Autostraddle Reader Survey 2012: Tell Us Things, Please
Hello, reader! Fancy seeing you here. I was having a Lorna Doone dipped in chocolate syrup because we’re all out of Milanos when my mind started to wander and I found myself daydreaming about you and your life and your online spending habits and what you like best about me.
What do you like best, reader? Do you enjoy a good Get Baked as much as the next gal? Were you hoping there’d be more music? Did you come by yesterday or is this more of a weekly stop for you? What’s your annual household income?
I want to know so much, reader! The more I know about you, the better we can mold ourselves to appease and delight you indefinitely. But also I want to know all there is to know about you and then I want to brag about you to my mother, and probably also advertisers and media-makers and anyone wearing a large fancy hat. Do you like large fancy hats, reader? I have so many questions for you! So many, in fact, that we put them all into this fabulous and only mildy invasive survey!
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Autostraddle Reader Survey 2012
* * CLICK HERE TO TAKE IT! * *
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You may remember taking the Autostraddle Reader Survey in 2011, when we were all just guppies and no one had even tried the Dorito Taco yet. The results from that survey helped us steer our content, develop our team, plan areas of expansion, entice advertisers and feel better about drinking microbrews on Mondays. It’s likely that you can thank yourselves for a lot of what’s happened here since then. You can even read all about the interesting shit we learned from you:
+ Who The Hell Are You? What The Autostraddle Reader Survey Told Us About You
+ Listling With Minor Commentary: 21 Words You Invented To Describe Autostraddle
But wait! Just because you took the survey last year doesn’t mean you should skip the survey this year. In fact, you should all take it! If you all take it, then we’ll know more about ALL OF YOU, which is the goal here. So take it! Take the survey! Please.
I took a screenshot for you, so you’d know what to expect, visually.
this is what it looks like
Here is what you can expect on an emotional level when taking the Autostraddle Reader Survey 2012.
this is what it feels like
And then after you’ve completed the Autostraddle Reader Survey 2012, you can expect this, emotionally:
So really get in there and give it all you’ve got! TELL US EVERYTHING.
Who The Hell Are You? – What The Autostraddle Reader Survey Told Us About You
A long long time ago, we did the First Ever Autostraddle Audience Survey to figure out who the f-ck you are and what the hell you want and how/if, exactly, we can monetize your existence in order to maintain our existence! It went really well — over 3,000 of you responded within the first few days, which our Special Marketing Consultant Meredydd said was an unprecedentedly spectacular result.
Anyhow, so then we got the results, and you wanted us to make a post about it, and so we had all the numbers and we gave them to a new designer person, but then that fell through, and Alex was super busy, and then someone else was supposed to do it but wasn’t able to do it either and THEN, finally, HERE WE ARE, ten billion lifetimes later, with the most visually inconsistent post of all time. Just little bits and pieces of what everybody was able to do. I mean seriously, if you’re a designer or something, you probably shouldn’t even read this, your head might explode.
Anyhow, I’ll be writing our second State of the Autostraddle Union any minute now, in which we’ll talk about some of the things you want from Autostraddle as revealed on this survey. Also, we shared some of the results with you already — namely, the “words you used to describe Autostraddle.”
Lez do it, homos!
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WHO ARE YOU?
60.9% are between the ages of 18-24
27.8% are between 25-34
6.5% are under 18
6% are over 35
When I told our den mother, Vikki, in August that there were just as many 35+ readers as there were 18-or-less readers at Autostraddle, she was surprised: “I literally thought it was just me,” she said. [Interestingly enough, in the section asking for what you’d like to see more of on Autostraddle, equal numbers of readers requested “older writers” and “younger writers.”] I was surprised too — but I thought there would be more 35+ers. And Meredydd thought there would be more under-18ers. Anyhow, to all ye children under the age of 35, I hope you’ll still need us and feed us when we’re 34, because that’s precisely how old Laneia and I will be before you know it!
We conducted this survey in June, and we suspect some things have changed since then, like maybe we have more transgender readers.
Also hot damn you aspirational humans — firstly, none of y’all dropped out of high school, apparently (the number of readers who haven’t finished high school is equal to the number of readers under 18, so), and most went on to complete at least some college stuff. Nationally, about 9% of the population over 25 has a masters/professional degree, but 20% of Autostraddlers are getting there. You’re a very studious bunch.
