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Two favorite pastimes in popular culture—especially USA popular culture—are watching motion pictures and listening to sound recordings. The 20th century advent of music videos represented a fusion of movie-making techniques with song-making techniques in the form of short storytelling vignettes. Although not as popularly embraced as motion pictures and sound recordings, reading books also is a favorite pastime for many humans. And, consistent with the 21st century's trend towards globalization and consistent with the changing times, surfing the World Wide Web has become a more recent favorite pastime of humans.
What are the highest grossing motion pictures in the history of Earth as of this writing on 06-25-2016? What are the top-selling sound recordings in the history of Earth as of this writing on 06-25-2016? What are the best-selling books in the history of Earth as of this writing on 06-25-2016? What are the leading social networks in the world as of this writing on 06-25-2016? The tables below provide answers to these four questions. Keep in mind that the numbers in the tables below are not precise. The numbers in the tables below are estimates.
Top-Grossing Motion Pictures (Updated Here as of 07-June-2023)
With the emergence of new technologies (such as electronic or digital versions of movies and cloud-based versions of movies) and notwithstanding the impact of inflation, tallying the top-grossing motion pictures in history is not as simple and straightforward as it appears. Complexity in tallying exists because there are numerous channels to market and distribute movies. For instance, when tallying motion pictures gross sales, to get a more complete picture, in addition to box office sales, it would be necessary to include VHS and DVD sales in retail stores, television re-broadcast sales, sales of digital downloads, digital streaming sales, and so forth. To simplify matters, the table below is restricted to a tally of top-grossing motion pictures based on box office sales.
| Rank | Movie Title | Director | Estimated Worldwide Sales | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Avatar | James Cameron | $2,923,706,026 | 2009 | 2 | Avengers: Endgame | Anthony Russo and Joe Russo | $2,797,501,328 | 2019 |
| 3 | Avatar: The Way of Water | James Cameron | $2,320,250,281 | 2009 |
| 4 | Titanic | James Cameron | $2,257,844,554 | 1997 |
| 5 | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | J. J. Abrams | $2,048,359,754 | 2015 |
| 6 | Avengers: Infinity War | Anthony Russo and Joe Russo | $2,048,359,754 | 2018 |
| 7 | Spider-Man: No Way Home | Jon Watts | $1,921,847,111 | 2021 | 8 | Jurassic World | Colin Trevorrow | $1,671,537,444 | 2015 |
| 9 | The Lion King | Jon Favreau | $1,656,943,394 | 2019 |
| 10 | The Avengers | Joss Whedon | $1,518,815,515 | 2012 |
Table Credit: wikipedia.org
Scroll to Top of PageTop-Selling Sound Recordings (Updated Here as of 07-June-2023)
Tallying the best-selling sound recordings of all time is plagued by the same kinds of challenges that apply to tallying motion picture sales. That is to say, sound recordings come in numerous formats and are marketed through numerous channels such as retail CD sales, digital downloads, and digital streaming. The table below is restricted to a review of the top-selling albums in history as determined by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
| Rank | Album Title | Recording Artist | Estimated Worldwide Sales | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thriller | Michael Jackson | 51,200,000 | 1982 |
| 2 | Back in Black | AC/DC | 30,200,000 | 1980 |
| 3 | The Bodyguard | Whitney Houston / Various artists | 28,700,000 | 1992 |
| 4 | The Dark Side of the Moon | Pink Floyd | 24,800,000 | 1973 |
| 5 | Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) | Eagles | 41,200,000 | 1976 |
| 6 | Bat Out of Hell | Meat Loaf | 22,000,000 | 1977 |
| 7 | Hotel California | Eagles | 41,200,000 | 1976 |
| 8 | Come On Over | Shania Twain | 30,400,000 | 1997 |
| 9 | Rumours | Fleetwood Mac | 29,300,000 | 1977 |
| 10 | Saturday Night Fever | Bee Gees / Various artists | 22,100,000 | 1977 |
Table Credit: wikipedia.org
Scroll to Top of PageBest-Selling Books (Updated Here as of 07-June-2023)
Tallying the best-selling books in history is even more convoluted than tallying the top-selling sound recordings in history. According to wikipedia.com, the Holy Bible, the Holy Quran, and Chairman Mao Tse-tung's Little Red Book are considered to be the best-selling books of all time. However, as shown in the table below, these three books normally are excluded from official top-selling counts because no reliable sales records exist for them. It is interesting how some (best-selling) books are made into motion-pictures renditions. Sometimes the motion-picture renditions turn into box office successes.
