For anyone who has been living in a cave for the past 15 years, please be advised that there is a website called the Internet Movie Database — or IMDB. It can be very useful if you are a person who likes to look up things about actors and movies — but that’s where it’s usefulness ends.
The IMDB is a giant warehouse where electronic knowledge of everything you need to know about movies or actors or television is stored. If you see a movie on TV and you want to know who played who in what part — or when the film or show was made, or even something as stupid as who served the food on the set, you can find it on the IMDB.
Films and the people who make and start in the films and TV projects are pretty much deemed to be illegitimate if they do not appear on the IMDB database. That sounds kind of unfair but that’s the way it goes. Anything that is not in IMDB must have been shot on your hand-held camera at your grandmother’s 100th birthday — although stuff like that does get on there if the person who shoots the film knows how to work the IMDB strings.
Okay, so on the IMDB website — on top of all the other info you get get — actors and writers and production companies and all things in movie-land are rated by a thing called a STARmeter.
Supposedly this STARmeter is a great way to gauge how popular someone is in the world of entertainment because their STARTmeter number is determined –supposedly — by how many people search for them on the IMDB.
The higher your STARmeter number, the less popular you are. A working but pretty much unknown actor can expect an IMDB STARmeter score of about 10,000 to 20,000. A famous actor like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt will usually have a score of about 20 or 25 depending on if they have a movie coming out or they are in the news for one reason or another.
Sometimes the #1 rated STARmeter person is the guy who just won the Academy Award a few minutes ago. After that hoopla dies down he moves out of the #1 spot and drifts upwards ( remember higher is not better) until he again draws a lot of attention to himself. The STARmeter is updated every week, so an actor who was #4 last week might rise up to # 16 next week — not a good thing but that’s what they call an algorithm.
So, the rule is — a high number is bad and a low number is good — well at least that’s how it used to be.
Things have changed for the bad at the IMDB and it looks like there is something really nasty going on over there now that they’ve teamed up with evil Amazon — you know the company that used to be a bookstore but will now sell you frozen pig embryos or goats eyes or zebra costumes online — in other words, Amazon will sell you anything — they’re scum bags. Heartless. Money Grubbers. Assholes — and now THEY do the STARmeter calculations.
Recently, a lot of actors and writers have noticed outrageous changes in their STARmeter scores. Some actors who used to be in the 5,000 range suddenly found themselves overnight in the 70,000 range. How is that possible? It’s possible because EVIL Amazon seems to have decided who is worthy of a good score and who is not. Is it possible that Amazon and IMDB are rigging the scores of actors they deem are not worthy enough to have the scores they have? Sure looks like it.
It’s the same reason why top designer clothes do not make sizes of clothes for fat people. They don’t want their stuff being worn by
anyone who isn’t fit and trim — it’s a form of elitism and bigotry.
The IMDB used to be a cool place, but now it’s just a shit hole that is beholden to Evil Amazon.
If they can’t score actors and writers and directors fairly, they should not score them at all.
Fuck IMDB and FUCK Amazon. They are working hand in glove with the studios to manufacture celebrities rather than letting the people decide for themselves who THEY like.
Some actors rely heavily on their STARmeter for jobs — yes it‘s true. A guy might be up for a part and when it comes down to the final cut, the call might go to the guy with the better — albeit possibly rigged — star-meter score.
Again — FUCK IMDB and FUCK AMAZON. The unholy alliance of two scumbags.
“it looks like there is something really nasty going on over there now that they’ve teamed up with evil Amazon”
They have been owned by Amazon for 15 years? So who has been living in a cave?
I came out from under a rock to get this statement from the person who would know. You see, that’s what I do when I have a question. You, however, chose to be a whiny jackass. Read what the guy said and learn something, you fucking fuktard.
“Since the inception of IMDB, the concept of a starmeter and information gathering has been outsourced to a company called CMGI Tabulations, but recently Amazon has stopped working with CMGI; opting instead to change the way they gather and tabulate the populraity or visibility of various people in the entertainment industry. That information is now gathered and tabulated by Amazon and it seems they are having a very difficult time with getting it right. It’s a case of ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” but Amazone seems to have missed the meaning of that old saying.” [Christopher Johnson, Managing Director]