Talking about a movie on Twitter more important than ads, say scientists who want to be talked about on Twitter

Pausing briefly from designing sex robots, Japanese scientists have created a mathematical model which they claim can predict a movie's box office success—and in yet more proof that you are the center of the universe, it all comes down to "online buzz." That's because the study looked at the number of times you might see, for example, "OMG, 'THAT'S MY BOY' TONIGHT! LOOKS SOOOO FUNNY! THE SANDMAN IS BACK! #wigs #bongs " posted on your Facebook and Twitter feed, and found that sort of social media activity to have a direct correlation with the number of people who intended to purchase tickets, rather than sit home and reflect on how their myriad life choices led them to have those sorts of friends.

Perhaps more importantly, in potentially bad news for the person who ordered a Rock Of Ages poster be placed at every fucking bus stop in the nation so that daily commuters could let their irrational hatred of Julianne Hough's face fester, those same researchers discovered that there is " no direct relationship between the advertising spending and the purchasing intention." Furthermore, timing is everything, with ads going up two weeks to 10 days before release being "optimum," as opposed to what feels like the six months you've been staring at Tom Cruise in that dumb fucking hat. Of course, these same Japanese scientists were quick to point out that this model was not intentionally developed as, and likely could not prove to be a reliable box-office predictor—which pretty much goes without saying, considering it is based on people talking on the Internet. It is, however, scientific proof that they should take down all those fucking Rock Of Ages posters.