Love vs. Hate

Thursday, December 1, 2005 at 2:00 am · Filed under Emotions

6-Month Trend

Love and hate. These two poles of emotion are prevalent topics in the blogosphere. Combined, the terms ‘love’ or ‘hate’ were included in 10% – 18% of all posts over the last six months. It appears that love has trumped hate in the blogosphere with an approximately 3-fold higher volume of posts over the entire period. While the proportion of weblog posts that include these terms has been relatively stable, there has been a decrease in the use of both terms over the past month. The use of ‘love’ has dropped by approximately 33% (13.5% to 9% of all weblog posts) and the use of ‘hate’ has declined 25% (4% to 3% of all weblog posts).

It’s an interesting phenomenon that I can’t explain. Have we become less polarized on issues over the last month? Doubtful. It would be interesting to take a look at longer term data to see how much variation there has been in these numbers so that we can determine whether it’s real or not.

A Sample of the Lovers:

BuzzMachine… by Jeff Jarvis
“I have been desperate to see a movie for weeks — I love popcorn — but I haven’t been able to find one worth the trip.”

Documentary looks at online dating – TV Squad
“I’ve never been big into the whole online dating thing, choosing instead to meet all my dates via telegraph. Still, it’s an interesting product of our age, and the subject of a new five-part documentary from ABC News called Hooking Up. The series will follow twelve women in Manhattan as they try to find love among the pop-up ads.”

Pro-American Protestors Drown Our Radical Imams – In The Bullpen
“Personally I don’t care if Kuwaitis love the United States or not, but I do not want them to hate us”

A Biker with a Bike Tattoo – Gothamist
“You might love your bicycle– but are you as hardcore as this dude?”

Why So Much Miers Chatter – PoliPundit.com
“Partly of course, it’s because of the scope of the issue – a Supreme Court Justice is always a major figure, in some ways more crucial to the direction of the nation than even a President, since the appointment is for life. But also, and especially in this case, it’s because Americans love our right to dissent.”

Why Some Of Us Once Loved Apple Computers – Dean’s World
“He’s indisputably right about one thing though: those of us who loved those old machines most loved the fact that everything about them was completely open. You could find out anything you wanted to know about their innards if you were curious and just put some time into it, and bend them to any purpose you imagined.

That’s why I love the Open Source movement today.”

Why do we give? – Signaling Success
“Successful people give with no expectation of a return. They never “give to get.” They give unselfishly. Successful folks give from the heart, don’t they?

Mother Teresa said it best, “It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”

Enjoy this holiday season, in the most giving way…”

And a Sample of the Haters:

Perhaps You Should Look at Your Tag – Overheard in New York: The Voice of The City
“Hipster girl: Post-hipster is like post-irony, you’re being ironic about irony.
Hipster guy #1: Wait, so you can be a hipster and hate hipsters at the same time?
Hipster guy #2: I am so post-hipster!”

Today on Today: The Fat Ladies Sing – Gawker
“The segment is titled “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Fat,â€? and as these woman sadly present their stories, we’re left with a major question: Are we supposed to not hate them despite their being fat, or we shouldn’t hate them specificially because they’re fat?”

Another reason the UN is useless – The QandO Blog
“Maybe it’s time to seriously discuss a “League of Democracies” or some alternative world organization where being a tin-pot dictator actually disqualifies you from memebership instead of automatically providing you with a forum, paid for by others, from which to spew lies, disinformation and hate.”

This blog is not a democracy – MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
“Don’t let the agenda-driven mainstream media distort reality (again) and fuel the anti-American hate machine – spread the word!”

Top ten former Astros who I’m glad aren’t a part of this World Series team – TBIFOC
“I’m sure that George Steinbrenner is much nicer about sandbagging dorks who hate the fans, hate the team, and pitch like a Little Leaguer on crack.”

DEATH TO AL-ZAQUEERY – The Jawa Report
“Both our pressure and the pure evil of their tactics have put the writing on the wall. The harder they try the more people hate them including peoples all over the Middle East. The world is shrinking every day for Al-Qaeda soon they will be history.”

Ten Bloglines Hacks – Micro Persuasion
“Don’t you hate it when your favorite frequently updating sites don’t have RSS feeds?”

Tags: love, hate, duel

Figure used with permission (blogpulse.com)

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