FLORIDA, whose voters head to the polls today in the presidential primary, has in recent years become the butt of a peculiar internet joke, or meme. Known simply as “Florida man”, the meme pokes fun at the many amusing and bizarre news stories that originate from the Sunshine State with headlines that begin “Florida man”, as in “Florida man gets DUI (Driving Under the Influence) after nodding off in Taco Bell drive-thru” or “Florida man finds 9-foot alligator in backyard swimming pool”. Although Florida man can be found in any number of embarrassing circumstances, he is very often battling wildlife (“Florida man arrested for butchering alligator, says he just wanted a new belt”), using illicit drugs (“Florida man charged with stealing $1,600 dog, trading it for crack”), or committing crimes (“Florida man indicted in fatal dog poop fight”).



A website, Know Your Meme, which is dedicated to documenting internet phenomena, claims that the Florida man meme began in 2013. But it may have started before that in 2009 when the Associated Press published a collection of the year’s strangest events from Florida titled “Strange? Odd? Weird? Bizarre? That’s Florida!”. AP repeated the gag two years later with “Florida was weird as only it can be in 2011”. Regardless of its origins, Florida man rose to meme status in January 2013 with the launch of @_FloridaMan, a Twitter account with 344,000 followers that aggregates Florida man news. It has since spawned a Reddit thread, several Tumblr accounts and even an art exhibit. Florida is now infamous for its weird news stories. But the attention may not be entirely deserved.



An analysis of AP reports covering 2000 to 2015 finds that Ohio, another state voting in presidential primaries today, may be a more fitting target for the internet’s ridicule. During this 16-year period, it is in fact “Ohio man” who is featured in most headlines, such as “Ohio man, 82, accused of flying kite while naked” and “Ohio man must spend two days in jail for petting zoo cougars”. After adjusting for population, the Buckeye State beats the Sunshine State by a factor of more than two to one (15.8 headlines per 1m residents in Ohio compared with just 6.1 in Florida).



Today, voters in five states will have the opportunity to say if they want a Florida man (Marco Rubio) or an Ohio man (John Kasich) as the Republican presidential nominee. For the moment at least, both of these possibilities sound more far-fetched and improbable than any bizarre news story.