3rd deviation

I'm not sure what to say.  I generally have something I want to talk about when I write these, but I don't think I do this time.  Maybe I do...  maybe I don't.

I keep thinking about the portrayal difference presented by "The Millionaire Next Door" between what the average millionaire looks like and how they are portrayed.  It seems to me that we are force fed the idea aberration as normal.  According to the research, the average millionaire is not some flashy, exuberant money blowing persona that is portrayed on TV and throughout life.  The average millionaire blends in so well as to not be noticed.  The book describes it as a Texas analogy that I'm sure I've heard before...  all cattle, no hat. 

The point to the statement is what you see on TV is generally all hat, no cattle.  It's an example of lots of flash but not substance.  Which once again makes me think the purpose of most TV is to glorify outliers.  Here's the TV data point...   Do some research on whatever subject you can find.  Take the average, and ignore them.  Look for those behaviors sitting around the 2nd and 3rd deviation.  That's where your new show idea is.  Because really, that's what modern media pitches.  Media pitches the 3rd deviation as normal, and says "normal" is the 3rd deviation.  It's a complete flip of what everyone sees and believes.  No wonder people have little faith in media.

Now, if you haven't guessed it here I'm using a statistics method to compare TV.  The method is standard deviation.  Take any data set.  The middle 68% of the data fits in the1st standard deviation.  Expanding to 2nd standard deviation, you are adding another 27% of the total population.  The 3rd standard deviation adds 4.7% of the population, and encompasses 99.7% of all the data sampled.  Credit to Wikipedia, as I didn't remember the specifics.  If you make a program about the 3rd standard deviation of a research subject, you are making a program about approximately 5% of the population.   But because of the presentation, that 5% of the population is appears to be the middle 65%.     

A second idea would be to go completely opposite and pitch the story of pure average of that study.  Considering the shock and horror generally associated with media, you'd probably get something completely watchable and benign simple because it hits so close to home with so many people. 

I guess there's something to be said for "all cattle, no hat".  And that's point where I'm aiming to go.  It's interesting how convoluted and strange the path is, though.  Years of indoctrination and subliminal imaging have to be wiped out in order to recognize just how much you've been taught that the 5% of the population is 68% of the population.  And half of it has to do with changing word usage.