Thanks to Bookslut (and a total inability to focus on work today), I just found Musicthatmakesyoudumb and Booksthatmakeyoudumb, conceived by a CalTech student named Virgil Griffith. The two lists compare what kids say they like on Facebook with the average SAT scores of the schools they go to.

The book list is interesting though ultimately depressing. (Hint: If kids on your campus like books by black women, your school’s probably not ranked that high.) The music list isthe same–Lil Wayne and TI fans probably don’t go to very prestigious schools either, it turns out, and the only black people in the whole top 20 are animated.

Also, aside from the whole race issue, it turns out the co-eds all listen to the same music. Griffith says in the faq that “There were 3,164 distinct favorite books, but only 1,455 distinct favorite musics. College students have far more diverse tastes in books than they do in music.” Which is, you know, kind of a letdown. That’s 1,455 favorite “musics”–bands, genres, and answers like “I like anything but country”–coming from top 10 lists at 1,352 different schools across the whole country. The list data isn’t perfect–Facebook lists the top music at SAT-challenged Dallas school Paul Quinn as “I Dont Have A Particular Genre Of Music…i Listen To Wateva!” That can’t be the #1 answer at a school that has 280 people in its network. A little breakdown after the jump:

Kids from Spartanburg Methodist are into Welsh metal and Oberlin students are reeeeeeeeally into bluegrass bands from Massachusetts that I’ve never heard of, but the list is mostly the same stuff that college kids liked eight years ago–Jack Johnson and Coldplay made the most lists, followed by rap and country, and the Beatles, John Mayer and Sublime also made a giant crapload of lists.

But, in the end, what do smart kids listen to? Or, you know, kids that do well on standardized tests?

Counting Crows. And Beethoven. Really. Beethoven scored high at Yale and St John’s (and edged out Tori Amos for the number one spot at Oberlin), while Adam Duritz and his terrible hair are top 5 material at Penn, Duke, and Vanderbilt.

Of note locally, the Brown kids are listen to Leonard Cohen while reading Siddhartha, RISD kids prefer Mos Def (!) and Sylvia Plath, at PC they’re rocking out to Billy Joel, and URI kids like Jack Johnson but the 18000 of them apparently don’t like ten books between them. At Bryant they’re really into the Fray and the Frey, while Incubus and the Bible are all the rage at JWU, and at my alma mater the kids totally dig, uh, Sublime and Tuesdays With Morrie.

Tags: bands, Books, dumbness, Music

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