LonoMyth's Kid Actor Spotlight presents the...
Here we are, the results of the Media Boy 1998 Poll conducted by this site over the last three weeks of 1998. Visitors to the site were asked to vote on their favorite young male performers based on their work over the past year (Qualifiers had to have been under 18 years of age.)
Once again, the turnout was even greater this year than last and I had a great time watching the numbers change daily. A total of 93 ballots were cast (79 full (5 name) ballots and 14 partials (which were given less weight.)) A total of 1,262 points were allocated to 106 actors and musicians.
And the winner is... David Gallagher!!!
Yes, once again, "Three-peat Gallagher" has topped the survey with a comfortable 35 point margin (not as huge a gap as last year, but still very impressive.) Congratulations, David!
The big surprise this year was Joseph Cross, who with 90 points (compared to 6 points last year), easily bested Kevin Zegers' 1997 total of 64 points. Lucky for Kevin, he also blasted his 1997 score and retained second place with 97 points. It was fun to watch Kevin and Joseph trade places numerous times over the last few weeks, never being sure who would prevail. Both had a huge lead over the rest of the pack.
Joseph Mazzello also got a lot more points this year (more than double last year's 20 points) to take fourth place...
...and the race for fifth place was not decided until the very last ballot was cast, so tight was that race. Zippy little singing sensation Aaron Carter came from behind to push Brendon Ryan Barrett and Miko Hughes down a notch.
Here is the entire list for your perusing pleasure. Scroll down to the end to see some other interesting results.
Rank/Points '98 '97 pts. pts - Actor
===============--========--========================
1 (132 pts.) 1 David Gallagher
2 (97 pts.) 2 Kevin Zegers
3 (90 pts.) 43 (+40) Joseph Cross
4 (52 pts.) 13 (+7) Joseph Mazzello
5 (49 pts.) 21 (+16) Aaron Carter
6 (46 pts.) 12 (+6) Brendon Ryan Barrett
7 (40 pts.) 9 (+2) Miko Hughes
8 (38 pts.) 5 (-3) Elijah Wood
9 (35 pts.) 13 (+3) Eric Lloyd
10 (31 pts.) 13 (+2) Joseph Gordon-Levitt
11 (28 pts.) 4 (-7) Erik von Detten
12 (25 pts.) 3 (-9) Jonathan Taylor Thomas
13 (24 pts.) 6 (-7) Zachary Hanson
14 (22 pts.) -- Michael Welch
15 (19 pts.) 25 (+10) Wesley Barker
16 (18 pts.) 19 (+3) Jake Lloyd
43 (+27) Ryan Merriman
18 (17 pts.) 32 (+14) Zachary Browne
-- Jesse James
20 (16 pts.) 7 (-13) Taylor Hanson
21 (15 pts.) -- J. Evan Bonifant
68 (+47) Eddie Karr
55 (+34) Tyler Kyte
24 (14 pts.) -- Kieran Culkin
43 (+19) Georges Du Fresne
26 (13 pts.) 55 (+29) Justin Cooper
28 (+2) Brad Renfro
28 (12 pts.) 10 (-18) Lucas Black
25 (-3) Matthew Lawrence
21 (-7) Haley Joel Osment
78 (+50) Corey Sevier
10 (-18) Taran Smith
33 (11 pts.) 16 (-17) Michael Galeota
34 (10 pts.) -- Eli Marienthal
35 (9 pts.) 78 (+43) Andrew Ducote
37 (+2) Blake Foster
-- Jack Johnson
27 (-8) Anthony Way
39 (8 pts.) 8 (-31) Zachary Ty Bryan
32 (-7) Tahj Mowry
78 (+39) Gregory Smith
42 (7 pts.) 37 (+5) Jay Baruchel
28 (-14) Nick Carter
19 (-23) Blake Heron
-- Eamonn Owens
55 (+13) Joey Zimmerman
47 (6 pts.) 78 (+31) Clint Moffatt
