2011: The Year Skrillex Got Mentioned In A Lot Of Facebook Status Updates

​The increasingly tentacle-extending social-networking site Facebook has released Memology 2011, a quantification of popular topics discussed on the service. Amy Winehouse's death in August was the seventh-most-discussed news topic of 2011, right behind the royal wedding and ahead of the new Call Of Duty game. Also, lots of people discovered and subsequently discussed the emo-gone-brostep musician Skrillex, apparently; as Facebook data scientist Jonathan Change helpfully explains, "Although Skrillex has been around for several years, his 2011 tour, a collaboration with Korn, and record label launch prompted a 76-fold increase in the number of people mentioning him in their status updates on Facebook." No word on how many of those mentions were positive or negative or just links to that Tumblr with women who have his haircut, alas. (Related: Even though my initial impression of it was not good at all, listening to "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" made me giggle my way through a migraine last week. Seriously! I was trying to reverse-engineer my way out of it, and while it didn't quite work, the laughing was at least pleasant.) The ten most-listened-to songs on Facebook Music—you know, that part of Facebook where you get to spy on what your friends are listening to via Spotify, Rdio, and other music services that aren't iTunes—below.

1. Rihanna/Calvin Harris, "We Found Love"
2. Katy Perry, "Last Friday Night"
3. LMFAO, "Sexy And I Know It"
4. David Guetta and Sia, "Titanium"
5. Skrillex, "First Of The Year"
6. Skrillex, "Scary Monsters And Nice Sprites"
7. David Guetta and Usher, "Without You"
8. Gym Class Heroes feat. Adam Levine, "Stereo Hearts"
9. Foster The People, "Pumped Up Kicks"
10. Adele, "Someone Like You"

I suspect that the late-year skewing of this list (no "Rolling In The Deep," or "Party Rock Anthem," or "Moves Like Jagger"?) can be attributed to the fact that Facebook's music platform didn't launch until late September, and so the tracking of individual songs only started then. That doesn't make the high placement of that terrible Katy Perry song about getting fucked-up-by-numbers any less annoying, though. The Skrillex song, even though it veers between sounding like going to the gym and sounding like throwing up after a particularly intense workout, is way better!

He also managed to improve Perry's "E.T.":

[SOTC homepage | Facebook | Twitter | Letters]