The Hip Hop Demographic Project: Part 1

- Where do hip hop junkies live online?
- Are online hip hop heads mostly African-American? White? Asian? Latino?
- Does the blog reading demo mirror that of conscious hip hop shows? 
- Why do advertisers sometimes totally miss their target demo with their "urban" products?
- Bloggers- Why is it difficult to have a major online advertising network pick up your high-traffic blog? 

Word to Clyde for encouraging me to look deeper into the subject of contemporary hip hop demographics.  I'm going to contribute my part by deconstructing the online hip hop world.  Hopefully you fellow bloggers and culture junkies can utilize this information to further your projects and the culture as a whole. 

It's all in the numbers.  They might surprise you...

There's obviously no way to get pinpoint accurracy on any of the above questions.  So the numbers I'm about to disclose are the same numbers that corporations and advertisers use to do their demographic research.  The source is the giant media research company, one that also measures radio and TV audiences in addition to online.  To re-emphasize, these are the numbers that companies like Nike, Scion, Def Jam, and your local Wal-Mart uses to decide where hip hop heads are at and where they should be marketed to.  Take my observations with a grain of salt, by the way.

FILTER: MALE, 18-34, HipHop Music Listener (Primary or Exclusively), Web Category
1) Men's Websites
2) African- American Websites
3) Adult Entertainment Websites
4) Audio/ Video Websites
5) Asian- American Websites
6) Hispanic- American Websites
7) Music Websites
8) Comics/Cartoons/Humor Websites
9) Sports Websites
10) Sports Websites

To translate, this is based on a sample group's activity tracked over time (99.9% statistically confident).  I'll lay off the particulars (like site breakout, actual traffic statistics, online % composition) unless you're totally intrigued and interested- in that case email me and I'll hook you up.  Otherwise there are no surprises here, although 5 and 6 make it obvious that non African-American minorities consider Hip Hop their music of choice.  This survey includes all ethnicities, white included.  Hip Hop kids love their porn, apparently.

FILTER: MALE, 18-34, HipHop Music Listener (Primary or Exclusively), Online Network
1) UGO Games Network
2) UGO Network
3) Community Connect Network (Blackplanet.com, Asianavenue.com, MiGente.com)
4) IGN Entertainment- Games Network
5) GameSpot Network
6) Primedia New Car Group
7) ArtistDIRECT Network
8) IGN Entertainment Network
9) EA.com Network
10) Gorilla Nation Games Network

A Network is an umbrella placeholder that houses multiple independent sites.  Like, UGO has a Games Network and an Entertainment and a Music Network of sites, etc.  Blackplanet.com is interesting but definitely not surprising.  I'm not sure if MySpace is on the rollcall for this survey; if it is I'm surprised its not there.  If you think this list is a little off, wait until you read the next one.

FILTER: MALE, 18-34, HipHop Music Listener (Primary or Exclusiely), Navigation Sites
1) MSN Radio
2) MSN Chat
3) Yahoo! Music
4) iWon Email
5) Yahoo! Personals
6) Yahoo! Chat
7) MSN Video
8) Gmail (Google Email)
9) Yahoo! Sports
10) Excite Weather

Okay, how many of yall really use MSN Radio and MSN Chat?  Yahoo Music and MSN Video make more sense, Gmail is a given.  iWon demographics lean heavily towards the Mid-West and dialup connections, showing just how inherently biased the survey is (in the respect that with a nationwide survey there will always be an inordinate amount of mid-west and middle american respondants that skew numbers towards conservative lifestyles).  But remember, Hummer uses nationwide surveys like this to organize their marketing campaigns. 

FILTER: MALE, 18-34, HipHop Music Listener (Primary or Exclusively), Content Sites
1) IGN.com
2) FHM (FHMUS.com)
3) Maxim
4) EA Sports
5) WWE.com
6) AskMen.com
7) Stuff (StuffMagazine.com)
8) Miniclip
9) Cheat Code Central
10) Battle.net

Do you see any music oriented sites up in here?  Nope.  Obviously, there are a lot of folks who consider Hip Hop their steez, but they're not junkies at all.  There were no options for "Hip Hop Obsessed," which we bloggers are.  Nonetheless, however erroneous and counterintuitive all of this data may seem, its what THE MAN sees when he wants to know about his "urban music" demographic. 

These are simple filters, yes.  I could have set it at Male, 18-24, West/East Coast, 35K+ income, college degree, technically savvy and I would effectively extrapolated a backpacker.  Just kidding- but it would be a different list.  Flipping it to a female demo would produce different results as well.  But industry loves dealing with easily digestible lowest common denominator (LCD) information, and more often then not Male 18-34 and minimum filters is how products are produced, marketed, and sold. 

