If you follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr, you’ve seen our daily posts of the show (or character) of the day. This is actually an automated script, programmed to trawl through shows and characters.
But it’s not actually as random as it seems. Not just every show or character is eligible, after all.
Character of the Day
The character of the day has a few basic requirements.
- The character must be a regular or recurring character
- There’s a valid biography for the character
- We have an image for the character
- Cartoons can only be regular (i.e. main) characters
- The character must fit the ‘day’ guidelines, if it’s an awareness day
That last one is tricky. We actually do our best to take into account every LGBT awareness day. So if the day is September 23rd, which happens to be celebrate bisexuality day, we would only include a character who identifies as … you guessed it. Bisexual.
Today’s Character of the Day:
Show of The Day
To pick the show of the day, we use the following criteria:
- The score must be over 50 points
- The show must be generally positive (no ‘thumbs down’ reviews)
- There must be at least one regular queer character
This is done to omit shows like Law & Order SVU, or other such queer-of-the-week type shows.
Today’s Show of the Day:
Adjusting for the Skew
Of course, this doesn’t mean the system is perfect. There was a period of time where it decided that Riley Parra should be the show of the day at least once a week. For almost a month. After that, I set up a rule that a show or character could only be eligible if it hadn’t previously been featured in the last 4 months.
Also we’re still working out the kinks of certain awareness weeks that move from year to year.
If you’ve got suggestions for making this better, and more relevant, let us know in the comments or on Twitter.
