Popularity vs rank = revealed vs stated preferences.
people tend to say they like Monster more than Naruto. But do they?
On ratings websites, there is usually a list of items in terms of rating and in terms of popularity; traditionally, I have respected ratings more than its popularity. This is to some extent because people who watch popular shows have more relaxed tastes, but also because of some innate contrarianism on my part.
A few months ago or so, I had an epiphany: that popularity is analogous to revealed preferences and score should be considered stated preference.
It’s been said in marketing that most of the exposure that media get is because of word of mouth. If people like something, they tend to recommend it, and then the people who receive the recommendation watch it. So the most liked rises to the top.
In theory, of course, there is some error to the correlation between popularity and quality. Sometimes people recognize that what they like may not be what others like, for example, I rarely recommend Texhnolyze to people who ask for recommendations despite the fact that it is a favourite of mine; I know that it is a niche anime. Some people may be reticent to recommend things they like but feel guilty about liking.
With rating, it’s a bit more complicated. Ideally people would reflect for a few moments on whether they liked something, or at least whether it was good, and then give it a score. But they don’t actually do that — humans are swayed by peers, trends, and social desirability.
In terms of examples, take the one of the most popular anime ever: Naruto. People like Naruto for fairly simple reasons. Character rivalries. Fights. Power fantasy. Fanfiction. It’s not a highschool DxD tier guilty pleasure, but people definitely don’t like it for the “right reasons”, be it quality of writing, originality, or intellectual appeal.
Then take Monster, one of the most critically acclaimed anime of all time. But not that many people have seen it — it’s ranked #123 on myanimelist in popularity and people you meet in real life will never have heard of it. Unlike Naruto, it’s a series that can be enjoyed for the “right” reasons — it’s well written and intellectual. Or just trying to be intellectual, depending on who you ask — I don’t have a dog in the fight.
The obvious question to ask — why isn’t Monster as popular as Naruto if it is considered to be better? It’s not niche by any means. It was aired at roughly the same time as Naruto. The adaptiation is far from botched; in fact Monster is better as an adaptation than Naruto is. The answer is that it doesn’t appeal to people’s lower qualities as much — it’s not sexual (though Naruto isn’t either), it has little action, it has a slow (perhaps too slow) pace, and the character designs are good but emotionally unmoving. It’s realistic, but the purpose of fiction is to be false, is it not?
One may respond that the masses, being the masses, have corrupted tastes. I don’t dispute this, but there are some things that they can evaluate properly, such as humour, visuals, and emotional appeal. Low IQ people who don’t understand what happens in an anime just have more random preferences, not worse ones.