Just let this marinate and percolate for a minute and holler back about how accurate or ridiculous you think it is.  Or if it doesn't make sense without numbers, or if you're just not feeling the info or the relevance of the mission.  Next up I'm planning to list the same demo with an African-American (not hip hop music) filter, another favorite industry LCD for urban marketers.  The comparison of those results to these might just blow you away.

Comments

[Hashim]

I'm not surprised that the hip-hop demographic does not seek out explicitly hip-hop content sites. None of my friends read my blog. However, most of them are on espn.com all day, looking for tips on their fantasy league.

I'm surprised there are no hip-hop lifestyle websites that focus on clothes, sports, and video games. Hmmm...

[Hashim]

I'm not surprised that the hip-hop demographic does not seek out explicitly hip-hop content sites. None of my friends read my blog. However, most of them are on espn.com all day, looking for tips on their fantasy league.

I'm surprised there are no hip-hop lifestyle websites that focus on clothes, sports, and video games. Hmmm...

[i'm the skwidawd]

sounds like a worthy project. even more interesting would be a comparison of different communities of blogs (e.g. hip hop v indie rock v sports v politics etc).

[i'm the skwidawd]

also, this seems like reverse demographics to me. a more telling approach would be to profile the users of specific sites or "communities" of blogs. the problem with these stats is that they are so vague. I mean, I think what we're trying to get at is the effect of "hip hop" on the male demographic. Yet this is still just pretty typical stuff for males across the board, with the exception of the race-specific stuff. Or maybe I'm wrong. I guess it requires comparing the stats for a a non-hiphop person.

You see?... I mean, what is a non-hiphop person... a "rock" person. It definitely begs the question of are we overstuffing categories. But then again, people are kinda sheepish when it comes to sports, video games, and porn. I mean... that's no surprise right there. Typical male stuff across the board.

[dj mirateck]

Hashim it sounds like you have a business plan in mind... Holler at cha boy!

Since I'm not African-American myself, I must ask... is everyone and their mom REALLY on Blackplanet.com? Their traffic numbers are beyond ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as MySpace. The average user on MySpace peeps nearly 400 pages per month.

[dj mirateck]

skwidawd- you're completely right and i agree with you. for the first post of this "study," these are very broad categories, and i left out the numbers so i won't get sued by THE MAN.

part of what i'm trying to uncover is what a birds-eye perspective of hip hop is to someone who might be completely detached from the culture.

more often than not there's a conversation where someone says- "urban demographic? just buy BET.com to cover the bases." but as you can see, hip hoppers dont' live on BET.

or do they? each week i'll break out new data to narrow down where the kids are really at online, according to these marketing tools.

the categories or lumping is what you say it is- it don't make sense... it feels wrong. but most marketers dont use their savvy or their gut. they use numbers.

and blog communities? the industry just discovered blogs yesterday, old men who control media don't grasp this shit yet and quite frankly, they're SCARED OF BLOGGERS. plus, technology hasn't been created yet to accurately track blog traffic.

word to bol.

[i'm the skwidawd]

i meant "herdish", not "sheepish" (which means embarassed).

[i'm the skwidawd]

miratecksta...

Again, the overall stats are telling, but the limitations are obvious. I mean, what is a "men's website"?. Is a men's website an "adult" site, with clothes on the girls? Again, no surprise that men are into music, women, games, and their ethnic group.

My question is where and how are specific groups interacting. Where are the case studies. What percentage of myspace is black, white, asian, etc. What is the average age of users on myspace?

I'm asking these questions rhetorically. I'm not actually interested to know, because frankly... there's no surprises. Men of all races under 30 are into girls, games, gadgets, music, and mayhem.

Our American culture is basically a big marketing experiment turned inside out. We have reduced ourselves to labels. And we play the game, even on the grassroots level.

I'm no backpacker!

[Mr Fuller]

Wow, the information here is real helpful. If I was tageting the demographic above I would more than likely help people who are serious about hip hop learn the business. I was thinking if you rap or producer music, I would just target those sites. Thanks I will use this information to help artist with my free "Video Seminars of the music business" on http://checkthecredits.blip.tv

[VICE SQUAD]

IM AN ENTERTAINER APART OF VICE SQUAD OUT OF MIAMI. READING THIS REALLY OPENED MY EYE AND IM KIND OF SHOCK. BUT THIS WAS VERY INFORMATIVE, THANKS....VICESQUAD305 ON TWITTER .... KEEP ME INFORMED WHEN YOU CAN