steve irwin

Further to my last post about The Heath Ledger Experiment, it’s interesting to note that of the Top 100 search terms which brought traffic here, 27 are Heath Ledger-related. 28 if you count “drug overdose joke”.

That compares with 33 related to Corey Worthington Delaney and 2 to Steve Irwin.

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[Update 30 January 2008: More analysis of this has been posted since this article was written. Look for items tagged "heath ledger".]

Just 24 hours ago, actor Heath Ledger died. Before most people even knew he was dead, I’d set up a web page asking for jokes about his death and I placed an advertisement (pictured) on Google. Tasteless. But there was a porpoise. This was Science!

Here’s what I’ve learned so far. If you have any questions as you read this, please ask them. I’ll be exploring the data more deeply over the next few days.

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Yes, Australian actor Heath Ledger is dead, possibly from a drug overdose. So now it’s time to collect all the jokes, ‘cos he can’t sue you for libel. Please add them in the comments.

Tasteless? Yes. Exploitative? Probably. Too soon for this? Yeah probably that too.

So why do it?

It’s an experiment…

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Writing for Crikey this week triggered an interesting burst of activity.

• Website traffic doubled for a couple of days.
• I was blogged about by Tim Dunlop over in Murdochland.
• People from my past emerged from the woodwork — including Keith Conlon, the man who first taught me broadcasting.

Weird coincidences upped the traffic too:

• Interest in Australia’s new ambassador to Italy, Amanda Vanstone, led more than 400 people to read my posting about Boost juice bars.
• 200 people looking for live TV coverage of the space shuttle landing found my post about the previous shuttle touchdown.

But I’m still getting plenty of folks looking for those goddam Steve Irwin jokes , or discovering how to spell Vodafone.

This is what George W Bush said at the Bob Riley for Governor lunch in Alabama yesterday:

There is an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth is freedom.

And this, apparently, is part of his argument for legislation which intends to legitimise evidence gained through torture, create “military commissions” where hearsay is admissible as evidence and other “tools necessary to protect the American people in this war on terror” and keep people like David Hicks imprisoned without charge or trial for another four years.

Ah yes, freedom…

The whole speech is worth reading because it’s a fine example of how to do propaganda. And perhaps I’ll write more about that another time, if anyone’s interested?

Or would more Steve Irwin jokes be more suitable?

Searches for “steve irwin jokes” or variations currently represent 67% of all search-generated traffic to this website. But that still doesn’t match the overall traffic levels when drugs spiked my website. What does this say about human nature?

A clown in life, Steve Irwin has inspired more jokes since his death — not just that first one I posted last week…

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Only 29 hours after the death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin comes the first tasteless joke:

When a journalist asked what his favourite TV show was as a kid, Steve Irwin couldn’t decide. He said that he liked Thunderbirds, but he’ll always have a place in his heart for Stingray.

Thanks, Richard. What took you so long?

[Update 23 January 2008: Since Steve Irwin jokes are very popular on this website, you might also want to start posting Heath Ledger death jokes. Just as mindlessly tacky.]