68 (+21) Jake Richardson
49 (5 pts.) -- Joseph Ashton
-- Trevor Blumas
43 (-6) Michael Caloz
17 (-32) Alex D. Linz
68 (+19) Dave Moffatt
93 (+44) Austin O'Brien
28 (-21) Olivier Tuniner
56 (4 pts.) -- Liam Aiken
43 (-13) Benjamin Brock
93 (+37) Ben Cook
-- J.D. Daniels
21 (-35) Adam Hann-Byrd
-- Emile Hirsch
55 (-1) Jonathan Jackson
43 (-13) Nathan Lawrence
93 (+37) Scott Moffatt
-- Gil Ofarim
-- J.P. Roeske
-- Shayn Solberg
-- Ricky van Gastel
69 (3 pts.) -- Herbie Baez
32 (-37) Justin Berfield
78 (+9) Cameron Finley
89 (+20) Brendan Fletcher
93 (+24) Bug Hall
-- Jeremy Kissner
-- Anthony Medwetz
-- Stephen Niemczyk
-- Evan Silverberg
-- Gene Wexler
79 (2 pts.) -- Mathew Botuchis
-- Vincius de Oliveira
-- Maxime Desbiens-Trem
-- Chris Fennell
-- Noah Fleiss
-- Jeff Gulka
37 (-42) Isaac Hanson
37 (-42) Jonny Lang
-- Collin O'Donnell
-- Rufus Read
-- Bill Switzer
-- Clayton Taylor
-- Paul Terry
55 (-24) Philip van Dyke
-- Jordan Wall
55 (-24) Geoffrey Wigdor
95 (1 pts.) 43 (-52) Jordan Brower
-- Reeve Carney
55 (-40) Zane Carney
-- Toran Caudell
21 (-74) Frankie J. Galasso
-- Jimmy Galeota
-- Jesse Head
-- Bob Moffatt
-- Trevor Morgan
-- Joseph Perrino
-- Blair Slater
-- Ian Michael Smith
*Note: The column that shows change in rank from last year, while it seems to do a good job of indicating whether a person's popularity rose or fell, it can show wildly exaggerated results in the bottom half of the list (i.e. Jonathan Jackson got one point less this year than last, and his rank dropped only one place... compare that to Ben Cook who got 2 points more than last year, but his ranking seems to skyrocket 37 places.) I toyed with the idea of showing points differences instead of rank differences, but that gave me some results that suggested that a person's popularity decreased eventhough his ranking rose.
Newcomers
Here are the Top Five newcomers:
Rank/Points Actor ==============--============================= 1 (22 pts.) Michael Welch 2 (17 pts.) Jesse James 3 (9 pts.) Jack Johnson 4 (5 pts.) Joseph Ashton, Trevor Blumas
But, what if...?
Okay, so would the results have been any different if each voter were asked only to vote for their favorite actor? Well, I was curious, too, so I kept track of everyone's very favorites, here's what it would have looked like (1 point for each ballot):
Rank/Points Actor
===========--====================
1 13 David Gallagher
2 11 Joseph Cross
3 10 Kevin Zegers
4 5 Miko Hughes
5 4 Brendon Ryan Barrett, Joseph Gordon Levitt,
Joseph Mazzello, Wesley Barker
9 3 Ryan Merriman
10 2 Jay Baruchel, Jesse James, Matthew Lawrence,
Eric Lloyd, Jake Lloyd, Haley Joel Osment,
Erik von Detten, Elijah Wood
18 1 Lucas Black, Trevor Blumas, Zachary Ty Bryan,
Aaron Carter, Georges du Fresne, Blake Foster,
Michael Galeota, Taylor Hanson, Eddie Karr,
Tyler Kyte, Eli Marienthal, Anthony Medwetz,
Tahj Mowry, Austin O'Brien, Gregory Smith,
Taran Smith, Jonathan Taylor Thomas,
Olivier Tuinier
Wow! What a difference, eh?
Again, thanks to all of you who took part and made this such a (in my estimation) big success. I had a blast doing this and hope you all will consider doing this again with me next December.
