State Word Map
State Word Map
[Caption above the map, with sub caption:] Most-Used Word in Each State Based on Something Something Search Data
[Beneath the captions are a colorful map of the United States of America. Each state has one color, but the colors do not change from state to state, but rather between rows of states. The top "row" is purple, the second row is gray-blue, but only goes half across. Where it stops a pink row of states begins. Beneath this runs a yellow row, except it does not take California with it, since it belongs to the next purple line beneath this yellow line. Finally the two states not in the contiguous states as well as the southern states from Texas to Florida are again pink. Inside each state is written one, and only one word (or for small states the word is outside and if needed a line indicates which state it belongs to). The words size depends on the size of the state and the word. If it can fit inside the state it will be written in a font large enough to fill the entire state if possible (in one case a hyphen is used). So a short word, like "lets" in huge Texas becomes huge, but a word like "noise" which has been fitted inside small Massachusetts becomes small.]
[Here are the 50 words written in lines resembling the colors on the map (from left to right). Purple, gray-blue, pink, yellow, purple and pink:] You can make these maps say whatever you want by adjusting the methodology. Half the time you're just amplifying random noise. Because the underlying data doesn't vary that much from one state to another. But whatever. Nobody checks this stuff. Just pick whatever normal-ization lets you make fun of Florida.

This is another of the many comics where Randall used a map of the United States for his joke (see below for examples).
Similar in spirit to 1138: Heatmap , this comic pokes fun at many maps that attempt to use data to discern unique characteristics about various sub-regions, in this case American states . This map may have been inspired by this map posted on Twitter by Google Trends the day before the comic was posted. Many web companies use maps like this in viral marketing, but the methodology behind them is pretty weak. The random noise in the data will mean that there will be variations between states even if there is no underlying pattern - and this can be further boosted by statistical tricks. A common one is to show the "most characteristic" or "most distinctive" term for each state. For instance, the most common cause of death is heart disease or cancer in every US state, but this makes for a boring map. Looking at the most distinctive cause of death produces a more interesting map, but it highlights very minor trends - Lousiana is marked as having syphilis as its most distinctive cause of death, even though only 15 Louisianans in every 100,000 have the disease and there were only 22 syphilis deaths in the state over a whole decade. These maps can give a misleading impression of huge variation between states that doesn't really exist.
This map does not include real data, but says (when read left to right/west to east):
You can make these maps say whatever you want by adjusting the methodology. Half of the time you're just amplifying random noise because the underlying data doesn't vary that much from one state to another. But whatever. Nobody checks this stuff. Just pick whatever normalization lets you make fun of Florida.
The primary joke is that the likelihood of these being the words used most often by the inhabitants of each state is low, rather than accurately representing the most used words Randall has just done exactly what he says he can do (make fun of Florida by putting whatever he wants). He also has not obtained the data from anywhere, just 'Something Something'.
The joke about Florida is that the most used word in Florida is "Florida", which would make people in Florida very self-centered.
The comic continues to make fun of Florida in the title text by saying that Florida searches for sex porn instead of porn , which is not needed since porn means images and film of people having sex. This is also probably a reference to PornHub's data-farming exercises, where they have periodically released the most frequently searched term by state.
Florida is often the butt of many jokes, including the Florida Man meme and many mocking jibes regarding its messy electoral history . For more information on why Florida itself seems eager to play into this stereotype, check out the "Only in Florida" phenomenon
Randall previously used a map of the United States as the basis for his comics in 1767: US State Names , 1653: United States Map , 1509: Scenery Cheat Sheet and in 1079: United Shapes .
[Caption above the map, with sub caption:] Most-Used Word in Each State Based on Something Something Search Data
[Beneath the captions are a colorful map of the United States of America. Each state has one color, but the colors do not change from state to state, but rather between rows of states. The top "row" is purple, the second row is gray-blue, but only goes half across. Where it stops a pink row of states begins. Beneath this runs a yellow row, except it does not take California with it, since it belongs to the next purple line beneath this yellow line. Finally the two states not in the contiguous states as well as the southern states from Texas to Florida are again pink. Inside each state is written one, and only one word (or for small states the word is outside and if needed a line indicates which state it belongs to). The words size depends on the size of the state and the word. If it can fit inside the state it will be written in a font large enough to fill the entire state if possible (in one case a hyphen is used). So a short word, like "lets" in huge Texas becomes huge, but a word like "noise" which has been fitted inside small Massachusetts becomes small.]
[Here are the 50 words written in lines resembling the colors on the map (from left to right). Purple, gray-blue, pink, yellow, purple and pink:] You can make these maps say whatever you want by adjusting the methodology. Half the time you're just amplifying random noise. Because the underlying data doesn't vary that much from one state to another. But whatever. Nobody checks this stuff. Just pick whatever normal-ization lets you make fun of Florida.
