Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, and by now you’ve either thoughtfully purchased your sweetie’s gift or are in a mad panic to find a present from a vendor with overnight shipping. But what you might not be considering is whether your gift ideas are truly unique—or whether you’re just buying into the local trends.
Sadly, if you live in Illinois and your idea of romance is chocolate fondue, or if you’re a Texan researching plus-size lingerie, you’re just following the herd.
Real estate blog Estately has created a map of Valentine’s Day-related gift searches by state. The results aren’t necessarily indicative of the top searches per state; rather, they are “search term or terms people in each state Googled more frequently than people in all other states.”
The results are heavily researched and very amusing.
To create the map, Estately “ran hundreds of possible gift-related search queries through Google Trends, which ranks how frequently people in each state search for each term online.”
This research allowed the company to conclude that, for example, Floridians are more likely to search online for Pandora jewelry than people anywhere else in the United States. Similarly, people in Tennessee are the most likely to look for cheap sex toys online.
The map does not indicate how many of these searches ultimately led to purchases.
Some items on the map are a bit less intuitive. For example, it remains unclear what New Mexico’s “hickey” label means. Are New Mexicans searching for directions for giving hickeys? Are they trying to find hickey-related products, like concealer, to assemble into a gift basket? Hopefully a future map will explain some of these search terms in a bit more depth.
If you’re still struggling to come up with a brilliant Valentine’s Day gift to make your partner swoon, perhaps the map above will provide some inspiration. If not, check out the Daily Dot’s recent last-minute gift guide.
