What in the star-spangled banner of America is up with Florida's men? Are they secretly competing for World's Dumbest Criminal? Do they just enjoy the limelight? Maybe they like prison food... Whatever it is, they seem to love making news headlines for all the wrong reasons.
"Florida Man" even became an internet fad in 2019, following a string of bizarre headlines featuring, you guessed it: a Florida man up to no good. At the time, CNN tried to figure out why The Sunshine State is home to so many offbeat stories.
Among the theories were that Florida’s strong public records laws allow journalists to easily report on wild crime stories, that the state’s large and varied demographic is conducive to some strange occurrences, and that the weather possibly plays a part.
On the first point, Florida’s strong public records laws are also known as Sunshine Laws. They make it easy for journalists to access police incident reports, then go through them to find the craziest ones to grab the public's attention.
“Florida has got one of the broadest public records laws in the country,” explains Barbara Petersen, president of Florida’s First Amendment Foundation. “As soon as that incident report is filed (by law enforcement), we can go and make a public record request and get it.”
Florida also has a rather huge and diverse population, so there are bound to be more than a few wacky tales coming out of the state. There are more than 21 million residents, and many millions more visit annually.
“People don’t recognize how huge Florida is. The number of people per square mile is highly compacted,” said Al Tompkins, a senior faculty member at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, in St. Petersburg, Florida. “When you put more people in a place, you’re going to end up with more crazy stuff.”
Throw year-round sunshine, heat, and humidity into the mix, and you have a recipe for nutcases going off their rocker.
Florida journalist Craig Pittman is somewhat of an expert on the quirks of the state, having written a book on just that. When Vice asked him to recall the most bizarre Florida stories he's come across, here's what he said:
"There was the one about the guy in Gainesville who was fighting with his girlfriend and grabbed a three-foot alligator out of his bathtub to swing around as a weapon. Or the one about the wannabe mermaid who got in hot water with her Tampa-area homeowners’ association for wearing her costume in the community pool (because it violated the 'no fins' policy). Or the one about the lady who was driving to a date in the Keys and asked her ex-husband to reach over and take the wheel—yes, he was in the car, going along for the ride, I guess—while she pulled out a razor and shaved what the newspapers later referred to delicately as her 'bikini area.' It didn’t end well."
And based on those tales, we can safely deduce that it's not just the "Florida Man." The "Florida Woman" seems just as guilty of making quirky headlines.
But while Florida often brings us comedy gold in the form of news stories, it's not all a laughing matter.
“It’s OK to laugh at the funny stuff that happens here, but bear in mind the flip side, too,” Tompkins told CNN during a separate interview. “Not every ‘Florida man’ story is laugh-out-loud funny. Some of them have real tragedy behind them.” One thing the expert warns against is poking fun at people's mental health.
“When the work of journalists basically pokes fun at crime and activities that no reasonable person would be involved in, it’s on us to get beyond the snicker and laugh and sneer and look at if there’s a bigger issue,” Tompkins said.
He added that it would be wrong to think that Florida has some crazy crime rate. "Our violent crime rate is actually dropping,” he revealed. “What is very high, however, is the epidemic of mental health.”
If you're planning to travel to Florida, Pittman advises that you expect the unexpected.
"That's why we're the Most Interesting State in the Union," he told Vice. "If you want to visit someplace boring, go to Wyoming or Idaho. If you want to see a woman with blonde dreadlocks climb a banyan tree and play the accordion while singing John Denver songs, just because she likes doing that—well then come on down to Florida!"
He added that you might want to stay away from post offices while in the state.
"In 2012, so many Floridians crashed their cars into post offices that the U.S. Postal Service ran ads asking people to please stop," Pittman revealed.
