deviant, n.
A person who, or thing which, deviates; esp. one who deviates from normal social, etc., standards or behaviour
Devianator is a small project created to illustrate deviance as it relates to lifestyle habits. It enables users to approximate their overall deviance, both within the borders of their own country and by comparison to other countries.
The project gives a nod to the complications inherent in statistical averaging, and thus addresses a century-old core question of sociological research: How do aggregated, statistical data such as averages relate to the individual? And how much, or indeed how little, can we learn about the individuals of a society by merely looking at statistics? Without claiming scientific accuracy, Devianator aims to show that — statistically — everyone is deviant, and seeks to make this deviance visible in order to allay the anxieties associated with not fitting in.
Devianator was developed in February and March 2013 as part of a data visualisation course at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. It is a collaboration of graduate students in New Media and Digital Culture as well as Artificial Intelligence. For more projects from the course, see: www.showmethedata.nl.
Bertram de Boer was born in France and now lives in the Netherlands. His favorite childhood band was the Pet Shop Boys, and recently he has added Krav Maga to his long list of hobbies.
Thomas Jongstra is from Amsterdam. He enjoys playing ultimate frisbee, has two moms, and has been addicted to Marmite since the age of 3.
Jules Mataly comes from the place famous for its smelly cheese (France), likes Reddit and bikes way too much. He is very particular about coffee standards. A master of squash and wheelies.
Maya Livio was born and raised in Tel Aviv and later moved to Baltimore. She likes contemporary art, intimacy, and observing the birds in Amsterdam (especially the Egyptian Geese and Magpies). Some may describe her as a cat lady, but she would not.
Mathias Schuh comes from Vienna, Austria. Beyond spending unhealthily long hours on the Internet, he has been known for obsessively appreciating the aesthetics of trees.
To review or use our data sets, feel free to download them in PDF or Excel formats.
The database for this project contains eight different data sets for about forty countries. The selection of countries was determined by the the availability of data sources. Due to these limitations, the country list consists of the majority of OECD Member States as well as Brazil, China, India, and South Africa.
Alcohol Consumption
Data for alcohol consumption per capita was taken from the OECD database on health indicators, which can be accessed here. The data set contains the average annual consumption of pure alcohol per person (15+) and was converted from liters per year into drinks per week, using the conversion ratio suggested by the US Centre for Disease Control. One standard drink contains approximately 18 ml of pure alcohol, the amount found in one glass of beer (350ml) or wine (150ml) or a liquor shot (4cl).
Drug Use
The 2012 edition of the annual World Drug Report by UNODC, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, was the basis for the data on illicit drug usage. It contains estimates for both the use of cannabis and hard drugs such as cocaine, amphetamines and opioids. The complete data source can be downloaded here (in XLS format).
Internet Usage
The main source for monthly internet usage per capita was comScore, a web analytics company measuring digital media usage and publishing the results in the form of periodical country reports. Missing data was completed with statistics from Gemius, a comScore competitor in audience measurement active in Eastern Europe, and additional sources.
Life Satisfaction
Data on general life satisfaction stems from the OECD Better Life Index 2010. The survey asked participants across the OECD Member States and BRICS countries to assess their overall wellbeing on a scale from 1 (low) to 10 (high). More information about the survey can be found here.
Pet Ownership
Data for pet ownership is based on a survey by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), published in a 2008 report available for download here (PDF, 2.4MB). The total pet population number was divided into pets per household using census information provided by the United Nations Statistics Division.
Sex Partners
The main data source for the number of sex partners per person is the Durex Global Sex Survey from 2005, containing data from 41 countries and 317,000 respondents, making it the largest survey on sexual activity at the time of research. The report is available for download here (PDF, 1MB). Missing data was completed with data from more the preceding 2004 report, also carried out by Durex.
Smoking
Data for the prevalence of tobacco consumption among the general population was taken from the database of the World Health Organisation (WHO). The full dataset can be accessed here.
