Utah is weird but Salt Lake is a metaphor, ..

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The algorithms that rule the Internet have spoken and their verdict is clear: Utah is weird.

That verdict comes via an "autocomplete map" based on Yahoo search results. The map appeared on the blog Google Maps Mania last week in a post titled "Utah is weird." The post doesn't go into a lot of background, but usually autofill suggestions are determined by common search terms — so a lot of people are evidently wondering about Utah and weirdness.

And if you're feeling a little bummed that Utah got slapped with the "weird" label, buck up; "Arizona" often apparently gets searched with "racists," "Colorado" is for "hustlers." Nevada's autofill terms — "Nevada is not a wasteland" — also seem sad and a tad pathetic.

The map also labels major cities, with Utah's capital getting the cryptic results "Salt Lake City is a metaphor." When I tried Yahoo-ing Salt Lake City I got different results — "Salt Lake City is a washing machine." Huh? — so sadly we may never know what the city is a metaphor for. But I guess that's better than other major cities; the results labeled San Francisco as "a lonely town" and Seattle as "depressing."

— Jim Dalrymple II

Twitter: @jimmycdii

Utah is weird but Salt Lake is a metaphor, according to Yahoo map