What do circumcision, Dungeons & Dragons and gluten have in common? We’re looking for them online
May 19, 2014, 12:37 PM | Updated: 3:16 pm
People in our state are doing a disproportionate amount of Google searching for circumcision, Dungeons and Dragons, Quinoa and other offbeat topics compared to the rest of the country, if new analysis is to be believed.
The folks at Seattle-based real estate website Estately have been crunching the numbers on Google searches over the last 10 years to come up with the terms people in each state search for more than any other.
“Washington state leads the nation in Google searches for circumcision, Dungeons & Dragons, gluten, Judas Priest (band), non-alcoholic beer, pho, quinoa, Rachel Maddow (TV host), and unicorn tattoos,” says Estately blogger and data geek Ryan Nickum – who spends way too much time doing serious research about really absurd topics.
Nickum says Estately ran hundreds of search queries through Google Trends to determine which words, terms, and questions each state was searching for more than any other. “The results ranged from mildly amusing to completely disturbing,” he says.
The geographic differences are pretty apparent. The top terms in Alabama were Fox News, God, Jesus, Jessica Simpson and Impeach Obama. In California, Alcoholics Anonymous, Google Glass, Rogaine and Kim Kardashian top the list. CrossFit, marijuana, the Paleo Diet and Tim Tebow are among the most popular search terms in Colorado.
Perhaps the most troubling, but not altogether surprising, searches dominating one state’s list come from Alaska, where adult friend finder, mail order bride, AR-15, bestiality, bird watching and Sarah Palin were the most popular.
“Analysis: It’s awful lonely up north,” Nickum writes.
Nickum admits it’s not serious science, but he says it’s a lot more fun than regular data mining. “But as strange and silly as this might seem, it does give you a pretty good idea about the personality of some of these states,” he says.
