The Math That Proves Your Friends are More Popular Than You

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Video written by Adam Chase
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[@flyingbaldii1821]

So if you have technically no friends you would 100% be the most popular person out of your friends.

[@alexanderbazylak7383]

Gosh. I'm famous

[@SoMNoMW]

And also the least popular

[@paddington1670]

@@SoMNoMW yes but most popular is a good title, makes being least popular less unfortunate.

[@alexanderbazylak7383]

@@SoMNoMW so are you ;)

[@shambuverma]

I would say *relatable* but its not

[@kawong3975]

"I'm not lonely, it's just mathematically, I have less friends than anyone" -Mathmatician, probably

[@babyzap8564]

Cheer up, that also means your average enemy has more enemies than you.

[@aminelswefy1808]

the enemy of my enemy is my friend

[@drveriq9692]

Moreover, that works subjectively so you also have more friends than your friends

[@akhasshativeritsol1950]

@@aminelswefy1808 So you can trick your enemy into telling you who all their other enemies are, and BOOM instant friends!

[@dumbname939]

Fuckin batman

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Oh yeah? Well I'll show them! I can make _way_ more enemies than they can!

[@qifuhyue3568]

“I don’t have friends, I have family” -Dominic Toretto

[@Valanci555]

👍🏼

[@pustota7254]

Your comment got liked 69 times.

[@misterblank7795]

KEKW

[@pacoramirez7363]

"Mathematical averages can often lead to misleading real-world conclusions." The average person has about 1 testicle.

[@stansman5461]

... Mr. Worldwide" Always be sure to complete the quote

[@crash.override]

Probably 0.85 or something because of groin injuries and women living longer. But how many men have >2 balls 🤔

[@shanechurilla]

I’m laughing so hard

[@mbrusyda9437]

@@crash.override women living longer is irrelevant if we already have estimates for men/women population

[@sivaranjan862]

Brilliant

[@leejacksondev]

I officially didn’t understand a word of this. 😂

[@bennetth7008]

The best part of this video is reading the names of people’s supposed friends

[@roofogato]

Santa Claus (no relation) Santa Claus (the real one)

[@TheMunz]

I'd be friends with Pal Acino

[@floramew]

Who else went to 25% playback speed and used frequent pausing to find Scarn McDunweather with 21 friends?

[@jamespaterson1053]

Sam-0

[@F2_CPB]

Haha I thought I'm only one reading those carefully

[@Amityz72323]

"Let's pretend like everyone in the world died in a robot apocalypse, except for three people who betrayed humanity to the robots in exchange for their own survival. *And for no particular reason, let's name those three people Bill, Jeff, and Elon.* I'm dying

[@ezic1356]

Silly Sam, I don’t need math to know that!

[@MrHam-sk3kr]

Dang it I just thought of basically the same comment and wrote it, only to scroll down and realize that you had said the exact same thing

[@mementonero]

I was going to, anticipated other people already having said it and found this comment

[@omegaO_O]

Same :(

[@RuhanMajithia]

1000th like lol

[@randomtinypotatocried]

Same here

[@alejandrosastoque1143]

I wanna know who "Joey" is and where I can find him. From his friend count can tell he's an absolute blast lmao 0:53

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

If you want to find him, just ask around. Chances are, your friends know someone who knows him.

[@alejandrosastoque1143]

@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 yeah, they probably do. after all, it seems like my friends are always more popular than me :(

[@AbhijayAgarwal]

Santa's even more of a blast, he's got 2.2 billion friends

[@vasekmuzikar6933]

I belive it's a FRIENDS reference, Joey had a lot of girl friends

[@purpleguyfromfortnite2971]

Joey wheeler

[@gaboversta2.423]

In short: People with more friends are more likely to be your friend.

[@Deepak-gt9wd]

That make sense👌 Thankyou soooooo much

[@mubasshir]

Wow. Very nicely said

[@beepbop6542]

You're like the Indian guy explaining math vs the teacher. I didn't understand a single thing Half as Interesting said.

