Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have determined that Facebook statuses are more memorable than human faces.
Read that again. A team, led by visiting scholar Laura Mickes, found that social-network keyboard mashings stick in our minds more than the unique features on the front of our heads, the infinitely expressive collection of organs through which we communicate, physically and verbally.
In the study, people were two and a half times more likely to remember incoherent Obama rants, “KONY 2012” shares, and boastful wordvomit (an actual status from the experiment: “My math professor told me that I was one of his brightest students”) than a human face.
Could that actually be true?
I don’t think it is. I think the experiment was rigged. Or maybe the subjects were face-blind.
Let me try to prove it.
Is this status …
… more memorable than Tyra Banks?
Or Jennifer Lawrence?
Or Peter Dinklage?
Or Nicolas Cage?
Or how about Kristen Wiig?
Try really hard not to remember Marion Cotillard’s face.
Or Emma Stone’s.
Or Eddie Murphy’s. You see what I mean?
Look at Gary Busey.
Just look at him.
Ad infinitum.
Or Jim Carrey.
Right?
OK, I know what you’re thinking. These people are celebrities. We know their faces better than we know our own.
So here’s a regular example: Daily Dot Internet rights reporter Kevin Collier, a regular schmo.
Look at him. He’s holding a lamb.
He’s way more memorable than this:
And this:
And this:
And this:
And this:
And this:
I rest my case.