Another month, another massive sporting event, another Pornhub data dump.
Now that the Sochi Winter Olympics are in full swing, the tube site giant has released its traffic numbers from the opening ceremony. The stats reveal the exact moment when viewers worldwide went from watching their countrymen compete for national glory to watching two blondes compete for the attention of a muscular ponytailed man’s penis.
The website has also released a list of the countries where Pornhub traffic actually decreased during the opening ceremonies, in descending order:
Let’s start with the Russians, shall we?
According to Pornhub data from previous Winter Olympics, residents of the tournament’s host country tend to eschew surfing the Internet in favor of tuning into the games, leading to a decrease in Pornhub traffic in those countries. (That’s what happened in Vancouver in 2010 and in the UK for the 2012 Summer Olympics).
The same thing appeared to have happened in Russia: Between 11am and 12pm EST, when the opening ceremonies were broadcast, Pornhub traffic decreased by about 14.8 percent.
The Japanese, apparently, were not as deeply invested in the opening ceremonies as the Russians were. Presumably put off by the spectacular display of ineptitude that was the Olympic Ring Fail, there was a slight spike in Pornhub traffic between 11 and 12:30, accompanied by a much larger spike between 12:30 and 2:00:
The same went for Great Britain, where there was a spike in traffic from noon onward.
When Pornhub looked at the worldwide numbers, however, there appeared to be one major consistency: the biggest drop in traffic occurred right at the beginning of the ceremonies, ending abruptly with the parade of nations around 12:30. Blame it on the U.S. athletes and their stupid J. Crew-meets-jingoistic-cat-lady cardigans:
Screengrabs via Pornhub Insights
So what’s the takeaway from all this? That with the exception of France and Switzerland (who are evidently too busy gratifying themselves/eating expensive chocolates to partake in the Olympics with the rest of us plebs), the world is willing to tear their gooey paws away from their genitals to rejoice in the athletic achievements of their countrymen for a few hours. Yay, patriotism!
And also: The U.S. team’s costumes really, really sucked.
H/T Pornhub | Photo by U.S. Army IMCOMFlickr (CC BY – NC 2.0)