[@zhihuangxu6551]

In the real case, there exist super-famous people and it's very likely that either A) you are one of their friends or B) you're not but they befriended most of your friends. In either case, the average number of your 'friend's friend' per friend is increased by slightly less than 1 under the influence of them. If in a more equal distribution this effect could be offset a lot.

[@lukaspinoti107]

I love how that 1 sentence is clearer than the whole video.

[@querube78]

Me who has no friends: "I don't have such weaknesses"

[@unknown_guy7439]

Maths: you’re not popular Psychology: each of your friends is watching this thinking his friends are more popular than him.

[@SueZQue83]

Yes

[@saptarshichatterjee36]

If you're watching this then there's a probability that you've no friends.

[@captainaryan26]

@@saptarshichatterjee36 I have friends, but not verrrrry verrrrry close.

[@augustuzmoon3814]

@@saptarshichatterjee36 I'm watching this confused because using this method this means I'm more popular than my friends and my friends are more popular than me

[@user-ki7qh5rc4h]

@@augustuzmoon3814 And that’s why it’s a paradox

[@gabriellewashere7353]

Technically the thing about this that makes it a paradox is that if you were to ask your friend who their friends are, and ask those friends who their friends are, and ask those friends who their friends are, basically you end up canceling out the fact that the person you asked beforehand will always be less popular. So if this pattern continued until you have asked every person in the world, in the end there is only one person who is indefinitely the most popular. But the issue is that this conclusion is not stable, because of the very thing you mentioned "Names will repeat, but not be excluded".

[@Kin-bd2vd]

This makes me feel like Half as Interesting had no friends to begin with.

[@AlphaGeekgirl]

Yup 3:46

[@raptorfromthe6ix833]

b-but im his friend 😳

[@hi-hellothere]

0:59 at the bottom of the screen

[@SabertoothSeal]

That can't be right, I heard he's friends with that guy from Wendover

[@VictorAchim542]

Indeed

[@bboops23]

So, I once made a chart of all my friends and all their friends and we linked how we knew different groups and my husband and I were one of the three big nexus points. So, uh, hi, nice to meet you, I'm one of the people skewing the average. I should note that I know one person with definitively more friends than me. When we all went to a video gaming con a few weeks ago we had a contact tracking app and we successfully had no COVID-19 cases in our group of 3 rooms of which held way to many rooms parties.

[@conallmolloy4238]

I'm gonna go say that math makes them more popular, surely that'll make me more popular

[@masonk3720]

This man has found the correct answer

[@themisterdarknight4722]

@@AxxLAfriku Hello bot

[@mega_gamer93]

@@AxxLAfriku cool fact! The thing shown in this video doesn't apply to you because everyone hates you!

[@aminelswefy1808]

@@mega_gamer93 lol

[@Gehajjs62727]

@@themisterdarknight4722 he has 35k subs and is a person, click on his channel.

[@bomber001]

AS A CHINESE MYSELF, THAT CHINESE ACCENT KILLED ME 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 so an accurate pronounciation would be "knee shuh tzen muh duh dao tzhe guh how mah duh"

[@wu_hugo]

你是怎么得到这个号码的？xswl 哈哈哈

[@rupeshn8o]

wait,KZbin is blocked in China right

[@HeidenLam]

@@rupeshn8o Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong users:

[@peterchew6400]

@@HeidenLam + Malaysia and Singapore

[@HeidenLam]

@@peterchew6400 Yes those countries too

[@AshishTiwari-hn7zi]

That's why it's a paradox because your friends are having a higher count of average friends since in every addition they are repeating you with every enumeration of your friends. So technically your friends have more friends than you because they have befriended you. I hope this eases your pain a bit.

[@cbrown8814]

Nice vocabulary, but you should brush up on what they mean before you try using them in a YT comment 🤣

[@jamesknight4797]

But you then have more friends than them because you befriended them???

[@madhavdhilip]

@@jamesknight4797 And that's exactly why it's a paradox.

[@melonchola]

@@madhavdhilip It's not a paradox. I don't think the OP understands what the video was talking about.

