Accounting For Taste
How Ranker Insights Maps Out Our Unique, Interesting, And Sometimes Bizarre Taste in TV
Photo: Ranker
Can it really be said in the year 2022 that there’s no accounting for taste? After all, the internet is rife with algorithms that do exactly that: Google predicts what we’re looking for, Spotify predicts what we’ll want to listen to, Tinder predicts who we’ll want to date. Clearly, there’s something to the idea that the individual human mind and its unique preferences aren’t quite as mysterious as once thought.
That’s certainly our position at Ranker Insights. Our psychographic insights engine was designed to explore the connections between the people, places, and things that pop culture fans love — that’s how we built Watchworthy, our app that gives you TV recommendations specifically tailored to your taste in TV.
To demonstrate how it works, we took a look at three very popular, very different TV shows on Ranker Insights. We found different series recommended to fans of each of these three shows, then traced those recommendations back to voting data on Ranker.
The Boys
Photo: Amazon Prime Video
Amazon’s hit super-anti-hero series has built up a big following since its premiere back in 2018, which has translated to a decent volume of votes on Ranker. Over 10,000 unique visitors have visited our site to voice their opinion on the show, an opinion that’s pretty favorable: 71% of the votes they cast indicate positive sentiment for The Boys.
Voters: 10,233
Votes: 11,086
Total lists voted on: 95
Sentiment: 71%
If you were recommending new shows to someone and all you knew about them was that they liked The Boys, what would you suggest? Most people (and most recommendation apps) would just offer up more superhero-themed TV — Google, for instance, offers a huge slate of superhero shows in its “Fans Also Searched For” tab for The Boys, with little variety outside that genre. But while there certainly are other comic book-inspired series that draw in The Boys fans, that’s not going to be close to the kind of precision that Watchworthy’s statistics-driven recommendations offer. Let’s take a look at what Watchworthy says about the shows that The Boys fans are most likely to love.
The Punisher: As the show with the strongest affinity with The Boys, The Punisher does indicate the obvious conclusion that there really is an appetite for superhero programming among this audience. That said, comic book vigilantes aren’t the only thing The Punisher shares with The Boys: they’re both edgy, dark, and violent, challenging the ideas that superheroes are all through-and-through good guys. That’s probably why The Punisher is 6X more likely to appeal to The Boys fans — that’s twice as likely as MCU shows WandaVision and Loki, superhero shows with a more positive tone.
Lists where people frequently vote up both The Punisher AND The Boys:
Invincible: Again, we’re finding that this fan base is drawn to alternative superhero stories. Invincible not only shares a streaming service with The Boys, but an outlook that examines and sometimes satirizes the clichés of the superhero genre. Invincible is 5X more likely to be beloved by The Boys acolytes, a stronger affinity with the show than any other animated series. That connection will probably only get stronger with time, as Invincible is just over a year old and currently has just over 3,000 votes.
Lists where people frequently vote up both Invincible AND The Boys:
White Collar: This is the sort of recommendation you probably wouldn’t give your Boys-loving friend. It’s a network crime dramedy that went off the air in 2014 and has nothing to do with superhuman vigilantes. And yet, Insights finds that The Boys fans are 3X more likely to love this show. That connection is coming from Watchworthy users telling the algorithm they like both shows, which makes sense, given that the two series lack much of anything in common that might put them on the same list.
Rick and Morty
Photo: Adult Swim/Warner Bros.
This smash hit animated comedy from Adult Swim has been on the air since 2013, which is why it’s been voted on by well over 100,000 people. With so many people weighing in on the show, it’s impressive that its sentiment is so high at 69%.
Voters: 126,395
Votes: 137,381
Total lists voted on: 203
Sentiment: 69%
Archer: It makes sense that fans of Rick and Morty are 7X more likely to also love Archer, according to Insights. They were created a few years apart, are extremely popular, long-running animated comedies, and they both parody old-fashioned genres of movie and TV: science fiction and spy thrillers, respectively. They even share a supporting actor in SNL alum Chris Parnell. The shows have so much in common, in fact, that a statistically significant number of people who voted on both across 30 different lists. We’ve provided just a sampling of the most relevant and interesting ones here.
Lists where people frequently vote up both Archer AND Rick and Morty:
Solar Opposites: The fact that Solar Opposites, which shares a co-creator and an animation style with Rick and Morty, would be so closely associated with its sister show (Solar Opposites and Archer are tied for strongest affinity with Rick and Morty). Judging from the Ranker lists where these shows are both getting votes, it would seem, unsurprisingly, that the two series are capturing the same share of the broader adult animation audience.
Lists where people frequently vote up both Solar Opposites AND Rick and Morty:
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Inherited wisdom about demographics tells us that edgy animated comedies are for under-30 men, while supernatural soaps about teenage witches are for under-30 women. But our voting data allows us to cut through assumptions like this, which is why there’s a significant affinity between Rick and Morty and Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a Riverdale-style update of the Archie comic series. Again, Watchworthy user activity is the only thread that connects the two shows.
The Good Doctor
Photo: ABC
Rounding out our trio is The Good Doctor, a primetime medical drama on broadcast television that’s considerably more family-friendly than either The Boys or Rick and Morty. But in spite of the vast distance between The Good Doctor and The Boys in terms of genre and tone, the two shows have similar voter totals, demonstrating the breadth of Ranker’s audience of TV fans. That said, voter sentiment for The Good Doctor is at 66% — the lowest of the three shows we’ve covered here, but still a relatively high rating (the massively popular show Game of Thrones has a sentiment of 68%).
Voters: 11,141
Votes: 11,974
Total lists voted on: 63
Sentiment: 66%
The Resident: As the show with the strongest affinity with The Good Doctor, The Resident shares a lot with our series of focus, though you could argue that they’re traits shared by most broadcast medical dramas. They have incredibly talented, but personally difficult doctors at their centers, and both often dramatize the clash between high-minded medical expertise and the cold realities of the healthcare business. But the lists connecting these shows are more generic, indicating that The Good Doctor largely appeals to fans of medical shows, drama shows, and medical drama shows.
Lists where people frequently vote up both The Resident AND The Good Doctor:
New Amsterdam: Premiering in 2018, New Amsterdam is the newest show to have a strong affinity with The Good Doctor — though it’s tied for that distinction with The Resident and 9-1-1. Again, the lists that connect these shows are largely generic. But given that The Good Doctor airs on ABC, New Amsterdam on NBC, and The Resident on Fox does suggest that the audience drawn to these shows regularly watches traditional broadcast television. Since both these shows are 8X more likely to share fans with The Good Doctor, it also suggests this audience doesn’t demonstrate a preference for any one particular “Big 4” network (though the CBS show most closely associated with Good Doctor, NCIS, is only 5X more likely to be beloved by its audience).
Lists where people frequently vote up both New Amsterdam AND The Good Doctor:
Atypical: Atypical is not on broadcast television, nor is it a medical drama — it’s a Netflix Original coming-of-age story about an autistic teenager who decides he’s ready to start searching for love. What the two shows have in common is a protagonist on the autism spectrum, though Ranker doesn’t have any list that would highlight such a connection. Because only Watchworthy data connects Atypical and The Good Doctor (which premiered just a month apart), it’s difficult to tell just how much of their affinity is due to their focus on young adults with autism.
