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The rise of ‘Florida Man’ has been meteoric over the past few years. It all started with newspapers ubiquitously referring to ‘Florida Man‘ in a headline instead of calling out criminals by name but the articles always involved the most insane crimes imaginable.
There are countless reasons why Florida pumps out the weirdest news in the nation. A lot of it has to do with the ‘Sunshine Law’ in Florida which means there are extremely open public records of arrests. This is a good thing, transparency is always the best approach. Other factors include climate (hot weather brings out the crazy), age demographics, the type of people who move to Florida from other states on a whim, etc.
But the Florida Man cultural phenomenon has EXPLODED in the past few years to the point that it’s now being turned into a TV show on the Oxygen Network. It sounds like it’ll be producing the exact type of episodes we’d expect and as someone who refused to watch MTV’s Siesta Key which is set in my hometown (kind of, see my rant below) I think this will actually be the best show about Florida on TV once it launches. Kind of like COPS on bath salts.
It’s Pilot Season in LA and all of the networks are currently announcing which shows got picked up, here’s the description of Florida Man from Oxygen:
“Florida Man” (WT)
Produced by Blumhouse Television and Man vs Robot with Jason Blum and Marci Wiseman serving as executive producers for Blumhouse Television and Danny Villa and Sergio Villa serving as executive producers for Man vs Robot.
When the murder is so bizarre, the motive so far-fetched and the crime so outlandish that it sounds like something from a Hollywood screenplay—there’s a good chance it was actually committed by a “Florida Man.” With access to Florida investigators and prosecutors, this series zeroes in on America’s most notorious, outrageous, craftiest killers from the Sunshine State. The series will unravel the strange twists and turns and try in vain to reason how and why this breed of killers took their crimes to levels beyond comprehension. (via Oxygen)
I was raised on the tiny barrier island of Siesta Key in Sarasota, Florida. It’s where I learned to swim and fish, it’s where we’d have Christmas and Easter brunch or dinner. Multiple relatives live (or lived) on the island, but I refuse to watch that garbage ass MTV show Siesta Key. Mostly because 1) I grew up with one the character’s older siblings and they told me their sibling got on the show because they were auditioning to be an actor in any role (IT’S ALL SCRIPTED) and 2) most of Siesta Key doesn’t even take place on Siesta Key.
Siesta Key is an island. It’s just one tiny part of Sarasota, not the other way around. They film in Casey Key, Osprey, Sarasota, and on Siesta Key but they call all of these places ‘Siesta Key’ which is just fucking stupid. It’d be like me filming a show called ‘Brooklyn’ and filming 99.99% of it in Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. Get my point? AND IT’S ALL FAKE REALITY TV.
As for this Florida Man show, my concern for them is one that I’ve seen in this industry before. Strictly from a branding perspective, they are going to have one hell of a time owning the term ‘Florida Man’ because it’s been written about and discussed by every media outlet in America at some point. Searching for ‘Florida Man’ on Google will bring back a million results and this TV show might struggle for relevancy online which it will desperately need to take off on TV.
Lastly, I’m a bigger fan of WTFlorida news than Florida Man. There’s no reason we need to restrict it to just the crazy shit guys do in the Sunshine State. WTFlorida encompasses Florida Man as well as the insane things done by women and wildlife. The world needs to embrace WTFlorida more.