[@AshishTiwari-hn7zi]

@@melonchola Nah man, it actually is somewhat counterintuitive and self-referential that's why it makes to the category of paradoxes, and just in case if you are having trouble understanding what I meant through my comment, you can go through this article metro.co.uk/2016/05/21/the-friendship-paradox-why-all-of-your-friends-have-more-friends-than-you-5896771/. They have presented a really simplified version of it here.

[@acon70]

POV: Your looking for a joke that isn’t a variation of “Jokes on you, I have no friends.”

[@RacingChannel32]

Imagine being the one person whose name isn’t on anyone’s list of friends

[@bonaaq86]

All around me are familiar faces

[@RacingChannel32]

@@BlockedUser420 F

[@AzureAlliance31]

@@BlockedUser420 I don't have to imagine either.

[@iamunamed5800]

@@BlockedUser420 Same

[@DrWhoFanJ]

@@BlockedUser420 Big F for us no-friends. 😭

[@IanHsieh]

1:14 號碼 (or 号码 in Simp. Chinese) means "number" has in "phone number." Mathematical numbers should be 數字 (or 数字 in Simp. Chinese).

[@popoway]

"How did you get this number" in this context "number" means phone number lol

[@paubatet5687]

The editors did really put Sam in the list with 0 friends just as it was fading away huh 0:59

[@the_j_machine2254]

Sam got roasted by his own employees

[@gabriellewashere7353]

It must be tough making an entire video that you can't even relate to

[@minimalgrammar1276]

Honestly one of the funniest videos I've ever watched. Was seeing this in my recommended for like a year and had a rough day so I finally caved and watched it. Thank you for being hilarious. :P

[@jmbugno]

Ironically, in reality Jeff/Elon/Bill actively do not like each other.

[@jamessloven2204]

I knew Elon and Jeff don't like each other, but I never heard anyone saying a bad word about Bill.

[@jmbugno]

@@jamessloven2204 Elon talked about it on the Joe Rogan podcast. Bill gates is not a good guy. (IMO)

[@DrDunsparce]

I mean if someone’s a billionaire, they’re definitely gonna not be a good person. Being a billionaire is not something that just happens

[@AlphaGeekgirl]

@@jmbugno and why does your opinion even count? It’s so sad just how many people misconstrue opinions as facts 🙄

[@jmbugno]

@@AlphaGeekgirl are you OK? Everyone counts. I said Elon spoke about his dislike of Bill on the Joe Rogan podcast. Separately I stated that in my opinion Bill was not a good guy. Where was I conflating facts with opinions?

[@uglygamer2028]

This was interesting, it also means the process can work in reverse as well. Meaning the friend of my friends which is me are more "popular" than they are. When looking at it from their perspective. Weird how that works.

[@TheDanaYiShow]

"and that's because people are dumb" ah yes words of wisdom

[@MC-nk8wr]

Hi Dana I watch your cubing channel!

[@TheDanaYiShow]

@@MC-nk8wr Hi!

[@dsnodgrass4843]

He used the right kind of dog, too. Boxers are great friends, but not much in the brains department 😂.

[@KhanhNguyen-mh5ec]

Hey, a person is smart. Bunch of people are dumb

[@Heizler]

A similar "paradox" is about the number of siblings and number of children. You probably had many high school classmates with two (or more) siblings, while it's much more rare among your parents' friends and coworkers to have three (or more) children.

[@AnonymousMC]

Listening to Sam trying to pronounce Chinese is just hilarious... 😂😂😂

[@liweicai2796]

tbh the pronunciation is surprisingly good

[@AnonymousMC]

@@liweicai2796 Meh, I would say it's kind of intelligible but it isn't the best (I can speak Chinese fluently very well)

[@nickpro8116]

@@AnonymousMC so what did he say?

[@randomrandomrandommm3637]

@@nickpro8116 how did you get this number but in chinese

[@AnonymousMC]

@@nickpro8116 How did you get this number? (basically)

[@-haclong2366]

My problem with the friendship paradox is that many idiots explain it as "literally every one of your friends have more friends than you" which is an actual paradox.

