Strong Bad Email Statistics

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Revision as of 02:20, 13 November 2021

No Loafing!

Over 200 Strong Bad Emails have been released on homestarrunner.com. This article is intended to track statistics reflecting relative use of computers and the runtime of emails. Charts and graphs have been created to visualize and analyze Strong Bad and his emails.

Strong Bad Email length

The data in this section is accurate as of pet show (February 4, 2008).

A scatter plot of chronological number vs. length, with outliers.

A scatter plot of chronological number vs. length, without outliers.

The scatter plot to the left illustrates the relationship between the email number and its corresponding length (the red plots for the original length, and the black plots including the Easter eggs). This can be mathematically modeled using a power regression curve, which allows us to measure the trend for email duration as well as predict the ongoing trend for future emails. The R² value for these curves identifies how strong this relationship is (how close the points are to the model): a value of 1 means that the model and the data are identical, while a 0 means that the model does not relate to the data at all. The equation for the black curve is y = 0.0002513x^0.4746 and the equation for the red curve is y = 0.0002467x^0.4593.

There are certain emails, however, whose lengths were much longer than the emails surrounding them, called outliers. These emails can affect the accuracy of the model and, if removed, can allow for greater accuracy. The graph on the right has the outliers removed, which subsequently improves the R² value for the curves. The black curve's equation becomes y = 0.0002512x^0.4717 and the red equation becomes y = 0.0002466x^0.4565. Of course, it should be noted that these models are by no means a guaranteed guess; email 500, for example, is unlikely to be over six and a half minutes long, as this model predicts.

In the email theme song, Strong Bad tells his viewers that each email is about 3 to 5 minutes long. Approximately 51% of all emails released as of email thunder fall in this range, most of which were released when that length had become the standard.

Strong Bad Emails by computer

The data in this section is accurate as of the June 29, 2021 revision of Strong Bad Email By Length.

This section refers to the primary computer used to answer each email, or the "era" of the computer. The categories are Tandy 400, Compy 386, Lappy 486, Compé, Lappier, and Other (Pom Pilot—the bird, Tangerine Dreams—weird dream, and Corpy NT6—imaginary). Although some emails feature more than one computer, it is fairly obvious which is the primary one for the purposes of this data (for instance, retirement is counted as part of the Lappy 486 era despite featuring the Tandy and Compy).

Average length of emails by computer

Total time of each computer's usage (including Easter Eggs)

Number of emails answered per computer

Remarks

• The Lappy 486 is the most-used computer.
  • A total of 88 emails have been answered on the Lappy, the most of any computer.
  • Emails answered on the Lappy make up over half of all total sbemail runtime.
  • Given the current pace of updates, it is unlikely the Lappy will be surpassed in either category.
• The Compé was the first (and so far only) computer to not surpass its predecessor in either volume or runtime of emails answered.
  • The Lappier has already surpassed the Compé in runtime; the two computers have been used to answer the same number of emails.

Strong Bad Emails featuring more than one email

Several Strong Bad Emails feature more than one email.

• credit card — After checking his email, Strong Bad sends an email to, and gets a reply from, Homestar Runner.
• spring cleaning — Strong Bad checks five emails and promptly deletes each one.
• E-mail Birds — Strong Bad answers three emails on the Tandy.
• sisters — Strong Bad accidentally deletes the first email he gets and later receives a poorly written one.
• 50 emails — Strong Bad checks two emails (and begins to check another before Homestar Runner arrives and "answers" another two).
• huttah! — The first five emails Strong Bad checks all show particular interest in The Cheat (he deletes most of them). The last two are all directed to Strong Bad, but he attempts to fool The Cheat into thinking they're for him.
• fingers — Apart from the main email, Strong Bad also checks four emails asking him how he types with boxing gloves on.
• personal favorites — In addition to the main email, Strong Bad mentions ten emails in fake flashbacks (eight in the main toon, two in Easter eggs).
• 2 emails — Jimmy suggests Strong Bad check two emails a week and he does. He can also be seen checking a third email during the fast-forwarding.
• lunch special — After checking his email, Strong Bad receives another one from Strong Mad.
• cheatday — After Strong Bad checks his email, he lets The Cheat check another three emails.
• other days — In addition to the main email, Strong Bad answers a Polish email (and a snail mail).
• dreamail — Strong Bad makes up an additional email and answers it.
• do over — Strong Bad re-answers two old emails.
• bottom 10 — Strong Bad receives an email with large numbers of "Fwd:" and "Re:" in the subject line, as an example of #8 on his bottom 10.
• lady...ing — Strong Bad remembers an older email.
• theme song — Strong Bad can be seen answering an email in one of the theme song montages.
• retirement — Strong Bad answers an email on each of his first two computers.
• the chair — Strong Bad answers a second email, but his new chair obstructs almost the entire screen of the Lappy while he does so.
• being mean — Strong Bad checks three emails from Nice Dad.
• email thunder — Strong Bad checks an email addressed to Homestar, then later sends another email to Homestar.
• sbemail 206 — Strong Bad starts to check his first email on the Lappier at the end, but the viewer doesn't get to see it due to the April Fools' pop-up.

Intervals between Strong Bad Emails

Note: Data are not complete. Reliable dates are not available for homsar, butt IQ, homestar hair, making out, and depressio. These data are as of retirement B (October 4, 2006) and too cool (September 7, 2017).

A column graph showing the intervals between Strong Bad Emails.

Strong Bad Emails are released at varying frequencies. The graph on the right shows the number of days in between the release of an email. Here is a summary of the data:

• Mean: 11.45 days
• Median: 7 days
• Mode: 7 days — 69 emails came out 7 days after the previous release
• Minimum: 1 day — There was 1 day between the releases of retirement A and retirement B. The minimum interval between wholly separate emails was 4 days, which happened between brianrietta and i love you and again between ghosts and theme party.
• Maximum: 2004 days — There were 5 years between the releases of videography and sbemail 206. The second-longest hiatus was 866 days, between sbemail 206 and too cool. The third-longest was 280 days, between email thunder and hremail 3184. Prior to that, the longest known time between two emails was 71 days, between halloweener and brianrietta, at which point Strong Bad Email was made a regular feature. The longest span between emails during an active period is 63 days, between the paper and mini-golf.

Other information

These data are as of trading cards (September 13, 2006).

• 41% of all emails have no location given; 2% have no return sender at all.
• The average email is 1.81 sentences long; the average cartoon is 152.82 seconds long.
• The Brothers Chaps most frequently choose emails with sender names starting with J or S. Together these senders make up a whopping 26.75% of all emails. This may be an indicator of popular names in the world, not an indication of The Brothers Chaps' preference.
• Only 18% of all emails are longer than two sentences. Only one email longer than four sentences has ever been used.
• There are eight substantiated claims of Strong Bad answering an email from an HRWiki or HRWiki forum user.
  • montage sent by Porplemontage, addressed as Steve
  • animal sent by Kerrek slaya, addressed as Spud Jr.
  • portrait sent by NachoMan, addressed as Dylan Bragers (aka Coolio da Fabio)
  • space program sent by Ryan Sturmer, addressed without last name
  • cliffhangers sent by Cessna Man!, addressed as Jake
  • underlings sent by PlasticDiverGuy
  • the paper sent by Thewi2kbug, addressed as Kyle Williams
  • slumber party sent by ThomasO, addressed as Thomas O.