The Wisdom of Penis-Obsessed Crowds

I subscribe to Yahoo's Most Emailed News RSS feed because it constitutes a reader-edited newspaper. I figure any story readers will actually take the time to email to someone is probably worth a glance. But sometimes the mix of stories is more interesting than the stories themselves.

For instance, over the last couple of days a theme has emerged. Consider the #3 story:

Woman sets fire to ex-husband's penis - Yahoo! News: "A woman set fire to her ex-husband's penis as he sat naked watching television and drinking vodka, Moscow police said Wednesday."

And here's the #5 story:

British dwarf's penis gets stuck to hoover - Yahoo! News "A dwarf performer at the Edinburgh fringe festival had to be rushed to hospital after his penis got stuck to a vacuum cleaner during an act that went horribly awry."

So maybe Yahoo needs a Penis News feed...

It's interesting to compare the stories on the Most Emailed feed with those on the Most Viewed feed. For instance, as I write this, the #1 Most Emailed story is about how moose burps contribute to global warming. Contrast that with the #1 Most Viewed story, about the latest efforts to detect signs of life in the Utah coal mine disaster.

If there's a common quality to the Most Emailed stories, it's that they are generally of an off-beat, if not outright upbeat nature. So on a collective basis it appears that readers filter out the most depressing or disturbing stories in favor of those that are the most entertaining. And why not -- bad news isn't difficult to find.