R. Luke Dubois is an artist and curious human who sought to create a US census based on the words people use to describe themselves in dating profiles. We first came upon Dubois’ work in an article from a local New Jersey news website that poked fun at some of the words that appeared for Jersey towns. When we looked up Dubois and began examining the maps, the national data was fascinating!
As you will see, Dubois took the data to create an “atlas” of the United States, with the names of cities, towns, and neighborhoods replaced with the words people use to describe themselves and those they want to be with.
In order to accomplish this task, he joined 21 dating sites to make his own census, which served as the foundation for a series of fascinating maps. According to Dubois’ website, the maps contain 20,262 unique words, based on the analysis of online dating profiles from 19,095,414 single Americans.
Each word appears in the place it’s used more frequently than anywhere else in the country. Which is why this is fascinating.
We could spend hours examining his creative works, and I assure you, we will. But for now, we’d like to share two “perfect union” stories we’ve conceptionalized from his state and city maps. First, Manhattan.
Oh Manhattan, you crazy strange island. You house many freaks and stereotypes, sometimes you scare us. And perhaps more than any other city in the US, each of your neighborhoods is distinct from the next. For that reason it took a lot of searching on the NYC map to find the perfect union we’d want to have.
After careful evaluation, we’d seek out a perfect union somewhere on the east side of the island below Cental Park and above 14th street. Why? Because here it appears we could find an adorable, communicative mate- either a doctor or attorney? Wow! Who can put us in the nation’s center of bagels- perfect- know how to maintain a woody- double bonus. He might cause us the need to consult a shrink (no big deal), but will hopefully have a fund to pay for it. AND will occassionally take us to bistros. Great! Sold.
Although…we were also really intrigued by the looks of perfect unions in this next neck of the American woods. Cue Eastern Kentucky in the great Appalachia. Here, we could find an accomplished parachutist- more than anywhere in the country, apparently- who enjoys assembling things. This fine mate would have sturdy bowels and enjoy getting stoned. After a long day, we would sit toegther and watch the tumbleweeds pass by. Golly!
We know, the maps are a lot to take in. Dating in person is hard enough as it is, let alone when you have a map pointing you to the nation’s center of moose hunters, XXX, hipsters, Hannukah, nobles, sheets, narcissists and thigh? Who includes “thigh” on a dating profile? Really??
We highly encourage you peruse your neighborhood in these maps. Once more we are reminded, dating is awkward, but we might as well laugh about it.
Xo SFAR
Donkey Dick/ Horse Pat
Scene: Lower East Side rockers bar, the one where Lady Gaga’s boyfriend is the bartender (read: Bros/ Wallstreeters are not allowed)
I’m sitting at the bar with a couple of friends. Above the bar there is a sign on the wall that reads: “Donkey Shot- tequila and a corona for $7.”
Suddenly, a group of drunk bros who are completely out of place at this bar come up behind us and yell to the girl bartender ”Hey, give us 4 donkey dicks” (note: The word ‘dick’ was nowhere on the sign). Two of the four come from the back and exclaim: “Guys I have just found FOUR girls in the back and there are FOUR of us!!!!!”
The wrangler of the group looks skeptical and responds, ”I will only go back there if it is confirmed that there actually ARE four girls and they are ALL drinking.” It was confirmed, so the group migrated towards the real girls who were in fact imbibing. My friend and I proceed to casually follow the guys to the back of the bar, as we feel like this scene needs to be witnessed.
One of the guys decided to first stop and try to hit on the go-go girl by treating her like a stripper and trying to offer her crinkled dollar bills. He saw that this was not fruitful so he moved on to the group of four girls. He would come up to them and start talking to them. After approximately 60 seconds he would grab them by their necks to try to make out with them.
Of course the girls ran away from him but as each girl would run away he would pat her on the upper leg like a horse. Goodbye old girl!!