[@aguyontheinternet1]

fun fact: he said "friend" 55 times in this video

[@captainaryan26]

fun fact : The fact that you pointed out is a bit interesting, but no fun to me

[@raptorfromthe6ix833]

damn hes about to be sued by the cast of friends

[@nitehawk86]

@@captainaryan26 Only about half as interesting to me.

[@raahimhadi4905]

@@nitehawk86 badum tss

[@aflow-]

@@captainaryan26 the fact that you point out his "Fun fact" i no fun for you is no fun to me

[@viditsinha9707]

2:29 the robot's name is Mark

[@Duck-wc9de]

in Portuguese, there is a saying. "where there are figs, there are friends" so, if you want friends, plant fig trees.

[@tombkings6279]

🤔

[@Etelvinicius]

Nunca ouvi esse ditado aqui no Brasil, mas vi que você é de Portugal.

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

Mathematically speaking, you friends probably have more fig trees than you do.

[@Duck-wc9de]

@Cultures' Lover "onde há figos, há amigos"

[@essr4580]

@@Duck-wc9de oooo it rhymes

[@andymion]

Hai: Seriously, I can prove it! With... me: Bricks? Hai: math me: oh.

[@kaloyan1498]

Toyota Corolla

[@TNOBasedBatov]

Me who only has imaginary friends: Actually-

[@cybersilver5816]

Your imaginary friends have more friends than you! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[@Andrei_777_]

Me too and i play hoi4 too

[@TNOBasedBatov]

@@Andrei_777_ noice

[@moosyu]

My friend and I just watched this and for some reason he turned into a blackhole and disappered

[@SamLuvsPizza]

I remember using this research in Uni a couple years back for actually figuring out what’s the most efficient way to vaccine people with limited vaccines. Turns out vaccinating people’s friends only was ONE good way of doing it. There were other good ones as well

[@holoangie9106]

I always try to be noticeable and weird in my class because it makes me feel valid,no matter how much I’m hated,and then I see this

[@reeves3454]

Let's name those people Bill ,Jeff and Elon. I almost spit out water lmao.

[@Qatari2007]

??

[@sohamacharya171]

@@Qatari2007 Bill gates, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

[@Qatari2007]

@@sohamacharya171 sorry, thought you meant Clinton, Epstien and others haha

[@Qatari2007]

@@sohamacharya171 Btw did you see the Richard M Nixon reference, i was lmfao

[@kaloyan1498]

Jeff Kaplan?

[@kumikoOG]

*We’re the people, are been isolated from each other during technically, when I was a child, it was easy to get friends but now it’s dope by 30%.*

[@shivpatel7506]

We need some more Giraffe as Interesting Sam

[@braders5192]

Don't forget Calf as Interesting

[@echo5172]

1:45 I know a Thomas Frank, I suppose the legends are true

[@NoorquackerInd]

3:37 I DIED AT HOW YOU DELIVERED THAT

[@aakashrajaraman3460]

"Joey" is a baller

[@bobbi4you3]

2:14 Isn’t 83% the number Barney from himym used frequently for made up statistics?

[@ytancorbel1898]

Yup def is, must be on purpose

[@nathanb3134]

Yes!!! I noticed that too. Otherwise thats a really rare coincidence

[@Havron]

@@nathanb3134 83% of the time, such things are not due to coincidence.

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

@@Havron 17%. It's always the opposite.

[@sirrandolph7857]

From 2014 to 2020, I cared about popularity. In 2017, I began caring less about popularity but by 2018, that went away. This craze for popularity began due to my want to be different than in the past. I wanted to make progress. The harsh reality was real soon after I made the decision to become popular. For years, I acted like my family (they cared about popularity. They were jerks and short tempered). It was not until 2020 when the pandemic hit that I finally was hit with the harsh reality of myself and my actions. I want you all to learn this, popularity doesn't matter. Be yourself. Don't try to be popular. Believe me, trying to be popular tarnished my self image. If you are unpopular, be proud of it! Be yourself. Have a blessed day!

