Wow, last week’s Drag Race post made the rounds in the stats and Drag Race circles. It was cross-posted to Jezebel and has been getting some pretty high-profile links. A little birdy told me that Ms. Ru herself has read it. I think I can die a happy man knowing that RuPaul has visited Bad Hessian.

Anyhow, last week I tried to count Coco out. I was reading her like the latest AJS. The library is open. But her response to me was simple — girl, please:

(Also this happened. Wig under a wig.)


(both of these gifs courtesy of f%^@yeahdragrace)

Can that win safeguard Coco from getting eliminated? Let’s look at the numbers after the jump.
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If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I’m a big fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race. The transformation, the glamour, the sheer eleganza extravanga is something my life needs to interrupt the monotony of grad school. I was able to catch up on nearly four seasons in a little less than a month, and I’ve been watching the current (fifth) season religiously every Monday at Plan B, the gay bar across from my house.

I don’t know if this occurs with other reality shows (this is the first I’ve been taken with), but there is some element of prediction involved in knowing who will come out as the winner. A drag queen we spoke with at Plan B suggested that the length of time each queen appears in the season preview is an indicator, while Homoviper’s “index” is largely based on a more qualitative, hermeneutic analysis. I figured, hey, we could probably build a statistical model to know which factors are the most determinative in winning the competition.
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