But then, you knew that. It’s not even close. The problem isn’t so much that Scalzi tweets at a sixth-grade level; one can only do so much in 140 characters, after all. It’s that he writes, and behaves, like an unpopular kid in junior high school who confuses attention for popularity.
Anyhow, Beakscore is a just a simple application based on the SMOG index, but it’s interesting to compare various commentators. Here are the scores for some familiar names:
- 10.3 Nassim Taleb
- 9.5 Vox Day
- 9.5 Castalia House
- 9.4 Ann Coulter
- 9.2 Roosh
- 8.9 Steve Keen
- 8.8 Daniel Dennett
- 8.5 Richard Dawkins
- 8.2 Neil Gaiman
- 8.0 Stefan Molyneux
- 7.7 Instapundit
- 7.7 Patrick Nielsen Hayden
- 7.5 Larry Correia
- 7.5 Paul Krugman
- 7.4 Tor Books
- 7.1 Milo Yiannopoulos
- 7.0 Mike Cernovich
- 6.4 Wil Wheaton
- 6.3 John Scalzi
- 5.3 George RR Martin
Notice the pattern there? It’s not exactly what one would call surprising if you are familiar with the work of the various parties listed. The only real outlier is Milo, who speaks and writes very differently than he tweets. It’s a little surprising that Martin is so low; I’d have expected him to be in the 7 to 8 range.