September brought Americans together with culture, politics, sports, technology, and—as usual—outrage. I Love Charts brings together the most graphable moments of the month.
Dance like nobody’s—er, grandma’s—watching
I Love Charts started the month on the ground at the DNC, documenting it all for Tumblr’s official Election blog. While in Charlotte, we were struck by how similar the music selection was to another event:
Mitt’s fuzzy math
The conventions were the prelude to a month focused on the race to the White House, and the addition of a new number to the canon of political percentages. Add 47 percent — Mitt Romney’s estimation of the segment of America that does not pay taxes — to the 99 percent, the 1 percent and, of course, Mitt’s own 13% tax rate.
And justice for all
Speaking of the 99 percent, Occupy Wall Street celebrated its first birthday in September. Its present? More than 180 new arrests bringing the total arrests for the movement to over7,600.
We’re on strike!
From protests to labor disputes, September was full of conflict between employers and employees, from teachers to professional athletes.
No, seriously, we’re on strike
By far the most noticeable labor dispute is that between the National Football League and their referees, who were locked out over what amounts to less than 1 percent of total NFL revenue. The NFL regular season began in September despite the two sides being unable to come to an agreement. Replacement (scab) refs were used—to disastrous effect.
iPhone Disappoints
The only downgrade worse than that of the officiating quality of the NFL is that of the maps on the new iPhone iOS, which came out this month. Out are Google maps and in are Apple maps, which are, well, horrible. Other than that, the iPhone 5 gives us the same things the iPhone 4s gave us but slightly better — plus it has five rows of apps now rather than four, so there is that. Whee?
“Gangnam Style” jumps the shark
Since the iPhone 5 proved to be so underwhelming, September will probably be best known as the month the rest of the world found out about the most viral Korean pop hit of all time, “Gangnam Style“— you know, that video that popularized the “invisible horse” dance. What was once just Korea’s — and then just Korea’s and the Internet’s—is now everywhere. The spread of the phenomenon has proved, for the billionth time, things are not cool once they appear on the shows your mother watches.
Royal pain in the… hello!
Speaking of overexposed: Kate Middleton. Yup, paparazzi snapped shots of the Duchess of Cambridge sunbathing topless and the tabloids ran with them, setting up a much-needed and inevitably unheeded debate about privacy. Also worth debate: How many pixels does it take to actually see something?
See you in October!
Illustrations by Jason Oberholzer and Cody Westphal/I Love Charts