| Rank | Book Title | Author | Estimated Worldwide Sales | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | 200,000,000 + | 1859 |
| 2 | The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | 200,000,000 | 1943 |
| 3 | Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | J.K. Rowling | 120,000,000 | 1997 |
| 4 | And Then There Were None | Agatha Christie | 100,000,000 | 1939 |
| 5 | Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) | Cao Xueqin | 100,000,000 | 1791 |
| 6 | The Hobbit | J. R. R. Tolkien | 100,000,000 | 1937 |
| 7 | The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | C. S. Lewis | 85,000,000 | 1950 |
| 8 | She: A History of Adventure | H. Rider Haggard | 83,000,000 | 1887 |
| 9 | Vardi Wala Gunda (वर्दी वाला गुंडा) | Ved Prakash Sharma | 80,000,000 + | 1992 |
| 10 | The Da Vinci Code | Dan Brown | 80,000,000 | 2003 |
Table Credit: wikipedia.org
Scroll to Top of PageLeading Social Network Websites (Updated Here as of 07-June-2023)
At the dawn of the 21st century, surfing the World Wide Web has emerged as another favorite pastime of humans. Social networking has become one of the most popular activities on the World Wide Web. What, then, are the most popular social networking websites on the World Wide Web?
Again, there is not a straightforward answer to this question. The reason why is because there are many different categories of social networking websites. When tallies of the leading social networking websites are made, there is a tendency to exclude social websites that fall into one category or another (for example, social bookmarking sites such as Pinterest).
In gauging the popularity of social network websites, the reader should keep in mind that the registered users undoubtedly are overstated in the table below. That is to say, in some cases, these are not unique registered users. In some cases, there are duplicate reegistered users. Some users establish multiple accounts with the same social network using multiple aliases.
| Rank | Name | Country | Estimated Registered Users | Year Launched |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States / Meta Platforms | 2,990,000,000 | 2004 | |
| 2 | YouTube | United States / Alphabet Inc. | 2,560,000,000 | 2005 |
| 3 | United States / Meta Platforms | 2,240,000,000 | 2009 | |
| 4 | United States / Meta Platforms | 2,000,000,000 | 2010 | |
| 5 | TikTok | China / ByteDance | 1,530,000,000 | 2017 |
| 6 | Messenger | United States / Meta Platforms | 1,300,000,000 | 2011 |
| 7 | China / Tencent | 1,225,000,000 | 2011 | |
| 8 | United States / Microsoft | 930,000,000 | 2003 | |
| 9 | Telegram | United Arab Emirates / Telegram | 700,000,000 | 2013 |
| 10 | Douyin | China / ByteDance | 600,000,000 | 2016 |
Table Credit: wikipedia.org
Scroll to Top of PageClosing Thoughts
On the bruessard.com website, I went to great lengths to emphasize that all forms of murder is wrong. In preparing for 21st century living and beyond, I went to great lengths to reiterate that murder, violence, and hatred are relics of a human Pastime Paradise (Stevie Wonder).
Although not anywhere nearly as serious as murder, digital theft and copyright infringement also are wrong. The so-called bootlegging—and the illegal reselling—of fake, adulterated, counterfeit versions of patented, designer, and brand-name products is a very serious global problem (for example, clothing, shoes, cosmetics, jewelry, purses, and so forth). Duplicating schemes such as peer-to-peer file sharing—and the illegal reselling—of copyrighted digital works are very serious global problems (for example, software applications, motion pictures, sound recordings, digital books, and so forth).
Do not succumb to the temptation of stealing and cheating. Support your favorite creative artists and designers by purchasing legitimate or original copies of their works from authentic and legitimate merchants such as the following examples:
It remains imperative for humans of today to do the right thing by elevating their conduct to the highest ethical plane, that is, if humans are to succeed in realizing a "future paradise" right here on Earth—and in deep space. The future is about humans rising above the mire.
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