Data Story

The Stage-Name Wall

A backstage wall of masks (AKA variants) and spotlights (social links), exploring identity breadth and reach proxies.

filmimdbtmdbpeopleidentityinternationaldata-quality
Dataset scope
7934
people
1300
sample films
640
selected
Missingness
visible
Some “reach” fields are null-heavy, so the wall prioritizes identity signals and keeps missingness visible rather than faking completeness.
Loading stage-name wall
Hypothesis

Higher identity breadth (AKA + social presence) correlates with more internationalized film footprints — but missingness and confounding are large.

Question: Do people with more AKA names and social presence appear in more internationalized films?

Method: Compute identity breadth per person; compare with language-count proxies from sample films; keep missingness explicit.

Prediction: Any association is stronger for cast than crew, but confounding by fame/recency remains.

Test: Compare subsets by role proxies and inspect whether higher breadth clusters in higher language-count samples.

Narrative Arc
Act I

Masks appear: each tile is a person, each dot an identity variant.

Act II

Spotlights turn on: social presence flips the tile and pulls it forward.

Act III

A ribbon of films reveals language footprint proxies — with missingness kept visible, not hidden.

Datasets
  • imdb.person_aka
  • imdb.person_socials
  • imdb.people
  • tmdb.movies
  • 20_stage_name_wall.json
Limitations
  • AKA lists include trivial variants and transliterations.
  • Social links are binary and time-varying.
  • Strong confounding by fame and recency.
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