Florida Man is an Internet meme, popularized in 2013, in which the phrase "Florida Man" is taken from various unrelated news articles describing people who hail from or live in Florida. Internet users typically submit links to news stories and articles about unusual or strange crimes or events occurring in Florida, particularly those where "Florida Man" is mentioned in the headline and has been wreaking havoc amongst social media. The meme calls attention to Florida's supposed notoriety for strange and unusual events. Miami New Times claimed that freedom of information laws in Florida make it easier for journalists to obtain information about arrests from the police than in other states and that this is responsible for the large number of news articles. A CNN article on this meme suggests that the breadth of reports of bizarre Florida Man activities is due to a confluence of factors including public records laws giving journalists fast and easy access to police reports, the relatively high and diverse population of the state, highly variable weather, and the lack of mental health funding.
Origin
The meme was originated in February 2013 by the Twitter feed @_FloridaMan, which quoted news headlines containing the wordsFlorida man, such as "Florida manrun over by van after dog pushes accelerator" or "Police arrest Florida man for drunken joy ride on motorized scooter at Wal-Mart." The feed refers to Florida Man as the "World's Worst Superhero."
Spread
Florida already had a colorful reputation on the Internet, with the social aggregation site Fark having had a Florida tag for years before the Florida Man Twitter feed appeared. After the creation of the Twitter feed inJanuary 2013, and its simultaneous popularization on social media sites such as Reddit and Tumblr, the meme was featured in numerous news articles and stories throughout February 2013. Florida Man was also referred to in the opening episode of Season 2 of the FX show Atlanta as a sinister entity, referred to by Darius as an “Alt-right Johnny Appleseed,” who commits a variety of strange crimes in Florida as part of a plot to keep black voters out, portrayed by Kevin Waterman. On November 1, 2018, Desi Lydic of The Daily Show filed a report comedically investigating the phenomenon of "Florida Man". A play titled "Florida Man" by Michael Presley Bobbitt premiered July 31, 2019, at New York'sTheatre Row Studios. In 2019, a variation developed on social media in which people were encouraged to look up "Florida Man" and the date of their birthday, typically finding some bizarre occurrence involving a Florida Man on that date. On October 31, 2019, president Donald Trump according to sources, was changing his residence from New York City to Palm Beach, Florida, which is the location of the Mar-a-Lago resort he owns and frequently visits. Sources joked about the POTUS becoming Florida Man, including The Daily Show, which released an extension for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox that changes all instances of Trump's name to "Florida Man."
Reception
The meme has widely been seen as a confirmation of the association between Florida and bizarre or humorous activity, and it has been compared to the Darwin Awards. There has been backlash to the meme, with the Columbia Journalism Review calling it "one of journalism’s darkest and most lucrative cottage industries" where "stories tend to stand as exemplars of the mythical hyper-weirdness of the Sunshine State, but more often simply document the travails of the drug-addicted, mentally ill, and homeless."
