Our celebration of Overthinking It’s 1oth Anniversary continues with this rundown of the most-read article from each year of the site’s existence. Enjoy, and add your favorites in the comments below!
2008: 40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes
Over the years, we’ve heard reports of this video being played before sporting events, final exams, break-up conversations, coup d’etats…pretty much any situation conceivable where humans need to go a little beyond what they’re usually capable of.
2009: Slumdog Millionaire: How Much is 20 Million Rupees, Anyway?
Remember when this movie won Best Picture at the Oscars and was the talk of the town? Yeah, me neither. Still, a bunch of people keep googling this question, and we are more than happy to provide them with the answer, illustrated with many, many graphs.
2010: The Female Character Flowchart
A sort of companion piece to “Why Strong Female Characters are Bad for Women” (the second-most read piece on Overthinking It), this chart still boggles the mind with its obsessive level of detail. Click to embiggen:
2011: The Economics of Death Star Planet Destruction
We start with a simple question: what’s the Empire’s economic calculus for blowing up planets? Aren’t they concerned about their Gross Galactic Product going down?
Then we go down every conceivable rat-hole, touching upon Marxism, mercantilism, Ancient Rome, and the war in Afghanistan.
2012: The Law and Order Database
With A LOT of help from reader Josh Kyu Saiewitz, we compiled a database of EVERY trial outcome in Law and Order, then made a ton of graphs.
CHUNG CHUNG.
2013: Candy Crush: When Games Pretend to Be Games They Aren’t
Admit it, you were probably playing Candy Crush on your phone a few minutes ago. But did you realize it’s a JRPG in disguise?
2014: Overthinking Cowboy Bebop, Sessions 25 & 26
Yes, we know we made you all wait four years between the last two installments of the epic Cowboy Bebop series, but it was worth the wait, no?
2015: Martian Law: Is Mark Watney Really a Space Pirate?
This article does not constitute legal advice on any planet, and clicking on this link does not establish an attorney-client relationship between you and this website. But it does give some practical advice for you to consider the next time you’re thinking of breaking the law in space.
2016: Revealing the Real Box Office Champ
Under a very specific set of criteria, the number one movie in America of all time is…Crocodile Dundee. We were surprised, too.
2017: The Morality of Passengers, Part 1 and Part 2
In which we subject a little-seen, little-loved sci-fi movie to a level of scrutiny it REALLY didn’t deserve. But we did it anyway, ’cause that’s how we roll here.
