TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online
Florida Seen As 'Fiesta Of Weirdness'
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Published: August 9, 2007
'Man falls out of car while trying to spit. Guess which state.'
We don't have to guess because that headline, from an Internet news-posting site aimed at young adults, included a logo that simply says 'Florida.'
Drew Curtis, a media critic who runs the Fark.com site and may well scan more news stories each day than anyone else in the country, says Florida is by far the leading source of strange news. His readers send in quirky story suggestions by the thousands. He selects the stories he likes, posts links to them, and tags them to give an idea of the content, such as stupid, spiffy or asinine. Florida is the only proper noun on his tag list.
We asked Curtis what the Florida tag means. After he stopped laughing, he referred us to his new book.
His viewers suggested that 'so many stupid things happen in Florida, it deserved its own Fark tag,' Curtis wrote. 'I wasn't convinced it would get much use, but I decided to go ahead and put it up anyhow. Boy was I wrong.'
Below are recent examples of his Curtis's use of the Florida tag.
• Here's a great idea. Take a cougar to a 4-year-old's birthday and take it off the leash.
• Man evicted from place of business because he doesn't speak Spanish.
• If you're going to go into an office to ask for donations to cover the costs of your daughter's death, make sure your daughter isn't waiting in the car.
• Woman decides that Chuck E. Cheese would make a better parent than she would.
• If you're going to spread oil all over the floor of a grocery store and fake a fall, make sure the surveillance cameras aren't rolling.
'For some reason,' Curtis concluded, 'Florida is messed up. ... Perhaps it's the warm weather that makes people stupid. ... Whatever the reason, Florida is without a doubt the No. 1 state for weird news.
'I would be willing to bet that most of it begins with a few beers and goes downhill from there. ... Throw in some old people and some lost tourists and you have a fiesta of weirdness.'
We know. We live here.
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Reader Comments
Posted by ( KrackedPelvis ) on August 9, 2007 at 1:36 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Florida is a great state. Y'alls don't know what you is missin. Me and my husband brother love it here. We get in the Elcamino and drive all over to enjoy the sunshine ain't nothin like the fresh air and a cold Natural Ice between yer legs. We have only hit one pedesterian that we know of. Old people are fun and interesting to talk to when the ain't dyin. I like to experience other cultures when I go to get a box of wine. I never know what the clerk is saying. Sometimes he waves his arms and yells but I know it's all good. All seven of my kids went to Florida public schools for the past seventeen years and all of them done got thru the seventh grade.
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Posted by ( Major7th ) on August 9, 2007 at 2:05 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Did you notice than none of those articles tell you where the people who now reside in Florida came from? Only 17% of us are actually from Florida, the rest are rejects from the rest of the country, and a few other countries.
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Posted by ( HTuttle ) on August 9, 2007 at 2:33 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Hey JP Morgan, is that you in that "Drive To Church Ends With Child Abuse, Domestic Battery And Kidnapping Charges" story over on the right?
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Posted by ( drdunbar2007 ) on August 9, 2007 at 3:01 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by ( ablejack ) on August 9, 2007 at 3:41 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Mitch adds:
"Did you notice than none of those articles tell you where the people who now reside in Florida came from? Only 17% of us are actually from Florida, the rest are rejects from the rest of the country, and a few other countries."
Its simple Mitch. Seventeen percent of these rejects are likely from Florida. The other 83% are the rejects that are sent there.
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Posted by ( LloydGrant ) on August 9, 2007 at 5:06 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by ( greenbudangel ) on August 9, 2007 at 8:14 p.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by ( DandamanFL ) on August 9, 2007 at 9:55 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
I am a Farker and I am really getting a kick out of some of the responses here. Numerous Floridians, natives and transplants, are dedicated Farkers and get it.
Try a keyword search here at TBO.com for Fark. You'll see that us Florida Farkers had a great time just last weekend.
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Posted by ( prekrasno ) on August 10, 2007 at 4:28 a.m.
(This comment was removed by the site staff.)
Posted by ( Carlene ) on August 10, 2007 at 6:01 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Here, here Dallas....
I have to say: doesn't matter where anyone person comes from or resides, life would be Boring without all the "Weirdness and Stupidity". We all do it, we just don't all get Caught.
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Posted by ( ajanello ) on August 10, 2007 at 7:35 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
THIS is 'news'? Florida weird? Only in your own, immature perception.
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Posted by ( tonyalc ) on August 10, 2007 at 9:14 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
carry on Drew, go with it
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Posted by ( Canadian ) on August 10, 2007 at 2:51 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Please Dallas, don't send any Floridians up here.
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Posted by ( keno ) on August 10, 2007 at 3:26 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
This is clearly just a case of numbers. Population wise Florida is number 4 in the country, followed by 85 million tourists visiting the state each year. Those numbers show that obviously because more people are in the state and visitors target FL from all around the world this would be the case. And please if you live here and talk about how much better it is in (NY, OH, MI, MA, NJ,) or any other place hop on I-75 and take your a** back. Thx-All Florida Natives
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Posted by ( Tampaborn ) on August 10, 2007 at 5:03 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Being a 4 generation native Floridian this reminds me of something another Floridian told me happened to her. Four co-workers who were originally from another state stood around the coffee machine talking about how "Floridians don't know how to drive" and her response was "There is only 3 of us, how much trouble could we be?"
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Posted by ( chuckyd1 ) on August 12, 2007 at 12:46 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
If you believe the National Enquirer, most of the weird news comes from Ohio. They are the weird experts!
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Posted by ( echodriver ) on August 12, 2007 at 9:20 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Ya know, we who have lived here for a long time tend to be normal. But I see increasingly that the "wierdos" come from up north...and they just keep coming...
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Posted by ( pamsdolls ) on August 12, 2007 at 11:09 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Well as a native Floridian I realize that I am a minority but I think I have found a way to have all but the true leave our beautiful state - we stop having air conditioning any place. We were here before A/C and survived.
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Posted by ( sheelf ) on August 14, 2007 at 7:52 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
Florida wouldn't be a festival of Wierdness, if all the Wierdos would go back where they came from. People come here for vacation and suddenly they want to move here, as a result our inferstructure has suffered, our schools over crowded, our highways are a mess, they are worse than the illegal aliens that come here, only difference is that they are legal and we can't do anything about it, like sending them back home. There was a time when Florida was beautiful, before all the Yankees from up north came down and ruined it. Festival of Wierdnes, No, its a crying shame.
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Posted by ( naturalice ) on August 22, 2007 at 2:40 a.m. ( Suggest removal )
To JP Morgan: I love being between yer legs!
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