[@angelvu]

Oh I didn’t need math to figure that out 😂

[@personifiedmarvel6964]

Agree. I have no friends and if I ever find a friend, there's no chance that they have less friends than I do.

[@giorgosanastasiou1009]

I love the sarcasm/humor of this channel

[@reganbrannigan3006]

Yes, I totally understand everything in this video and totally agree on the message that this video had, which I assure you I totally understood

[@akaplan5212]

I did not need math to come to this conclusion

[@Quickonomics]

"Popular people will always be weighted more." This is so deep, conspiracy theorists are trying to build a state around it.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

No, they're trying to undermine the state they think is built around it. The lizards are the ones trying to build the state around it.

[@dubious_potat4587]

so popular people are more likely to gain weight?

[@Thomas-dp8eb]

"And I can prove it, with math" hah I guess Im more popular than someone at least

[@nefarious_kitty]

This has also been proposed as a method to distribute vaccines. You ask someone to name a friend, and then you go and vaccinate that friend, since on average the mentioned friend is has more connections and is a higher spreading risk. For instance, if you randomly pick between Jeff and Elon, both would mention Bill. Asking Bill would randomly vaccinate Jeff or Elon, so it's not perfect, but on average you protect more people with fewer vaccines by getting all the highly-connected people covered.

[@loganlaking3241]

“Aww you feel like your friends are more liked well your right not only that I’m proving it with MATH” 😂

[@will2998]

"You feel your friends has more friends than you?" *check empty set* Oh yes, every friend of mine has more friends than me

[@QemeH]

But also NO friend of yours has more friends than you, so...

[@nekokawaii235]

Now that's a paradox

[@cameronaries1153]

That transition from content to ad was smoother than butter

[@gabriellewashere7353]

🎵 Smooth like butter 🎵

[@TheJayWay101]

@@gabriellewashere7353 i can't see the word butter anymore

[@gabriellewashere7353]

@@TheJayWay101 :) 🧈

[@amirmanibmanampan159]

1:12 I laughed for once that was very sudden and unexpected and took me by surprise...you win this time

[@neonfoxfr300]

i love this page i just discovered it right now and i cant get over the humor of VO

[@gamerpigeon4513]

I've 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 seen a title more sad yet true....

[@SomeRandomPiggo]

𝔂𝓮𝓼

[@nolanfaught6974]

This paradox is more of a conjecture than an ironclad result, it's simply the observation that there are people in social networks that are very well-connected (e.g. people with many friends). The average person is NOT well-connected, but is likely friends with (at least) one well-connected person, who has many more friends than any of your other friends. The same phenomenon occurs in several other areas of network theory, which is what makes the behavior of real-world networks paradoxical. Many models of network creation result in networks that do not exhibit this property, but it was observed so often in real-world data that we became convinced that it was not coincidence. This is the most famous and most common property of real-world networks, that connections do not form "at random," but rather follow some process that we do not fully understand.

[@johncummins5262]

"I can prove it with math." That explains a lot.

[@danielyork]

Everyone: you are popular! RLL: it's true, you don't have friends

[@letteru]

People who have no friends: *laughs*

[@mysterious7215]

😂

[@AlejandroW90]

Lowkey being lonely can be soothing sometimes. I have too many friends and i don’t wanna be selfish sounding but It CAN be distracting and bothering school/regular work when they spam text me. But if you really want friends just be yourself and they will come to you with time :)

[@MichelleEvans_CatLady]

I didn't even need the math for this one

[@forgottenfamily]

"People with no friends make youtube channels" And then they hire people to write bad jokes for them and that's like having friends, right?

[@victoriamitchell413]

Actually there's something that breaks that paradox Your friends are friends to you It basically means you have more friends than your friends your friends and your friends have more friends than you at the exact same time

[@connected.]

I half expected it to start with "Vsauce! Kevin here"

[@pianopianist5709]

I love it

[@yuudesu]

Hi Vsauce, Michael here Do you know..