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60.2% identify with the term “lesbian”
42.% with the term “queer” and 19.3% with “bisexual”
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Letting you pick multiple labels for your sexual orientation and gender identity probably eradicated any meaningful deductions from this, but I’m wondering how many people picked “queer” on top of another label and how many picked it as their only label, aren’t you? I wish I could eat statistics for breakfast.
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Oh and — where do you live?
Shit You Like to Do
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What you like to Read About Online:
LGBT Issues – 96.8%
General News – 64%
Arts/Entertainment – 32%
Food – 23%
Tech – 21%
Fashion – 19%
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Other Blogs/Magazines You Visit Regularly:
AfterEllen
Jezebel
Feministing
Bitch
The Advocate
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Another interesting result was how many of you participate in some kind of philanthropic activity. (I think donating to Autostraddle counts, doesn’t it?) In any event, 77% of Autostraddle Readers participate in some kind of philanthropic activity. That’s so many!!
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Oh Right And Also… You Sure Do Like to Drink!
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When it comes to visual entertainment…
83% enjoy LGBT-themed movies, 74% like indie films and 68% like documentaries
… and 30% of you watch Educational TV programs regularly, 28% watch Sci-Fi, 26% watch Reality TV and 23% Watch Cooking Shows
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How You Feel About Us
49.3% of Autostraddle readers never comment
22% comment weekly or monthly
6% comment every day
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How Did You Get Here?
38% found Autostraddle by a link from another website or blog
12.4% found Autostraddle via Riese’s blogs/recaps
16% were told about Autostraddle by a friend
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Some of my favorite write-in responses to “how did you get here”:
1. “Someone handed me an Autostraddle business card on the subway in NYC. I thought it was porn and was creeped out (straddle?!), but thankfully I was wrong!”
2. “Googled ‘lesbian sex'”
3. “Seriously I just googled dyke haircuts”
4. “My girlfriend’s Professor suggested it in one of her online media courses”
5. “I was high, but I do remember link hopping around other sites until I came upon Autostraddle.”
6. “Looking for other cooch-smoochers south of Northampton.”
7. “My mom suggested it (yes, really)”
8. “Someone tweeted about ‘catching up on Autostraddle'”
9. “One time Snarker tweeted something about the girls over at autostraddle’s heads exploding over something”
10. “Your Tegan & Sara Sainthood review… Well this is off to an embarrassing start.”
And there you have it. So basically most of you are super-smart, often drunk and quite compassionate/charitable. We hope our readership will get more diverse as we go on, and we embrace all members of all demographics with open arms! Go get a new t-shirt! Onward Ho!
this seemed like a funny picture to put here
Autostraddle Reader Survey 2011: Talk to Us (It’s Multiple Choice)
Hello bold beasts of the future! Look at you! You have the world cradled in the palms of your capable little hands. Where will we buy our frozen yogurt and hoodies? What books will we read after the apocalypse? Will we ever get over Hoarders? The answers to these questions — and many more! — are right there in your heart. You just don’t know it yet!
In order to cull this priceless information from the death grip of your subconscious, we have devised a very clever plan:
Autostraddle Reader Survey 2011
*click to participate*
The masterbrains of Autostraddle dot com wish to know you better. We’ve read your comments and updates and blogs and tumblrs and tweets, mhm, but what of your deepest, most anonymous truths? How did you first make your way here? Are you the only one of your kind or is there more of you? Can you make decent baklava? No probably not.
But we’ll never know unless you complete this fancy-yet-straightforward Autostraddle Reader Survey!
You’ll fill it out, right? Of course you will. People love talking and thinking about themselves! This survey should take you all of about three minutes to complete, possibly less. Look, it’s a picture of Tegan and Sara and a puppet:
you probably love this sort of thing, but how will i ever know for sure?
Nothing would please me more than you completing this survey. It’s 100% anonymous and so easy, even your straight-girl crush’s boyfriend could do it!
JUST KIDDING he doesn’t read Autostraddle. (Unless he does in which case HAY TAKE OUR SURVEY) But you do! And so you’re very important to us and the future.
Do you have questions or concerns regarding this survey? Let us know about them in the comments! We’re always here, reading what you have to say, because we just can’t get enough of you.