The Daily Caller Has Conquered All The Internets, Bow Before The Daily Caller (Update)

 
  Update/Correction: A couple of emails to the Wonkette tipline have pointed out that, in our lust for mathematical slobberknockery, we got a couple of things DEAD WRONG in this story. We mislabeled the first two charts in our piece, which we said showed flat readership stats at Daily Caller. These charts, copied from the DC post, actually show flat readership atPolitico,and the text in the DC article says so. It was sloppy reading and editing on our part, and we apologize for the error. Even so, our final graph comparing the two sites is correct, and accurately shows the Daily Caller has done nothing that could even accidentally be interpreted as "surging" any time in the past year. 

The Daily Caller must have been doing some pretty crazy yoga moves lately, because Sunday night, at exactly 8: 07 p.m., they managed to successfully give themselves a blowjob.

"Daily Caller blazes past Politico in web traffic; leaves other establishment, liberal sites in rearview mirror." That wasthe headline. Apparently "DAILY CALLER CONQUERS WORLD, LIBERALS DIE ALL ALONE" just wasn't SEO-friendly enough. Tastefulness aside, that's a pretty intense claim they're making over there -- they made it lead story under the headline "THE DAILY CALLER SURGES," so they must be doing super well, right? ...right?

Yr Wonket did not even have to finish the article before a blog post was under way, mostly because it was Tucker Carlson trying to do math, but also because they managed to actually prove themselves wrong halfway through. Let's see what they were bragging about:

“We think there’s a direct connection between the toughness of our reporting and our growth,” said Tucker Carlson, this site’s editor-in-chief.

Ok, that's nice, and not too stupid on its face.

[Publisher Neil] Patel added, "Our astronomical growth is a testament to the tireless, dedicated and hyper-energetic staff at TheDC. We could not be prouder of the team of rock stars we have assembled. They are kicking butt every day, and we thank them for that."

Ok, so there is "astronomical growth," and it's because of how awesome the reporting is. Great. Now, let's take a gander at the graph they used to show how crazy-awesome their growth is. Clarification: Oh, there are no charts showing their growth, astronomical or otherwise. They do include a chart showing thatPoliticohas flat growth:  
 

Hm. It looks like, over the past year, there hasn't been...any growth at all? And the only time they ever had a noticeable surge in traffic was when one of their amazing super-tough fearless journalists interrupted a speech by the President of the United States ?  Correction: That spike is Politico getting traffic from the 2012 election. 

But the website says they're TURBO-EXPLODING THE LIBTARD BLOGOSPHERE! Or is it more nuanced...

The Daily Caller has surpassed Politico in website traffic, according to audience measurement tool Quantcast. In U.S. website rankings released by Quantcast Sunday, The Daily Caller ranked as the 275th most visited site in the U.S., while Politico has fallen to 315th.

Ohmy! Congratulations! You have emerged victorious, in the glorious position oftwo-hundred and seventy-fifth. Of course, if sites like HuffPo (14th) the New York Times (45th) and Slate (82nd) are in your rear view mirror, that may say something about the direction you're pointed, but still, you have surpassed Politico! Surely this growth-gasm is revealed in some other chart in the blog post? Correction: this is another chart showing flat readership at Politico. 

Nope.

So what could possibly have prompted the editorial decision to bump aside actual news from the front page to make room for a big slobbery web-analytics self-smooch, with the hope that no one actually looked at the graphs? Oh, right, they have DEFEATED THE MIGHTY POLITICO. For the year so far? For the past two years? Tell us, Daily Caller:

Quantcast rankings are based on the previous 30 days of traffic for a website.

Oh. Um... that's not sounding quite as cool. Maybe the Quantcast numbers will look cooler? Let's go straight to the source, and take screenshots to use for making fun of people:

Indeed.In case you're as bad at graphs as the Daily Caller is, the  (No, we can't make that joke here, sorry.) The purple line is Politico's traffic, and the sad little blue line is the Daily Caller. The little blue line has been smaller than the purple line for 50 of the past 52 weeks. That little bitty gap right there in June is what The DC calls -- in headlines -- "leaving other establishment, liberal sites in rearview mirror." That little thing up there.

OK, so we have made a gloat look more like a fart bubble. Are we done here? You would think so, but no!

We are not done yet because Quantcast has lots of cool demographic numbers too, and we simply must take a look. What does a Daily Caller reader look like?

Let's see... there's a 50 percent chance they are older than 45, an 86 percent chance they are male, and — egad! — a 91 percent chance they are white.

"This is starting to sound like a caricature," you might say. "Next you will be telling me than 72 percent of their readers are wealthier than the average American, you jokester."

It's true, we are afraid. But it's pretty impressive, really: TheDC can rise to the heights ofnumber 275appealing pretty much only to old white dudes with money. Keep up the good work. Do you suppose they're dancing around chanting "We're #275! We're #275!"

(Oh, and nobody tell the Daily Caller paranoiacs that the whole reason they know these stats is because they installed a tracker on their homepage and also probably under your girlfriend's car.)

[ DC ]