Finding Shawn Mendes

Summary

In this day and age, celebrities have a lot of influence over our politics. Garthwaite and Moore estimated that Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama in 2008 netted him an extra 1 million votes [1]. More recently, an Instagram post by Taylor Swift led over 160,000 Americans to register to vote prior to the 2018 midterm elections [2]. With the advent of social media, we have an ever increasing need to know celebrities’ opinions on the political issue of the day. Celebrities by and large have obliged — but with notable exceptions. Shawn Mendes is a pop singer/songwriter from Canada who became famous several years ago. If you’re anything like me, you wake up every morning, thinking to yourself, “What is Shawn Mendes’ position on the Kuril Islands territorial dispute between Japan and Russia?” You try Googling the “Shawn Mendes Kuril Islands” — but alas, just like on every previous morning, you fail to find a public statement from Mendes on the issue. Indeed, as far as I can tell, Mendes has never publicly stated his position on the dispute. Figure 1: Shawn Mendes looking alarmed after being asked his position on the Kuril Islands dispute. I wonder where he’s headed on that plane… Well, lucky you: I believe I may have found out Mendes’ opinion, cryptically hidden in his 2018 single “Lost in Japan” [3]. The chorus of “Lost in Japan” goes: Do you got plans tonight? I’m a couple hundred miles from Japan, and I I was thinking I could fly to your hotel tonight ‘Cause I-I-I can’t get you off my mind Can’t get you off my mind Can’t get you off my mind (oh) Despite the song’s name, Mendes is clearly not lost in Japan: he is a “couple hundred miles” from Japan. This raises the question: if not in Japan, where exactly is Shawn Mendes lost? Let’s find out. Figure 2: Circles of radius 200 miles overlaying a map of Japan Consider Figure 2: circles of radius 200 miles centered at various points in Japan. Not much land is a couple hundred miles from Japan, but there is some. Per...