Young people have a better knowledge of Justin Bieber than William Shakespeare.
The survey of 1,000 UK adults aged between 18 and 25 was commissioned by music streaming service, Deezer who recently announced Bieber as their most streamed artist of the year so far.
In order to find out the extent of people’s knowledge our study looked at specific quotes from both icons:
- One-third of people couldn’t recognise ‘To be or not to be’ as one of Shakespeare’s, despite it being one of his most well known.
- Just 12% knew that Shakey wrote “Strong reasons make strong actions”.
- A dismal 17% knew “All that glitters is not gold” was penned by the Bard.
- In comparison, however, more than half recognised “Girlfriend, girlfriend, you could be my girlfriend” and “is it too late now to say sorry?” as lines from Bieber songs.
The findings of the survey, which marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, gained extensive media coverage including The Guardian, NME, The Independent The Sun, The Metro, Yahoo and many more. They also formed part of a feature on America’s Fox network.