[@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721]

He'd likely use some very scribbled diagrams and someone named "Michael Stevens" as his example friend.

[@YourAverageHikikomori]

Joke's on you, I don't have any friends.

[@Tommygunn776]

3:45 they had us in the first half, not gonna lie

[@teww]

Thanks for rubbing it in

[@REEEPROGRAM]

Why do i feel like this video is something vsauce would do..

[@dputra]

Me: list 5 names The 5 names: I've never heard that name

[@neonbunnies9596]

Nice to see HAI successfully transferring into their sponsor without being awkward

[@zeha_8]

This was the first ever hai video I watched, surprised to see it back in my feed now that I’ve watched them all😅

[@neonbunnies9596]

Me, who has no friends: *I am 4 parallel universes ahead of you*

[@akrespawn6252]

Jokes on you, I don’t have any friends in the first place.

[@Jaunt3]

*Insert “funny” joke about having no friends*

[@rivulet5417]

Yea haha Very funny Haha...

[@FirstnameLastname-bx4zk]

You privileged people wouldn’t get it

[@pavelpodmarkov1906]

You are not always funny, nor do I always understand your humor, but you always supply an interesting topic with enough data that I find your videos very informational. Keep it up!

[@fclp67]

"assuming that most people have more than one friend" well here's where you're wrong bucko

[@zanhfwb]

Basically, your friends average friend count is probably higher than yours. Not the same as most of your friends have more friends than you; each friend either has more or fewer. The second statement removes the weighted average but is probably what most people (myself included) interpret the first statement to mean.

[@Jeabea08]

Giraffe as interesting has 244 friends

[@afafadsbbrs5503]

Jokes on you, I have no friends so im the most popular person I know

[@cappyjones]

Bold of you to assume that I have friends. 😁

[@JessHart006]

The Monty Hall Problem has a dinner party.

[@cheeseburgermonkey7104]

But wouldn't that statement be a paradox itself, like "The grass is always greener on the other side?" If your friends are always more popular than you, and that went for your friends as well, it would be a never ending cycle of increasing popularity, much like if the age-old statement I mentioned earlier was actually true in one case, that would create a paradox, too!

[@Mosethyoth]

In actuality no. In the simple example you can see that Bill has more friends than his friends. So there's at least one person that's always the most popular one. But the thing is, that this circumstance applies to the large majority of people and you can make this assumption with a low risk like how when you write a horoscope with oversimplified occurencies which encompass most daily experiences.

[@tyronewilliams2405]

Well friendship is not always a mutual thing

[@LeventK]

You can't be less popular than your friends if you don't have any.

[@yusufkozan9979]

But every set has an empty set as a subset. So an empty set (aka no friends) may be the most popular.

[@drmantistoboggan2870]

Yeah I don't need any maths to know my friends are more popular than I am lol.

[@jordipicon776]

Why do i need math to prove something I already know?

[@MikeKing001]

As I was scrolling down my feed this video came up and they played the first few seconds with subtitles out of the corner of my eye I read it as "do you ever go down on yourself" I then had to click to find out what the youtube algorithm had reccomended me.

[@space1607]

Read the names of the supposed friends it’s hilarious.

[@yeetionary]

Sam: 0

[@personifiedmarvel6964]

@@yeetionary Who is Sam by the way?

[@armadillolover99]

@@personifiedmarvel6964 Sam is the name of the narrator

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

@1:34 You know Joey too?

[@michciara32]

Math is applied everywhere somehow😏😏😏

[@ernesin149]

2:15 dat HIMYM reference! haha Barney always makes up an 83% statistic!

[@amanrubey]

The amount of humor in one single video 😂👌🏻

[@ChaoticgodPeaceinanet]

I don't need math to prove how socially inept I am, I already know

[@ethanpederson]

Wow thanks for boosting my self-esteem…

[@damselinthedress]

Says “Look kiddo,” “here bucko” in the most awkward way possible

[@nanoguy-ob2tb]

0:19 isn't that fidias' friend?

[@andreyokunev9858]

me who doesnt have friends: haha yes im so popular