Tuesday, February 14

Sam Adams is on Yelp

News The other day I noticed a curious tweet from our venerable mayor's Twitter account:Yes, Sam is tweet... More

Feb 13, 2012 01:20 pm by RUTH BROWN  | Comments 1
 

Doctor Groups Flex Muscle In Capitol: $2.3 Million in Campaign Cash to Influence Health-Care Reform

News The State Capitol has been abuzz the last couple of days because of a hot list (PDF) circulating in ... More

Feb 10, 2012 06:00 pm by NIGEL JAQUISS  | Comments 4
 

Nonsense Knows No State Boundary: Washington Legislators Get Bogus Job Claims on CRC

News Up north of here, Washington legislators in Olympia are debating whether or not they should authoriz... More

Feb 10, 2012 09:09 am  | Comments 1
 

Occupy Arrestees Win Their Right to Full Trials—Even Though They May Not Need It

News The estimated 160 people arrested during Occupy Portland protests in the past five months have won t... More

Feb 9, 2012 01:24 pm by HANNAH HOFFMAN  | Comments 3
 
 
 
Home · Articles · News · News · Weed! Werewolves! Wicca!
June 7th, 2006 BEN WATERHOUSE | News
 

Weed! Werewolves! Wicca!

Google Trends exposes Portland's brain.

6 Comments
     
Tags:
When Earth's most stupendous Internet search engine unveiled Google Trends last month, amateur sociologists and time-wasting cubicle inmates everywhere found a new reason to live.

The highly addictive new feature ranks cities according to how often their citizens Google for any given search term. Thanks to G-Trends (www.google.com/trends), for example, we now know that the pervy people of Brentford, England, seek out "fetish" more than anyone. Rennes, France, is the Internet capital of "lingerie." And as WW reported two weeks ago, Portlanders search "impeach Bush" more than any Americans except those pinkos in Madison, Wisc.

That got us wondering: What else can Google Trends tell us about Portland's secret desires and strangest interests? After a few solid hours of "research," we made some illuminating discoveries.

DOPE

Judging by Google Trends, Portlanders love their controlled substances. We rank first in the world in searches for "marijuana." And "meth." And "liquer"—even though we don't crack the global Top 10 for the correctly spelled "liquor." It seems, however, that Portland's days as a smack capital are bygone—Melbourne, Perth, New York and Seattle all make the Top 10 for "heroin," but PDX is absent. When it comes to "microbrew," we're No. 1 by a landslide. Less gloriously, Portland ranks sixth for "cigs."

MONSTERS

What's up with our fantasy fixation? Portland ranks in the worldwide top three for "zombie," "werewolf," "pirate" and "bigfoot." We're No. 4 for "ogre" (just behind Seattle), the unchallenged el numero uno for "fairie" and second only to Auckland, New Zealand, for "nymph." That's all just...weird.

SEX

In general, foreigners are kinkier. (Seattle is the only American city in the global Top 10 for "bondage.") On the strictly national level, though, our perversions do us proud. We're No. 4 for "sex machines" and tops in the U.S.A. for "furries." (If you don't know what furries are...we'll explain when you're older.)

GOD

Hello, esoterica. Portland's searches for mainstream denominations don't even make the national charts. But we're sixth in the U.S. for "wicca," fifth in the nation for "voodoo," second for the Norse pagan movement "Asatru" and third for "Baha'i." Though we may not be well-churched, Portlanders are uniquely interested in joining the ministry: We rank No. 1 in the U.S. for searches on the quickie-ordination factory "Universal Life Church."

POLITICS

Not only are we second for "impeach Bush," Portland ranks No. 1 on the planet for "I hate Bush." Alert the Secret Service (or have the NSA let them know): We're third in the world for "kill Bush," behind Seattle and San Francisco. Lest it be said we have one-track minds, we're second nationally for both "anarchy" and "fascism." (Which may explain why we're No. 2 in the world for "pretentious.")

PREDICTABLE...AND NOT SO MUCH

It's hardly a surprise that Portland beats every other city in the world for Googles on "assisted suicide," "vegan," "bike repair" and (sadly) "unemployment." But, um...we rank ninth worldwide for "kiddie porn"? Fourth for "underage sex"? Sixth for "eugenics"? And only No. 8 on the globe for "nalgene"?

Before we jump to sweeping conclusions, it's worth nothing that Google warns its stats may not be totally accurate. Not that that's ever stopped us before.

 
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
 
 
 

 

 
06.07.2006 at 09:00 Reply
Weed! Werewolves! Wicca!Who knew that Portland was such a magickal city. Pagans, and Wiccans will be pleased to know that fine folks from Portland are so interested in our lifestyle. —Blue

 

06.08.2006 at 09:00 Reply
Weed! Werewolves! Wicca!Even a terse glance at Wikipedia should have clued the WW folks into the fact the furry fandom better belongs in the "Monsters" instead of "Sex" catagory of this article. Unless WW chooses to only source Viacom's TV shows based on information from a Rick Castro shockumentary that only ever ran on MTV at an off-hour of the night, and that even he apologized for.—Baloo

 

06.12.2006 at 09:00 Reply
Weed! Werewolves! Wicca!Weed, Wiccans, and wonderment - could it be that rather than being all about the above, Portlanders are just trying to find out more? lol

 

02.05.2007 at 08:17 Reply
Don't fear the furries.

 

03.06.2008 at 12:10 Reply
If i recall correctly , theres a bunch ofanonymous proxies located in portland.

Thats the inaccuracy factor.

 

 
 

Web Design for magazines

Close
Close
Close