2015 Report on the Presence of Kpop in /hr/

Introduction
This is the third year I have examined the presence of kpop on /hr/. In 2013, kpop dominated the board, accounting for 51% of all posts made on /hr/. In 2014, board share slipped to 27%. The question this year, then, was whether kpop would continue to lose ground to other topics or if it would hold steady. The data shows the latter is true.

Method and Data
I used the same method as last year, with one change – I expanded the period studied from three days to five for a slightly large sample size. Various data was collected during five consecutive 24-hour periods on June 5-9. The data includes the number of posts made in two kpop threads (SNSD and KPG), the number of posts in non-kpop (referred to as “other”) threads, the total number of posts made on the board, and the number of active threads per day. That data was compiled in a table which can be viewed here: http://imgur.com/a/mgkhf#0

Results
As shown in the data table, the total number of posts made on /hr/ during the five-day period was 3331. By thread type, kpop threads had 994 posts, and all other threads had 2337 posts. Translating those numbers to board share, 29.8% of posts on /hr/ were made in kpop threads, while the remaining 70.2% were made in other threads (see http://imgur.com/a/mgkhf#1). Between the two kpop threads, KPG was more active with 621 posts, or nearly two thirds of the kpop posts. SNSD was less active with 373 posts. Only on one of the five days was SNSD more active than KPG. Excluding the two kpop threads, which were active every day, on average there were 73 other threads active (i.e. being posted in) on a given day. The lowest number of threads active in a day was 62 (64 when including kpop), and the highest number of active threads was 81 (83 with kpop). The average number of posts per thread on a given day was 6.

Comparison
While between 2013 and 2014 kpop activity was dramatically cut in half, this year activity has remained generally the same. There were minor increases in board share (http://imgur.com/a/mgkhf#2) and SNSD thread posts. KPG posts decreased barely (http://imgur.com/a/mgkhf#3). As for the other (non-kpop) threads, the number of active threads per day has increased while the number of posts per day has decreased, returning to 2013 levels. The average number of posts per thread per day dropped by three less posts in every thread to 6 (http://imgur.com/a/mgkhf#4). All threads combined, the total number of posts made on /hr/ per day has decreased for the second year in a row (http://imgur.com/a/mgkhf#5).

Analysis and Conclusion
Last year many readers cried doom and gloom at the major changes to kpop activity. Predictions of even further reductions in activity did not come to fruition, however. Rather, kpop on /hr/ largely stayed the same. As discussed last year, the current state of /hr/ kpop is certainly nowhere near what it was in 2013. But kpop is still a significant part of this board, especially when you consider that of the 150 threads, close to one third of all posts are made in just two of them. In other words, 1.3% of the threads on /hr/ are responsible for 30% of the activity on the board. Put another way, the average other thread gets 6 posts per day compared to the almost 200 in the average kpop thread. Meanwhile, /hr/ as a board has continued to steadily decrease in activity. While last year the number of posts in non-kpop threads swelled to fill the void left by reduced kpop posts, the number of posts overall decreased, and that trend continues. The difference is that this time, that decrease is not due entirely to reduced kpop activity, but reduced activity overall. Whether these trends continue next year or if /hr/ experiences a revival will be a key question for next year.

All visuals referenced above may be found in this album: http://imgur.com/a/mgkhf