What it is about?
Florida Man meme refers to memes related to people from Florida. The meme trend started on Twitter in 2013. You know meme describes it as “The memes curate news headline descriptions of bizarre incidents involving a male subject residing in the state of Florida.”
The @_FloridaMan Twitter feed was launched on January 26th, 2013, which featured news headlines containing the keywords “Florida man”. Within one month, the account received over 64,000 followers. This account collects real-life stories of the world’s worst superheroes.
Florida is considered to be a state of weirdoes. Thus, Florida is the wackiest and unusual state in the USA. Floridians have to grapple with some of the harsh situations like venomous snakes, alligators, and off-season climatic conditions like very humidity on hot days and mosquitoes. Their acts may be a direct consequence of these conditions.
Whatever, these Florida Man memes have become a source of making millions of people laugh like their assess off.
Most memes from planking to Tide Pods fizzle out fast. Florida Man has, on the other hand, only grown stronger. There are so many stories about men like Hatfield that a “Florida Man Challenge” went viral this March, in which millions of people Googled their birth dates and “Florida Man,” finding a near-endless list of real news headlines for all 365 days of the year:
- “Florida man arrested for assaulting girlfriend with fried chicken”
2. “Florida man who tried to “Run” to Bermuda in Inflated bubble rescued by coast guard, again”.
3. “Florida man drinks goat blood in ritual sacrifice, runs for senate.”
Like seriously, one headline for each day? If you haven’t tired it so far, do it right after reading this article.
Florida Man TV Series
The meme has grown beyond the inside jokes of Twitter and Reddit, germinating scores of late-night comedy routines, queues of podcasts, multiple band names, an episode of the FX show “Atlanta,” an “X-Files” comic book, a documentary and, soon, a docuseries (documentary) from the producers of “Get Out.”
Moreover, the infamous ‘Florida Man’ will be getting his own TV show. There is going to be a TV with the name ‘Florida Man’. This series/show will focus on the America’s most notorious, outrageous, craftiest killers from the Sunshine State (nickname for Florida).
It will not only focus on silly crimes but on some serious crimes as well. The series will unravel the strange twists and turns and try in vain to reason how and why this breed of killers took their crimes to levels beyond comprehension.
Florida Memes Criticism
But you know these memes have been criticized as well. The podcast “Citations Needed” created a browser plug-in that substitutes the term “Florida Man” with “Man Likely Suffering From Mental Illness or Drug Addiction.” On Facebook, the otherwise sunny page Feel Good Florida has been pushing the hashtag #deathtofloridaman.
According the Google trends data, many of the people reject the idea that Florida man should be on internet.
Some of arrest stories of Florida Man actually expose the corruption of the stories. The stories go like “Florida Man arrested for possession of laundry detergent, not heroin. Also the deputy faked the drug test and several had to be freed because of this.
Conclusion
Should you be laughing at Florida memes? The most common answer would be “it depends”. When you joke about real people, it mostly depends on whether you’re laughing at someone, in a debasing kind of way, or if you’re laughing with someone – often because, even (or especially) in their worst moment, they remind you of yourself.
Having said this, is it justifiable to highlight just one state and make it take the flak? We know that every state and region has goofy people, criminals, and problems. People should also not make opinions and confuse real Florida with these memes.