Friends, since it’s Friday (the Good Day) I need to share with you something that brought me endless giggles last night: the Florida Man birthday challenge. I first saw it in the Facebook group for Pedestrian‘s podcast All Aussie Mystery Hour, where listeners go and share vaguely crime related things.
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Originating on Tumblr thanks to a user called gandalfsoda and then brought to Twitter, the challenge calls for you to head to Google and type in “Florida man” followed by your birthday.
EVERYBODY google “florida man” followed by your birthday (florida man august 22) and tell me what you get. mine is Florida Man tries to attack neighbor with tractor
— swervin merv (@ratatooile) March 19, 2019
What happens next is that Google will come back with whatever bizarre news headline involving a Florida man was published on your birthday. Think dumb criminals, people overreacting over minor squabbles, and anything involving alligators.
The member in the AAMH group who posted the tweet had come up with: “Florida Man Impersonating a Police Officer Pulls Over Real Cops”.
When I typed in “Florida man september 14”, Google gifted me this gold: “WATCH: Shirtless Florida man with American flag headbangs during Hurricane Florence”.
It turns out a lot of extremely cooked stuff happens to men in Florida, basically every day of the year. Of course, there’s some fairly bleak and some fairly run of the mill crimes too, but the more bizarre incidents are what makes the Florida Man birthday challenge such a riot.
Some other excellent headlines from the All Aussie Mystery Hour thread:
“Half-Nude Florida Man Wearing Underwear Marked “Breathalyzer, Blow Here” Arrested for DUI”
“Florida man ticketed after eating pancakes in middle of intersection”
“Florida man charged with stabbing a woman with a fork over underdone potato”
‘”Florida Man spotted riding jet ski on Florida road”
“Florida man shot after refusing shot”
“Naked Florida man starts house fire after baking cookies on George Foreman grill”
“Florida man gets arrested for throwing sausages at his Mom”
“Florida man gets head-butted by alligator”
“Florida man offers to “lease” a kidney”
“Florida man attacked by a ‘crazy squirrel’ gone nuts. And it was raised by a neighbor”
“Florida Man Who Threw Toilet Through Window in East St. Louis Found With Second Crapper”
“Naked Florida man found ‘gyrating’ on woman’s back porch”
“Florida man disguised as Spider Man steals liquor and cigarettes”
I mean, what on earth is going on over there?
A colleague just informed me of this thread, which explains a Florida law that deems every incident reported to police is available for the public to see. So basically, whenever there’s a slow news day, outlets will report on whatever cooked thing has happened in Florida that day.
Florida has something called the Sunshine Law that gives the public *very* open access to public records. (It’s actually very progressive!) This includes government meetings minutes, documents, and… arrest reports from sheriff’s offices and police departments.
— Jessica Misener (@jessmisener) March 21, 2019
That certainly explains things, but doesn’t make the Florida Man birthday challenge any fun to try. Give it a go, and for god’s sake put your results in the FB comments so we can all enjoy what you come up with.
Me? Like any good Florida man, I’m off to headbang in the rain.
