Here’s a statistic that may be interesting to some, as of today, 21 September 2020. Since NaHaiWriMo began in February of 2010 (yes, we’re celebrating our tenth anniversary this year), we’ve had 113 months of individual prompters, and three months of having a different prompter for each day of the month (pass-the-baton months). Not counting the pass-the-baton months, of those 113 other months, just 39 of those months have been prompted by males, or 34.5 percent. Many prompters have done the task more than once, so if we take out those duplications, only 19 of the 69 different individual prompters we’ve had have been male, or 27.5 percent. These percentages roughly match the demographic statistics I can see for the NaHaiWriMo Facebook page as its administrator, which identifies site visitors as 63 percent female and 35 percent male (the remaining 2 percent being unknown or unspecified). We might wonder why haiku, or NaHaiWriMo, or perhaps the social media technology in this case, attracts nearly twice as many females as males, but I have no explanation for this.

As of today, we have 3,227 likes and 3,195 followers, although of course most people are not active, or at most are active only during our “official” month of February each year. Other Facebook statistics show that the biggest percentages of users are older, with the following specific stats:

Ages 13–17:        0.3 percent
Ages 18–24         2 percent
Ages 25–34         6 percent
Ages 35–44         9 percent
Ages 45–54         15 percent
Ages 55–64         15 percent
Ages 65+            17 percent

The preceding percentages add up to only 64.3 percent, so the ages of the remaining 35.7 percent must be unknown or unspecified. The top countries, by number of fans on Facebook, are as follows:

United States of America          1,738 likes
Canada                                      221
United Kingdom                          197
India                                          188
France                                       109
Australia                                    106
Bulgaria                                      44
Philippines                                  33
Italy                                            27
Japan                                         27
Indonesia                                    21
Bangladesh                                 21
Romania                                     21
New Zealand                               21
Ireland                                        20
Malaysia                                    18
Sweden                                      17
Israel                                          16
Brazil                                         15
Germany                                    15
Netherlands                                14
Pakistan                                     14
United Arab Emirates                  14
Nigeria                                       14
Poland                                       13
Belgium                                     12
Trinidad and Tobago                    12
Russia                                      10
Serbia                                       10
Saudi Arabia                              10
Turkey                                        9
Argentina                                    9
Singapore                                   9
Mexico                                       8
Spain                                         8
South Africa                                8
Algeria                                       7
Myanmar                                    7
Kenya                                        6
Iran                                            6
Hungary                                     6
Croatia                                       6
Switzerland                                6
Iraq                                            6
Sri Lanka                                   6
(plus additional countries)

Some surprises for me are Bulgaria, Bangladesh, and the United Arab Emirates. The top ten cities, by number of fans on Facebook, are these:

New York, New York                  51 likes
Seattle, Washington                  47
Los Angeles, California              33
Toronto, Ontario                        30
Vancouver, British Columbia       30
London, United Kingdom            27
Melbourne, Australia                  24
Sofia, Bulgaria                           24
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India       23
Delhi, India                               23

For me, a surprise here is Sofia, Bulgaria. One other statistic is that NaHaiWriMo has grown every year since it began, but more important than statistics is the fact that the our purpose is to share, enjoy, and celebrate haiku.