Florida Man

Take a tour around the swamp with America’s favorite rascal. Florida Man’s always making headlines for punching alligators, stealing meat, and fighting cops in the buff. But does Florida really deserve its reputation as the weirdest state in the union? And is our nation’s most beloved rapscallion the villain of our story, or is he the victim of a legal system that accidentally created a media monster?

Featured image: A stock photo of a man holding an alligator. For reasons I discussed in the episode, I’ve decided not to include any mugshots or photographs of real crime scenes in these show notes. (Image source)

A supercut of some of Jason Mendoza’s lines about Florida in The Good Place.

Dave Barry discusses the Florida Man phenomenon and the difficulty talking about Trump as a local humorist.

Carl Hiassen riffs on the Florida Man meme and his state’s long history of weirdness.

Sources

History and ecology

Demographics and social issues

Quotes from writers

Florida Man headlines

Sunshine laws and their effects

Miscellaneous