BuzzFeed Reaction Awards Reveal Geeks Have Best Sense Of Humor

    Reaction buttons like "LOL" and "WTF" make it easy way to show how you feel about the content you’re interacting with. As many BuzzFeed power-users can attest, the more you react, the more awards you can unlock! From poring over the data behind our award-winners we found out the answers to important questions like, "how common are Incredulous Cute Spotters" and, "What does it mean to be a Disgruntled Enthusiast?" Data by Ky Harlin. Analysis by Chris Menning. Graphs by Amy Sly.

    Chris Menning
    by Chris Menning

    BuzzFeed Staff

    • The Top 7 Most Popular Reaction Awards

      We're constantly experimenting with new reactions like Winning and Get Real! but we've found that there are 7 reactions that work really well: LOL, OMG, WTF, Ew, Trashy, and Geeky.

    • None of these badges are mutually exclusive. When someone earns one badge they're likely to earn another. As you might expect, there's a lot of overlap.

    • Humor, Cuteness, Enthusiasm, and even Incredulity (questioning, stupefaction) are themes with broad appeal among various groups of people. Trashiness, Grossness, and Geekiness appeal to fairly specific groups of people. Within these niches are the unique outliers, and as well see, they exhibit the most interesting anomalies.

    • Reaction Award Cross-Sections

      Of all reaction-based awards given, the most common is Sense of Humor. After all, we all come to BuzzFeed for entertainment first and foremost, and that LOL button is first in line. Because Sense of Humor has such a broad appeal, the other awards that Sense of Humor winners have earned are congruent with the site-wide average.

    • In 2nd place is the Cute Spotter Badge. Whether it's kittens, puppies, toddlers, or Companion Cubes, everybody finds something cute. Over 90% of Cute Spotters also won Sense of Humor, with nearly even shares of Enthusiasm and Incredulity.

    • Over 96% of Incredulous award winners also won Sense of Humor. Incredulous people also have a higher than average incidence of Enthusiasm. One good WTF reaction often deserves an OMG.

    • With enthusiasts, again, it's nearly the same story. Everybody likes a good OMG, and OMG can be applied to nearly anything! OMG Hooray for everything! Enthusiast award winners are equally likely to win an Incredulous badge as they are to win Cute Spotter. Reactions of OMG+CUTE are as likely as OMG+WTF. Incidentally, reactions of WTF+CUTE are far less likely.

    • Now that we've gotten to the people who seek out EW-inducing content, things get more interesting. Someone who clicks the EW button so often as to earn a Disgruntled badge isn't one who is displeased with the content they're reacting to. They're actively seeking out stuff that makes them go "ew" and they're enjoying it.

    • 100% of Disgruntled award winners also won Sense of Humor. Over 96% of Disgruntled people also won Cute Spotter. At this time it's unclear how often a post is both Cute and Ew-inducing.

    • 100% of Geeks also won Sense of Humor. Over 50% of Geeks won Trashy, slightly ahead of Disgruntled people. Where most other groups sacrifice a bit of Humor to compensate for other reactions, all awards won by the Geeks are earned at levels ahead of the site-wide average.

    • As one might assume Trash Collectors are also often Disgruntled. One good "ew" often deserves a "trashy" and vice versa. But Trash Collectors are also the Geekiest, and most Cute-Spotting cross-section while they value humor even less than Disgruntled people.

    • But calling those people that react to Trashy content Trash Collectors is hardly a fair representation of their content-seeking habits. Despite having the lowest percentage of Sense of Humor, Trash Collectors tend to be the most well-rounded of all.