Today we published our 12th Sporcle This or That quiz, and it got us thinking: Why are these quizzes so entertaining and popular. One of the first on Sporcle (and one of the reasons we made the wrong answer feature.) was our famous Drug or Pokemon quiz. It’s been shared more than 40,000 times on Facebook and Twitter, and has over 250k plays. The idea came from a pharmacology student who noticed that some of the names could sound pretty interchangeable (unless you’re either a Pokemon fanatic or a pharmacist). We saw that the quiz had potential and decided to design a feature around it.
We also managed to cash in on the brief, absurd popularity of the Rebecca Black song Friday, and RockGolf , one of our editors, noticed it’s extreme lyrical similarity to the Beatles Day in the Life. The Beatles or Rebecca Black has now been played over 350,000 times. The amazing similarity between the two songs just goes to show you what genius musical talent can bring to seemingly banal lyrics.
We also challenged RockGolf into making a quiz comparing Justin Bieber quotes to Gandhi quotes, just to see if it could be done. As you can see, it takes a careful eye to find out which clues that could be used for either category. We can’t believe the creativity we’ve seen with these quizzes and we’re considering promoting This or That into it’s own subcategory. Go ahead and let us know what you think in the comments.
Chuck Berry wrote several of the greatest rock n roll songs of all time, but his only #1 song was the novelty track “My Ding-A-Ling”.
I’ve written, in total, 375 Sporcle quizzes to date, and far and away the most popular is one about… Rebecca Black.
Chuck, my man, I know how you feel.