Champions, Live!
A live stream event and a new story about '90s literary canon
The Pudding
The Pudding is a journal for visual essays. You may have stumbled upon some of our projects, such as Women’s Pockets are Inferior, How Bad is Your Spotify or Apple Music?, or A People Map of the US.
In this issue, we share details on our upcoming live stream game, try to define literary canon according to college syllabi, and revisit some past projects.
As always, our work is brought to you in part by our Patreon supporters, whom we never take for granted. You should also follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.
words against strangers live championship
100 days of our game words against strangers came to a close at the end of 2022, but we were so impressed by the performances from the strangers and community that we coded up a special live/multiplayer version to find the best of best. Last week, semi-final rounds of 17 people produced six word whizzes, who will battle it out on Thursday, January 26 at 4pm EST on YouTube. Come watch the live stream event of some truly impressive wordplay.
What literature do we study from the 1990s?
Matt explores which ’90s books have made their way onto college syllabi. Many books were hits when they were first published, but a few were never best sellers, won no awards, and yet have made it onto required readings lists in English Literature, 30 years later. You can explore the data for fiction and nonfiction, as well as books from the 1980s and 2000s.
In case you missed it: the ‘90s Music Canon
If you enjoyed our project on the ‘90s literary canon, we did the same analysis on ‘90s music. Based on our quiz that tested music recognization, 3 million responses formed the basis for which songs from the 1990s are more likely to be recognized by future generations.
You can also “listen” to the project, because we recorded a podcast episode about the results with Vox’s Switched on Pop.
p.s. Want more media nostalgia? The New York Times recently released their own data-led trends in the greatest films of all time.
More Pudding nostalgia
Starting this month, sesame is required by law to be labeled like other top common allergens. Check out our story from last year about why.
Watercooler moments at The Pudding
Here are some stories and projects that our team can’t stop talking about. Join the chat in realtime on our patron-only Slack channel #stuff-we-love:
Fun doodle tool - NOT Wieden + Kennedy
Wonders of Street View - neal.fun
Thanks for taking in our latest issue, and for continuing to subscribe. ❤️❤️❤️
P.S. questions? comments? email us at sup@pudding.cool
P.P.S. have a cool essay idea that you want to make? Check out our pitch guidelines.
P.P.P.S. Want to hire our team to produce data-led, visual stories? Check out our sister studio, Polygraph.