Do You Agree With How The Rest Of The Country Sees Your State?
You might be surprised by what Internet think of your state.
AutoComplete is a tool on the Google search engine. When you begin to type a phrase on Google, AutoComplete fills in that phrase with the most popular search in relation to what you've begun to type. This is a helpful tool if you're a lazy typer, but more importantly, it's a cool way to monitor what people are interested in when they're searching Google. Recently, Alvin Ward and Chloe Effron from mental_floss used the AutoComplete tool in this way to compile an infographic of what Internet users think of each of the Union's 50 states. By typing "Why is [insert desired state here] so..." into google and taking the top AutoComplete hit, mental_floss compiled the infographic shown below.
Surprised by some of these results? Me too. Others? Not so much. We all know Minnesota is cold and Nevada is dry, but what about the more subjective descriptions of the states, e.g. the "weird" label for Florida?
Some of the AutoComplete results are more interesting than others.
It's fascinating to consider that some searches are more objective, and suggest a curiosity about definable characteristics of certain states, while some are more subjective and judgment-based. Here are some of the more fascinating labels attached to the states:
I can't say for sure, but here's a great article from Paul Ratner at the Huffington Post attempting to explain the mystery of Florida.
With the exception of Pittsburg and Philly, it could be the vast woodlands, or maybe the conservative politics, or the various extremely poor towns. Here's an article by Ben Branstetter at Thought Catalog that gets a little deeper into the supposedly boring state.
This one's easy–apparently 60% of Utah's population is Mormon, and that's due to the fact that Mormon pioneers followed Brigham Young to Utah territory in 1847 and settled the soon-to-be state.
Now here's a really fascinating one–the AutoComplete results could be referring to either the heavy snowfall in the state, or the fact that Maine's population has the highest percentage of non-Hispanic white people of any state, at 94.4%. I'm guessing it's the latter.
Does the AutoCorrect completion for your state ask an apt question, or is it totally off base?