- IU is a Rooster and Go Youn-jung a Rat. We checked whether that means anything, and it does not
Sat Aug 22 — We sorted 1,047 Korean stars into twelve rooms by birth year — IU with 91 other Roosters, Bae Suzy with 102 other Dogs. Then we tested whether the zodiac picks out who ends up on a chart. Chi-square 7.77 against a threshold of 19.68.
- Ahn Sung-ki and Choi Jiwoo exist on one Southeast Asian Wikipedia, and it is not the biggest one
Fri Aug 21 — Of 1,023 Korean actors and 1,701 music acts, 1,249 appear on exactly one of the four Southeast Asian Wikipedias. The Indonesian edition holds 1,155 of them — while the larger Vietnamese edition holds 31.
- BTS is read most in Vietnam and Byeon Woo-seok in Thailand. The 20 biggest are all read least in Malay
Fri Aug 21 — Across 374 Korean stars with an article on all four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, three editions share first place. The Malay edition is last for 310 of them — and there is an explanation we cannot rule out.
- IU started at 15 and Ma Dong-seok at 32. Go Youn-jung started at 23 and outreads them both
Fri Aug 21 — Across 584 Korean stars on four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, those who debuted before 18 are read almost five times as often as those who started at 26. It is not that they have had longer — the median career is 20 to 22 years in every band.
- JAY B of GOT7 is a Thai star, Tempest is a Vietnamese one, and Kim Jong-kook belongs to nobody
Fri Aug 21 — Of 214 Korean stars with an article on all four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, 86.6% of the reading about JAY B sits in Thailand alone. An evenly read star would score 25%. Kim Jong-kook of Turbo scores 27.5%.
- Go Youn-jung, Lee Chae-min and Moon Ga-young: three countries, three different first names
Thu Aug 20 — Four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, four lists of Korean actors, three different names at the top. Byeon Woo-seok, Kim Seon-ho and Cha Eun-woo appear on every list — and not one of them is first anywhere.
- Five charting shows, seven times the readers, and still no way to guess about one actor
Sun Aug 16 — Korean actors with five or more charting titles are read seven times as often as actors with one, across four Southeast Asian Wikipedias. Pick one from each group at random and the busier one wins 82% of the time — a long way from a rule.
- Actors whose show travelled draw 3× the lookups. Hold two things fixed and most of that disappears.
Sun Aug 09 — Across 812 Korean actors joined to Netflix's country charts, those with a title in 20+ countries draw 2.91× the median Wikipedia lookups. Match on how many titles they have and how recently they charted, and only one group keeps the gap.
- Actors and K-pop acts are looked up in the same shape. The difference people assume is a size artefact.
Sat Aug 08 — Across 1,113 Korean actors and 2,372 K-pop acts, the biggest single day is about 5% of a 30-day month for both. The raw gap of 5.0% against 6.1% disappears once the two groups are compared at the same size.
- Actors whose one charting title also played in Korea are looked up 1.7 times as often abroad
Sat Aug 08 — Hold the number of titles fixed and the gap is still there: 1,926 English Wikipedia lookups against 1,111. Hold how far the title travelled fixed and it survives that too. Korea's own chart predicts foreign curiosity.
- Ma Dong-seok has 21 charting titles and Steven Yeun has one. Steven Yeun is read twice as much
Fri Aug 07 — Actors in ten or more charting Korean titles are looked up eight times as often as those in one. We said in August that the rise stops at ten. It does not. The busiest are still not the most read: 21 titles against Steven Yeun's one.