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| Google Trends Maps |
 Title text: It's early 2020. The entire country is gripped with Marco Rubio fever except for Alaska, which is freaking out. You're frantically studying up on etiquette and/or sexting. |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by MARCO RUBIO. Each map needs to be individually explained. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. |
Google Trends is a website for visualizing Google search activity by date and region. Used properly, it can give a picture of what topics people are interested in (as evidenced by what they search for) at particular times and in different places. Used improperly, it can simply amplify random noise.
Randall has created several Google Trends maps of search activity in the US. Each map colors in states according to which of two (or more) search queries was more popular. As noted at the top of the comic, all of these based on real queries (though not reflecting the same time period across all maps). However, none of them seem to show any especially useful comparisons.
- "Frostbite" vs "heat stroke": This is probably the most sensible comparison of the lot, showing which of these two risks of exposure people search up more often. However, the results are fairly obvious: in the colder northern and eastern states, "frostbite" is the more common search, while across the south and west, it's "heat stroke".
- "Best church" vs "best strip club": This map would seem to indicate people in Nevada (and only in Nevada) are more interested in strip clubs than religion. This may have something to do with the fact that Las Vegas is in Nevada.
- "Bigfoot" vs "Mike Pence": Apparently, everywhere except for Indiana, people in the US are more interested in a mythical hairy creature than in the current (at the time of this comic's release) Vice President of the United States. Since Mike Pence was once the governor of Indiana, this makes more sense if the time period covered precedes his nomination as Trump's running mate.
- "Etiquette" vs "sexting": Similar to the church/strip club example, this map contrasts search interest in polite behavior against risqué behavior.
- "Little dog" vs "big cat": The Trend map contrasts two searches for unidentified and briefly glimpsed wildlife that often snatch household pets left outside. The smallest canid in the wilds of America is the coyote, Canis latrans, which are often smaller than the American wild dog, Canis lupus. They are known for being scavenger/hunters and for the ululating "songs" their packs break into in the middle of the night. By contrast, "big cat" is a term for the largest members of the cat family (Felidae). Except for the jaguar, which is a roaring cat of the Panthera genus that inhabits Mexico and sometimes Arizona, the largest wild cat in North America is the mountain lion, Puma concolor. It is also known as cougar, puma, catamount, ghost cat, over seventy other regional names, and the misnomer panther. (The cougar is ironically of the Felinae subfamily, all of which purr, and not Pantherinae, which roar. Black panthers in Africa are black-coated leopards, while black panthers in the Americas are black-coated jaguars, and both are Pantherinae. No black-coated pumas have been verified, leading zoologists to believe such sightings are misidentified.) "Little Dog" is also a Canadian television series, set in Newfoundland, which explains the larger number of searches for Little Dog in Maine, the state closest to Newfoundland.
- "Shark attack" vs "childbirth": While both of these things might be considered risky, there is not much of a relationship between them. As might be expected, the "shark attack" search is more common in most coastal states (and, for some reason, both Kentucky and Nevada).
- "Snakes" vs "ants" vs "bees" vs "alligators": These are all dangerous animals that cause occasional human fatalities (mainly from allergic reactions for ants and bees). There is no noticeable pattern in which animal is searched most often, though only Florida has alligators as the most common search of the four. Florida presumably has Alligators as the most searched item on this list as it is where the Everglades are located, a vast area of swamp and marsh that, aside from maintaining the ecosystem and the water supply of Florida, also is home to an obscene number of alligators.
- "Retirement planning" vs "bungee jumping": The implication here is that people in some states are more concerned with short-term fun rather than long-term planning.
- "Super Bowl" vs "funeral home": This is an attempt to contrast interest in a popular sports (and media) event against a rather somber topic.
- "Resume tips" vs "skateboard tricks": Another comparison between learning a "serious", goal-oriented skill (career advancement) and a "silly", fun skill (skateboarding). It is also an imperfect rhyme.
- "Donald Trump" vs "What do I do": The implication here seems to be that people in some states are more likely to ask Google "what do I do?", either in panic or in ignorance, than they are to look up the latest doings of the US President. The split shown is not too different to the actual split between states voting for Trump and for his opponent, Hillary Clinton.
- "Existential crisis" vs "Marco Rubio": Senator Marco Rubio was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Everywhere but Alaska, people were more likely to look up his name than to search for "existential crisis".
The title text uses two of these maps to paint a picture of the year 2020 (implying that these search patterns are both meaningful and likely to continue into the future). In this scenario, most of the country continues to read about Marco Rubio (except for Alaskans, still searching for help with their existential crises), and individuals are trying to learn about etiquette, sexting, or both, depending on their location.
Transcript
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This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks. |
- The least informative
- Google Trends Maps
- I've created over the years
- (All are real but not all cover the same date range)
- [12 maps of the United States are shown with the states colored. There are labels for the colors.]
- [Map 1]
- [Blue:] Frostbite
- [Red:] Heat stroke
- [Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington are red. All other states are blue.]
- [Map 2]
- [Blue:] Best church
- [Red:] Best strip club
- [Nevada is red. Alaska, North Dakota, and Wyoming are gray. All other states are blue.]
- [Map 3]
- [Blue:] Bigfoot
- [Red:] Mike Pence
- [Indiana is red. All other states are blue.]
- [Map 4]
- [Blue:] Etiquette
- [Red:] Sexting
- [Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia are red. All other states are blue.]
- [Map 5]
- [Blue:] Little dog
- [Red:] Big cat
- [Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming are blue. All other states are red.]
- [Map 6]
- [Blue:] Shark attack
- [Red:] Childbirth
- [California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia are blue. All other states are red.]
- [Map 7]
- [Blue:] Snakes
- [Red:] Ants
- [Yellow:] Bees
- [Green:] Alligators
- [Florida is green. Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are red. Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming are yellow. All other states are blue.]
- [Map 8]
- [Blue:] Retirement planning
- [Red:] Bungee jumping
- [Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming are gray. Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin are blue. All other states are red.]
- [Map 9]
- [Blue:] Super Bowl
- [Red:] Funeral home
- [Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Washington are blue. All other states are red.]
- [Map 10]
- [Blue:] Resume tips
- [Red:] Skateboard tricks
- [Arizona is red. Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming are gray. All other states are blue.]
- [Map 11]
- [Blue:] Donald Trump
- [Red:] What do I do
- [California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin are blue. All other states are red.]
- [Map 12]
- [Blue:] Existential crisis
- [Red:] Marco Rubio
- [Alaska is blue. All other states are red.]
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