Renee DiResta got to wondering about state stereotypes, so she looked them up on Google and mapped them.
In the months before a US Presidential election, the quality of political discourse hits new lows. Blue State/Red State tropes dominate the news cycle as the media gins up outrage over perceived injustices in the culture wars. It’s all about our differences. So I started wondering, how do Americans really think about “those people” in other states? What are the most common stereotypes? For each of the fifty states and DC, I asked Google: “Why is [State] so ” and let it autocomplete. It seemed like an ideal question to get at popular assumptions, since “Why is [State] so X?” presupposes that X is true.
Roll over a state on the map, and the top four suggestions are listed. Hilarity ensues. “Why is California so… liberal, broke, anti-gun, and expensive?”
[via @rachelbinx]
Hahaha, I love this!
Is the map broken? Only one roll-over for the whole of “America.”
Google gives different people different results. I just tried ‘Why is California so’ and got 3 of 4 the same, but no anti-gun, and in its place … ‘great’.
I would like a list of each state’s stereotypes as I use text to speech and can’t access the map. Are they listed anywhere? Thanks.