International standard of famous

[jack]

When thinking about David, the question came up of the most famous piece of art (Mona Lisa?), and how to measure that, and swiftly thence to people. A similar criteria of famousness, say "percentage of people who have heard of", can apply equally well to people, art, and other things.

The obvious suggestion was to normalise between 0.0 and 1.0. It was originally going to be normalised to Jesus at 1.0, but that was probably not complete, so I decided 1.0 should be things known to everyone. That provides some baseline. Say "the sun" is up at 1.0.

I guessed Jesus would be the most famous person (including mythology), being as how people have heard of him all over the world. However, Livredor pointed out that it's quite possible he's not known all over China, and getting 1 biln people in China is a noticeable chunk of that elusive 1.0 score. If you are known to everyone except China, your fame is 0.83 or similar. On the other hand, Chairman Mao has been pretty well known everywhere else; is it possible he actually was more famous than Jesus?

Is there anyone else with a score of 80%+? Real or mythological? You can come up with other concepts in that range. (eg. "Ocean" is known to most adults, but not all. "God" probably doesn't include all small-g gods though.)

Another approach would be to integrate population over time. Jesus, being so widley known for 1000+ years probably beats out anyone mainly known in their own lifetime or own continent. However, he probably also beats out anyone known for N thousand years before that, due to recent explosive population growth.

Another would be to integrate percentage over time. I'm not sure what effect that would have. Anyone from the start of time would be known to everyone, if they could just stay famous long enough, but more recent people may have more staying fame if they do manage to be widely known. Will someone famous for millennia in late BC beat out both?

Comments

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

A Western celebrity or cartoon character who's also big in China might be a contender, at least in the short term.

Mickey Mouse, traditionally.

Adolf Hitler also has a reasonable chance simply because schoolchildren on almost every continent are taught about him.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hitler also came up, and is always a very good example, but while I assume (rightly?) he's viewed as a byword for evil much the same everywhere, I thought the repetitive schooling was a lot less outside Europe and America[1].

[1] Australia came up in the original conversation, and for these purposes we agreed to ignore it, since the population is weenier than the margin of error for the population of Europe/America. In fact, hold on, let me find a few basic stats on world population.

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

I assume (without going to the any effort to acquire evidence) that Facism is used as a byword for evil by Russian-influenced China and British-influenced India as well.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Good point. I wouldn't be surprised, that would make sense, though nor would I be surprised if more local/current politics dominated the teaching or propaganda. Anyone else know?