Why is Everyone the Green Lantern?
The latest little viral meme sweeping the blogosphere is the “Which Superhero are You?” quiz. Michael Arrington is Green Lantern, Jason Calacanis is Green Lantern, I’m Green Lantern, and even randomly sampled bloggers are all Green Lantern. Even those who are other superheroes are still between 70 and 80 percent Green Lantern, the same percentage Green Lanterns got!
Is the quiz rigged as some sort of twisted viral marketing gimmick for an upcoming Green Lantern movie? Or do bloggers and technologists truly share Green Lantern’s propensity towards hotheadedness and magic rings?
Looking at the source code for the Javascript quiz, it’s easy to see which questions make someone a Green Lantern. Each question has five possible answers, ranging from “No” to “Yes”. Each mark closer to “Yes” adds 5% to your score, so a “No” adds 0% to your score for that superhero while a “Yes” gives you 20%, in-between answers giving you a multiple of 5%. The questions that affect your Green Lantern score are as follows:
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Will you sometimes go too far to get your way?
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Are you interested in space travel?
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Do you have strong willpower?
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Do you have one object that you highly value?
Notice that there are four questions for Green Lantern. Since the most you can score on any one question, the highest Green Lantern score you can get is 80%! Many other superheroes have 5 questions, allowing scores of up to 100%. This explains why everyone’s Green Lantern score is 80% or less, and also reinforces the fact that everyone is Green Lantern, even those who got higher percentages for other superheroes, because their scores were 70% or higher. A 75% Green Lantern score is only 5% away from the highest score possible, making it equivalent to a 95% score for many other superheroes. Now for a closer look at the questions, and why so many bloggers answered Yes to most if not all of them:
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Will you sometimes go too far to get your way?
The key word there is sometimes. Research has shown that people taking surveys are a lot more likely to answer yes to a “sometimes” question.
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Are you interested in space travel?
Well, duh. We’re bloggers, we must have some degree of geekiness within us. Of course we’re going to be interested in Scifi and spaceships.
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Do you have strong willpower?
The weak-willed don’t have the willpower to make themselves admit it, even on an anonymous Internet quiz. This is a terrible quiz/survey question, but a great Green Lantern question, because he can only use his ring to materialize objects if he has the willpower to control them.
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Do you have one object that you highly value?
For this audience, this question is a no-brainer. Who isn’t in love with their Macbook or cell phone?
So is the Green Lantern going to replace Spider-Man as the geek superhero of choice? Probably not. This quiz suffers from poor coding and question design that weigh it unfairly in the Green Lantern’s favor. Sorry, bloggers. You can take off the power rings you found in your cereal now- the only thing you have in common with the Green Lantern is an overactive imagination.
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There’s a movie? And Spiderman was the geek’s superhero of choice?
Korben Dallas, now THAT’s a superhero.
And funny, I know little about comics, I always thought GL was black. Like, on the Daily Show. Heh.
Very interesting analysis and great read! Thanks for sharing!
Well, I’m still thankful I didn’t come out as Wonderwoman…
And in a way, we *are* all Green Lantern (even though I’m really Iron Man: http://twofones.typepad.com/twofones/2006/12/iamironman.html)
You do bring up a good point, though. If sites like this are going to bounce around the more tech-savvy of us they’re going to have to expect us to poke away at their code and see what makes them tick…
Hate to get my fanboy on, but your are correct Mr. Martin. GL has been many different characters over the years. Just depends on who is holdin’ the mantle for earth
I haven’t bothered to check, but I’ll bet the Spidey flaq question is “do you like redheads”
[…] Apparently everyones turning out to be a Green Lantern so its nice to know that I’m different. Although I don’t like the fact that I’m 40% Catwoman. […]
[…] Which Super Hero Are You? Published December 31st, 2006 Uncategorized I know this isn’t anime related…and I’m supposed to be doing my job here Anyway, it’s hot in the blogsphere as I found this post so why don’t I try no? […]
I’ don’t think you got it quite right. It is true Green Lantern seems to cheat at this game
but I checked the strongest No at the “object” question, so I couldn’t have scored this high if your theory is correct 
Cheers.
Why do people like green lantern? Honestly, he doesn’t have superpowers. he has a prop. That’s it.
Call Me Green Lantern, not who I would have chosen but…
Thanks for replying to my post!
Luckily, I’m not Green Lantern and I’m least to be Catwoman as well LOL!!!
I use it everytime he he 
And yeah, I thought so too that I’m Robin ‘coz of the “young at heart” question, but I have already forgotten the other details.
If a question such as “Do you usually prefix your exclamations with the word HOLY?” Yup, it would shot me straight up to being Robin 100%
Interesting expose you wrote on my quiz. I like that you looked so deeply at the code to find out the questions for Green Lantern. However, you missed one of the questions. The question “Are you good at reading people?” also applies to him. So it is possible to get 100% Green Lantern. Of course, answering “yes” to the above question would also give you 20% Wonder Woman.
I was Iron Man.
I was actually the Flash. (althetic, fast and flirty)
I guess that’s okay.
But I really wish they’d include more obscure heroes in these things.
How cool would it be to get Mr. Fantastic, or Captain America, or the Hulk, or Aquaman, or Squirrel Girl?
Think about it quiz-makers.
I’m only 50% green lantern. Hit 85% Spidey though. Presumably it’s because I love redheads.
Wow
So funny..i have a facebook account and someone sent me the superhero app too. guess who i got? green lantern!