Sex and Data at the BET Awards

Every award show as of late ushers in a new conversation about a lack of diversity among both winners and nominees.  In the lead-up to this year’s BET Awards, Wavo wanted to find an objective, data-driven way to compare male and female nominees’ up for Best New Artist -- one of the ceremony’s most prestigious awards and one not explicitly segmented by gender -- and present this in a way that was easy to navigate, accessible, and visually appealing.

Wavo compared each nominee using objective data sources, including a mix of streaming numbers from Spotify, social engagement metrics from Instagram, and critical reviews aggregated by albumoftheyear.org. These sources were chosen based on their influence in their respective categories and the quality of their data.

Wavo then organized this information into one interactive data visualization where readers can explore the history of nominees and winners in the category, as well as engage with real-time data on this year’s nominees to make their own predictions.

In an era when data is becoming increasingly accessible and democratized, the door is being pushed further open to questions around how much subjectivity and expert opinion is necessary at these awards shows -- especially when expert opinion seems differ significantly from that of the fans themselves.