Just checked in over at Nate Silver's site, which I've somehow not visited for a while. He has an interesting essay up about why some revelations about Donald Trump become big news stories and some don't. I've always been curious about this, and not just about Trump. Seems to me this is the case with most public figures. Why did people suddenly start talking about Bill Cosby as a rapist? Did one YouTube video by a comedian most people had never heard of really cause all that?
They're also doing articles over there like this one trying to forecast the Academy Awards. I am unmoved from my belief that they're trying to predict the unpredictable. This is because there is too little meaningful data available. Trying to extrapolate from other awards or Google searches or other factors does not seem to me to be any sort of proven science.
I think a lot of factors go into determining who wins Best Whatever and they're not the kind of things you can put on a chart. Best Acting awards seem to me based largely on subjective evaluations of which performer is doing more courageous work — not necessarily better and not necessarily in the film for which they were nominated. And it has a lot to do with whose acceptance speech they'd like to hear. Every big movie studio has in-house "experts" with theories on how to promote a film or an individual for Oscar consideration…and even they're just guessing and usually wrong.