Hello, Gay Sports Fans! Welcome to a pleasantly more predictable week on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Kandy Ho went home after her third LSFYL, Jaidynn got some screen time and extra love from the fans, and Katya freaking won a challenge!

There has been a lot of talk about Millennials this year. Why are they doing so well? Why do we love them? After the social media summary below, you’ll find some graphs illustrating the correlation between age and social media followers. Spoiler: there isn’t one.

This week’s social media star is Jaidynn Diore Fierce. A coming out story, a teary eyed session about her hand-sewn costume (with sympathy from Violet!), and winning LSFYL. She got more screen time and a nice spike in followers on Facebook. Hugs all around, people.

Kandy Ho did not get an elimination spike, likely because fans expected her to go home. She’s a lovely human being, but not extremely popular. Therefore, there wasn’t the resounding outrage and social media activity that we get with highly popular queens like Trixie.

I expected Katya to gain more followers than usual this week. While she is still doing well, I don’t see any big spikes.

Twitter

Pearl is still in the lead with 26,500 followers, very closely mirroring Bianca’s growth curve from last year. Not only has she seen steep growth, but it will be hard to beat her totals. She gained 3,000 followers this week (13%).

Miss Fame continues to do well, with 22,400 followers, gaining 1,800-1,900 each week. She’s pretty AND weird! Winning combo for this show. Maybe she’s growing on me. Maybe.

Katya acquired an impressive 2,200 new followers (13%), bringing her total to 19,100. While her win likely helped, she has gained between 2,000 and 2,300 new followers for the past three episodes.

Jaidynn Diore Fierce has the highest relative increase in followers (14% – 843 new followers), due to increased screen time and heartwarming story.

Mrs. Kasha and Jaidynn have moved up in rank (to #9 and #10, respectively) with Kandy Ho moving down from #9 to #11. However, the difference between these queens is miniscule: 7,076; 7,053; and 6,717 followers, respectively. We will likely see a lot more shifting among these three.

Facebook

I want to take a moment to talk about how confusing Facebook’s numbers are. First of all, some queens have Profiles and some have Pages, so I need to make sure I’m reporting on the right page each week. That’s why Katya and Ginger’s numbers are way off in Episode 2. If you care enough to learn about the difference between Pages and Profiles, read this article.

But then, the numbers that I get during search are different from the numbers I see on their full pages. Look below. I typed in Jaidynn’s name and saw 7,685 likes. Then I opened up her page and saw 9,959 likes. I’m sure the number is cached in search, but jeez. These inconsistencies make me question my numbers.

Speaking of Jaidynn, holy smokes! Look at that Episode 6 spike. She normally gains about 200-700 followers per week. She gained 2,934, which is 43%! She also jumped from #12 to #10.

Mrs. Kasha Davis and Kandy Ho have moved down in ranking, from #10 to #11, and from #11 to #12, respectively.

Miss Fame is still in the lead with 37,729 followers, but Pearl is gaining on her quickly and will likely be first place within the next couple of episodes. Pearl gained 4,937 new Facebook followers (17%).

While Violet gains about 1,500 new followers each episode, she gained 2,790 this week. Showing her softer side piqued fans’ interest.

Katya has gained significantly more followers each week over the past four episodes. This week’s win and extra screen time gave her 2,867 new followers (19%).

Max has gained 20% more followers this week (3,324). She is doing consistently well in the popularity race, and might pass Trixie in the next episode.

To put this in perspective, Kennedy Davenport has a vibrant social media presence, but has only gained 100-300 followers each week. This week, her stellar runway look gained her 209 more followers (3%).

Instagram

Miss Fame is still aHEAD in Instagram land. See what I did there?

Pearl is gaining on Miss Fame. I predict that she will oust Miss Fame from the #1 seat after next week’s episode.

Violet Chachki did significantly better than usual this week. She tends to gain about 5,000-6,000 new followers. This week, she gained 10,100 (17%).

Max and Trixie swapped places. Max gained 7,400 new followers (16%) and is now in 4th place. Trixie gained 4,000 new followers (8%) and is in 5th place.

Jaidynn gained 2,000 new followers (16%), knocking Tempest down to position #10.

Kennedy’s numbers are closely aligned with eliminated queens. Foreshadowing?

Millennials’ Advantage?

Word on the street is that the younguns are getting a lot more followers. This is in sharp contrast to Season 6, which was dominated by Bianca and Courtney. I ran a quick test to see if there is a relationship between age and number of followers. As you can see from the highly wackadoodle graphs below, there is not a strong relationship between age and followers. Yes, those above the age of 34 don’t do as well, but Jaidynn and Kandy don’t do so great either.

For those not statistically inclined, an R-squared of 0.24 is really low. A healthy correlation would have an R-squared of at least 0.7 or 0.8, but really would need to be closer to 0.9. To those of you who are statistically inclined, I don’t mean to offend you. Feel free to make comments about my stats explanation. But do it nicely. 🙂