It’s a fun and popular sport around here. Bill Nye is a fan. Why is it considered embarrassing that it’s a subject of google searches in Minnesota?
I’m a native of Washington state, and I’m also baffled by how socks and sandals are embarrassing. They go together well, don’t they?
I’d worry more about Alaska, Maine, and Missouri. Oh, and North Carolina…that’s just freaky. Illinois: yes. You’re welcome.
For those interested, if you click the link, they list some of the other top searches for certain states.
For instance, Nevada:
While it’s troubling that people want to know more about Guy Fieri (that’s me j/k), what’s really worrisome is googling ‘white pride’.
The ones that caught my eye as completely WTF?:
● is bigfoot real
● where is the internet (Ok, for someone who is technologically-vague, or a politician(read: lawyer), I can almost understand this…)
● is obama american
● am i a virgin (taken literally — you don’t know!?)
Most(? all?) of the rest I can imagine perfectly sensible, if perhaps local, reasons for, and a few I’m somewhat intrigued-by myself (e.g., casserole recipe).
ND got Limp Bizkit? Really? Huh.
Blf:
It’s not as simple as you might think, especially in the States, where sex education is abysmal, to say the least. There’s that whole ‘intact hymen’ business, and a wealth of young women who do other things, rather than straight PiV, so they may not be sure on that whole virgin thing.
Tony:
Well, on the map, Colorado has “men’s rights”. Plenty to worry about, I expect.
WWE wrestling is “staged”, not “fake”. It’s like calling what stuntmen do “fake”.
Also, Frisbee is a trademark of the Wham-O corporation. The proper term is Disc Golf. And Wham-O makes crappy disc golf discs. Yes, Minnesota is an awesome DG state :)
You know, the Romans wore socks with their sandals on cold days. If it was good enough for Caesar… !
I don’t know if Bill Nye also plays frisbee/disc golf (AKA frolf), but that article is about him playing ultimate frisbee, which is not at all the same thing. Both are excellent fun, though.
Caine@3:
Cf. Garfunkle and Oates’s song The Loophole (very much NOT safe for work), also known (incorrectly, but more immediately descriptively) as God’s Loophole or The Abstinence Loophole. Those who, like me, don’t do YouTube can find just the lyrics here.
The North Carolina one is apparently my father.
I like the top searches for Wisconsin: Big Lebowski quotes, polka and outhouse (image search).
I’ve actually been thinking about building an outhouse at my summer place so I did an image search for ideas recently. There was one that looked like a mini version of the Bates Motel. I’m tempted to build something like that even if I nix the outhouse idea.
I don’t get it. How are searches like casserole recipe, Hotel California lyrics, Hotel California chords, eyebrow piercing, Carly Rae Jepsen, The Expendables 3 (movie), pyramid scheme stupid. And that’s just a random selection.
Just last week I had to explain to my 17 year old what frisbee golf is. He had never heard of it.
You shouldn’t trust any of these results. They aren’t actually common searches: they are rare searches that turn up with a higher frequency in some states in the sample than other states. It’s almost completely meaningless — they’re using a technique that amplifies statistical noise.
I look at it with the same cynical eye that I do a lot of fMRI papers, which are doing exactly the same thing.
Beatrice @ 11:
I’d say that’s a good thing. It’s just pretentious drivel, marketed to pretentious people so they can feel superior over breakfast.
Is “googling” a valid verb? Adobe has recently made Kerfuffle about misusing the name Photoshop. Violating usage of trademarked name. Wondering if Google is trademarked. Maybe I should google for the answer… B.Y.B.
I enjoy playing disc golf every so often, but I do tend to suffer from grip lock.
What is the fascination that Nebraska has for Nick Nolte, besides an abundance of Ns.
Does the smallest state have some size envy?
The socks and sandals thing is probably from a series of car insurance commercials (can’t remember the company), that highlights local types of characters and says “You’re our kind of people.”
There’s “blue-tarp campers” (been there, done that), “You go–no, you go–no, you go guy” sawing back and forth at a four way stop, and “socks with sandals guy”. A lot of people probably looked it up to see what’s wrong with socks and sandals.
I could have been a Frisbee golf contender, but I got this knee injury…
Actually, it’s the big sign at the park that reads NO FRISBEE GOLF that keeps me from playing. We had the trees marked and everything. Stoopid Gummint!
Ah–Here we go. PEMCO.
This is click bait. It’s an online real estate site. They have another page with the most searched term for each state. They probably have access to the data because they buy keywords from Google. They put every state in the country in the text on these pages. They also mention their “real estate” search site and “state you want to move to and shop for a home.” This gets indexed by the bots so when someone searches for “homes for sale in” + a state…well, ba-da-bing. Your gold, baby. Great SEO.
I wouldn’t bother trying to make sense of the content or their choices because it doesn’t matter.
I’m Czech and a socks&sandals in summer is our national shame (means badly fitting sandals and awkwardness at the beach when on holiday), but “bronies” and “furries”? Apart from being a matter of pride, surely those are two of a number of mandatory things everyone has to look up on the internet along with learning to email and two girls etc. I mean mean being ashamed of looking those up is like being ashamed of looking up “bum”, “breast” and “sex” in the family dictionary! Everyone’s done it!
Yeah, any term you can imagine gets looked up, and some state has to be first in the rankings for it – my state, for instance, is the leader in looking up “kumquat frogging”, as of me looking it up just now. It doesn’t mean the state is obsessed with it, it just means that in the random swirl of the ‘net, some state has to be leading in any search, even if it is by just one searcher.
Of course, California is going to lead, just through population. The chart doesn’t say if it is adjusted by number of residents, so it can’t be taken at all seriously. What it does say is that these topics happen to come up. So what? Something has to.
People should be embarrased to be playing a sport when they don’t even know it’s proper name. It’s Disc Golf. Frisbee® is a registered trademark of the Wham-O Corporation.
I presume you are referring to the sport of Ultimate. Frisbee® is a registered trademark of the Wham-O Corporation.
No problem. Play Disc Golf instead.
Maybe a lot of people are interested in albino lions.
I wish my state (California) has something as cool as disc golf. I just played a round this morning with my 5 year old. I play before work 3-4 days a week. Great, low key, very friendly sport.
Reginald, Selkirk, #27
Most of those would have been from Walter Palmer then.
I’m from Washington and proudly wear socks with my sandals, if it’s cool and my feet might get cold.
Disc golf is great fun. I go to a place in the Adirondacks where you can camp overnight for free.
A real estate site should be embarrassed for using a map that’s missing a noticeable chunk of Michigan.
@Chelydra
I just noticed that Michigan’s search is pyramid scheme. Amway anyone?
To be fair, virginity can be a complex issue, see e.g. Greta’s ‘are we having sex now or what? post.
Even if you get really legalistic, e.g. “has some part of a penis crossed the plane containing the vaginal entrance” you can run into trouble, as she did when she started participating in sex acts with no penises present.
Remember The Mattering Map?
This is what it looks like now. Feel old yet?