City Data

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City Data is a website that claims to present demographic information culled from various data sources by OnBoard Informatics. The forums are the real main attraction though. It has become a great place to go for people who wish to see the new trending topics of wingnut rage, logical fallacies used in real conversations, or internet laws shown in real time.[1]

City Data forums[edit]

It seems like City Data has become a rising star among the new breed of popular fora whose main constituency appears to be best described as "red-state fascist"[2] but who think they're regular folks. Many spend their days posting articles from extreme Right Wing partisan blogs,[3] Conservapedia panics,[4] Stormfront ideals,[5] tinfoil hat sites,[6][7] the world is ending in the near future[8], and insulting "libs".[9][10]

At many points the rage against evils of "liberalism" (Social Security and Medicare)[11][12] are extremely funny since the predominant age demographic seems to be seniors on Social Security and Medicare[13] who have nothing better to do.

A very funny thing to note is that having an education[14] and knowledge (especially working knowledge) about things is very frowned upon. It is an interesting attempt to study what hundreds of cranks could come up if given a computer keyboard and a chance to talk to each other...and it's not Shakespeare.[15]

The data itself[edit]

The data on the main site is often several years out of date (such as home sales and unemployment), if not nearly a decade on some (home value prices). A great deal of the data seems to pander towards the usual gossipy material[16] that appeals to the worst American instincts toward moral panic ("likely homosexual couples", "registered sex offenders", etc.) presented in crude graphs and cheap overly broad bullet points.[note 1]

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. On at least one matter they make conjectures that is just plain wrong: They report the percent of "likely homosexual couples" in town based on the number of households with two adults of the same sex living there...instead of college students.

References[edit]