I tracked the RSS feed for Buzzfeed’s homepage for about a month, collecting data on around 3000 articles. About 40% of the Buzzfeed headlines in my sample contain a number, although that does include years. All the numerology is “genuinely” from the internet.
10. The number 22.
The most popular topic for Buzzfeed articles with 22 in the title is “LOL”, a new kind of emotion that is the only way for people on the internet to have a feeling. Other hot topics for 22 include: the royal baby, fast food, mermaids, and printables. Think about a tree: please do not print this internet home page unless you need it for an important meeting or a big poo.
According to internet numerology websites, the number 22 is associated with people who “radiate enormous potential, accompanied by a high level of inner tension resulting from an overwhelming desire to achieve something extraordinary”.
The famous star Taylor Swift had a number 9 hit in the UK charts with a song called 22. Here are the first 22 pictures I got when I Google Image Searched “taylor swift lol”.
As of today Taylor Swift has only released 3 fragrances officially, but based on my understanding of human biology it is possible that she has released 19 others unofficially.
9. The number 20.
The hottest topics for number 20? A three-way tie for: “world”, “win” & “philosophy”.
Numerologically speaking, the number 20 is associated with sensitive souls who strive to serve others as best they can, who are likely to have hasty, ill-advised marriages and become public relations agents, artists or interior decorators. I did not make this up.
The first Google Image Search result for “world win philosophy” is this picture of Fabio, famous star of romance novel covers and ex-England football manager. He looks quite cross, and has been married to his wife for over 40 years, but it is not really for me to say whether he made a hasty decision.
8. The number 18.
Popular Buzzfeed topics for 18 are “gay best friend”, “best summer” and “terrible sports fans”. Numerology suggests that the number 18 is “sexually powerful”. People associated with it can make good friends, but “despise those who are not as vigorous”. According to Google Image Search, the “best summer” associated with 18 involves this:
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to more fully explore these concepts.
7. The number 17.
And just ahead is 18’s close friend, 17! For Buzzfeed, 17 means animals, life hacks & Saved By The Bell. Numerologists link the number 17 with immortality, which makes sense when you remember that Saved By The Bell’s famous star was the time-commanding immortal Zack Morris. Time out!
I spent slightly more than a pound on the autobiography of Dustin Diamond, best known to the public as wacky comedy sidekick Screech from children’s sitcom Saved By The Bell. It is not worth slightly more than a pound, although it does contain a letter of apology to all the women he claims he’s slept with. Diamond presents himself as unpleasant, bitter man, the book is poorly written and apparently untouched by an editor. If you are looking to read the memoir of a star of children’s television, I would instead recommend the delightful Blue Box Boy by BBC TV’s Doctor Who’s Adric, who even divides his life up into episodes just like a BBC TV’s Doctor Who story.
Time in!
6. The number 8.
Apparently my life path number is 8! This means that I “have great talent for management in all areas of life, especially in business and financial matters”, although I’m not sure how that connects with my net worth consisting of three or four bin bags worth of stuff best kept in bin bags and a Lego Space Shuttle.
If I were to follow the path of Buzzfeed, I would live a life that followed the tenets of irony, the KKK, Kanye West, Steve Carrell, and ironic photos.
According to Google, this is the most ironic photo of famous star Kanye West:
I’m not sure that this is that ironic as, according to Yahoo Answers, Kanye West is a very intelligent man who probably has a lot of deep thoughts:
Maybe it’s some sort of special irony, like people who still talk about an Alanis Morissette song from 1995 have discovered. Two Buzzfeed articles in my sample referred to famous star Alanis Morissette, but only one spells her name correctly.
5. The number 12.
(In the following segment, I refer to lasagne as lasagna because of Americans.)
You know when the number 12 was big? The ’90s, according to Buzzfeed!
Famous 1990s television series Friends referenced the number 12 in the episode “The One With The Dozen Lasagnas”. According to the Friends Wikia:
After cooking a dozen lasagnas for Aunt Sylvia, Monica is stuck with them as they were supposed to be vegetarian.
I assume a dozen lasagnas is actually 12 and not 13 because bakers don’t make lasagnes, unless they do. I don’t really deal with bakers a lot in my day-to-day life and I’m not invested enough in this premise to bother phoning a baker. Anyway, a lot of hi-jinx are going on as you know is bound to happen when this crazy gang of Friends is around but also everyone eats a lot of lasagnas!
But wait! The editors of the Friends Wikia have noticed something:
Despite the fact that the lasagnas contained meat (which is why Monica is stuck with them in the first place), Phoebe is seen eating from one near the end of the episode, but she is vegetarian. However, it might be that she scraped the meat off her part, but this is not mentioned or implied at any time.
My explanation for this terrible error is that Phoebe in this episode is not actually Phoebe but is her identical twin sister Ursula pretending to be Phoebe. Ursula was a character from Mad About You also played by the famous star who played Phoebe but they made them twins because apparently Mad About You was once something anyone in the world cared about? Even fanfiction.net only has one Mad About You story, and it’s in Spanish (translated plot summary: “based on the last chapter, Mabel tells us something very interesting”).
Here are some pictures from the best episode of Friends that someone from the internet has put the corresponding words over the top of:
4. The number 11.
11 is a Master Number, “combining the most powerful male energy” with “the equally potent female energy”, for example in Boris Johnson, art, and James Gandolfini, the most popular topics Buzzfeed has 11 things to say about for some reason.
According to Google this image from the Daily Mail is what represents the combination of the 3:
A candle in the wind.
2. The number 15.
Jessica O wondered what the meaning of the number 15 could be, and wrote to about.com. About.com’s heaing expert Phylameana Lila Desy told her:
My approach when there are more than one meanings is to choose the meaning that makes the most sense to me personally and not be too concerned about which way may be right or wrong.
Phylameana Lila Desy is a fraud, you can’t just make up what a number means, numbers are science! For instance, Buzzfeed tells us the number 15 is most strongly associated with movies, fashion, bacon fat, and ‘addicted to Nutella’, so it’s clearly a number that indicates you might be a dietary knife-edge away from ruining some ambitions.
Alarmingly this is not the most disturbing thing you get when you look for pictures associated with the phrase “addicted to Nutella”:
1. The number 10.
A classic number, first popularised by 10th Doctor Who, famous star David Tennant, the number 10 now forms the basis for much of modern mathematics. “LOL” once again tops Buzzfeed’s list of topics, closely followed by “advertising” and “grammar and spelling mistakes”.
Numerology says
through this vibration you have the insight to recognize and understand the needs of humanity, and the ability to bring peace and harmony to all
so in a shocking twist it turns out that by posting loads of “hilarious” Jpegs like
this Buzzfeed are actually slowly drawing the psychic energies of humanity towards the perfect oneness that will unite our beings and allow us to experience the true totality of love. If you didn’t “LOL” at the above picture your brain receptors are just not advanced enough to join the next level of human experience 🙁 but maybe you’ll enjoy this word cloud of Buzzfeed topics by popularity:
