Fool's World Map

August 3, 2004 8:04 PM

Fool's World Map:"This is a project visualizing the world map which many fools in the world imagine. If you can see this map comfortably, you are definitely a fool." The creator updates and reformats the malleable map based completely on capricious, erroneous geographical inconsistencies found within oblvious statements from his comment logs. Examples: (095. Upper right side of Germany became Australia due to a posting by another stupid American thinking "Australia is beside Germany.") and (001. Due to a Texan who thinks "Japan is accessible from Texas by car", Japan and Texas is land-attached."). He also has a page of user-submitted maps, where he encourages you to create your own global eyesore and send it to him.
posted by naxosaxur (26 comments total)

funny, but sad--some of the user-submitted ones have to be jokes.
posted by amberglow at 8:13 PM on August 3, 2004

This is fun in a cynical kind of way. Good find, naxosasaurex!
posted by jaronson at 8:18 PM on August 3, 2004

Heh. I especially like "Battle States" and "Nokia."
posted by languagehat at 8:19 PM on August 3, 2004

I think it's clever that he modifies the map based on the ignorance of outsider commentary. It's just so overtly egregious.
posted by naxosaxur at 8:26 PM on August 3, 2004

I've had the craziest day. Now I can go to bed smiling. I just wish the map had "Central America" on it.
posted by hammurderer at 9:12 PM on August 3, 2004

Amazing.

When I first saw the title I thought you were referring to this image.
posted by lagado at 9:42 PM on August 3, 2004

More info on that one here.
posted by lagado at 9:46 PM on August 3, 2004

Hey, if I live in Atlantis, where's all my nifty ancient technology?
posted by krisjohn at 11:37 PM on August 3, 2004

What? You've got, like, computers and cars and stuff, isn't that enough for a country that's 5000 years old and overrun by mermaids?
posted by arto at 11:48 PM on August 3, 2004

Heh-Heh. Stupid Americans...

(This attitude irritates me a little...)

One thing that world travel has taught me, is that there are "stupid" people all over the world. Perhaps the stupidest are those who group a whole population into a stereotype out of their own ignorance...

It's common for europeans to come over here and believe that disparate locations are right next to each other, and not have a clear concept of how the US is laid out. I've had to dissuade German tourists from renting a car for the weekend and visiting "Hollywood" whilst visiting Georgia (Daytrip! Woo-woo!!).

Lack of geopolitical reality is a common thing, unfortunately. I'm just saying... it's not just a US thing...
posted by jpburns at 4:47 AM on August 4, 2004

I miss Irkutsk and Yakutsk.
posted by jfuller at 5:00 AM on August 4, 2004

[this is good]

I live in "Nokia", wonder if I can get a free phone.
posted by dabitch at 5:02 AM on August 4, 2004

> Heh-Heh. Stupid Americans...
>
> (This attitude irritates me a little...)

If it irritates you, imagine how it irritates them furriners to try to imagine how on earth they got be so under the thumb of such a mob of dummies--as they have been ever since the British were underpaid, undersexed, and under Eisenhower.
posted by jfuller at 5:05 AM on August 4, 2004

jpburns, yes it's obvious by looking at the map that anyone can have a bad grasp of geography, California and hollywood are states next to each other. Therein lies the fuh-ney. I don't see him specifying "american fools map" so I assumed he's asked more than one population of fools.
posted by dabitch at 5:05 AM on August 4, 2004

Mexifornia! Thanks, naxo.
posted by yoga at 5:14 AM on August 4, 2004

People do have a bad concept of Geography. When I was in my late teens I used to hang around downtown Windsor ON. Windsor was all of 5 minutes from Detroit MI. One oppressively hot summer day a car with Ohio plates pulls up besides me and gives me a "Hey". I walk up and say "hey" back. The passenger windows rolled down and the passenger asks me "Where can I go for some skiing?". That's when I notice the ski rack and skis on the roof.

I didn't really know. I was sure that on a day that was in the mid 90's in my hometown there was someplace in Canada where you could ski. Maybe the glaciers in British Columbia or perhaps Baffin Island. I resisted the urge to just tell him "Oh, drive north for a while, you'll hit snow in a few days" and told him I didn't know, but he'd be in for a long drive.

Another time a couple of my friends were driving from Windsor to the west coast of British Columbia. They meet this guy on the road, a Canadian, who's got a flat tire. They stop to give him a hand and talk to him for a bit. Relatives from overseas were visiting so he thought he'd take them for a weekend trip. From Quebec... to Vancouver BC.

Some relatives of mine from Belgium were visiting (sort of distant relatives, many times removed, I'd never met them) and they were staying at our place for a few weeks during the summer. Europe is a small place compared to Canada so they had problems comprehending that they couldn't say drive out to the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean in the same day.

I don't really think any of these people are stupid. When I watched the Detroit news every cold front came from "Canada". So I can imagine in how some peoples minds you crossed the border into Canada and the arctic.

For a European visiting North America they're going to try and see our continent in the same way they see there own. So since they can stand on a tall hill and toss a rock across three countries the same must be true of North America. My particular area probably confirmed their suspicions. You can drive 5 minutes from downtown Windsor and arrive in downtown Detroit. That's a different country!
posted by substrate at 5:40 AM on August 4, 2004

Europe is a small place compared to Canada

um, no. they're roughly the same size.

they had problems comprehending that they couldn't say drive out to the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean in the same day

were they by any chance, you know, mentally challenged?

So since they can stand on a tall hill and toss a rock across three countries

ok, you're joking. sorry.
posted by mr.marx at 6:21 AM on August 4, 2004

When I was a child, I swore that coronado & eldorado were states (as a result of that 'lost cities of gold' cartoon)
posted by leotrotsky at 6:36 AM on August 4, 2004

Europe is a small place compared to Canada

um, no. they're roughly the same size.

Sorry, I meant to say that European countries are small compared to Canada.
posted by substrate at 6:41 AM on August 4, 2004

In Europe, a hundred miles is a long distance. In America, a hundred years is a long time.
posted by faceonmars at 9:22 AM on August 4, 2004

I visited Sydney, Australia, and when I got back some people in the States asked me if I went to the big red rock while I was there. I told them it'd be like saying I stopped by St. Louis since I was in Los Angeles.

Also, I live in San Francisco, and when there are fires in southern California my sweet mom, who used to live in Los Angeles, calls to see if I'm OK.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:23 AM on August 4, 2004

Mental geography can be a wonderfully screwball thing at times.

I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, where if you're bored and want to go to another decent sized city to do something, your best bet is Fairbanks — a good six to eight hours drive north (at the speed limit, many people do it in far less time) depending on traffic, weather, and how much of the highway is under construction. We'd do that on weekends when we were bored. Sudden impulses leading to pointless drives of two hours or more aren't exactly uncommon in a state as big as Alaska (as long as you can find roads to where you want to go, of course).

Since moving down to Seattle, I'm constantly amused at the people who find the concept of, say, a three-hour drive out to the Gorge in central Washington for a concert to be a major undertaking. Conversely, I'm (still) often amazed at how much stuff is packed into such a small area around where I live (and I'm sure Seattle doesn't compare to places like New York).

Of course, the differences can manifest themselves in other ways, too. At one point, my mom and my brother were on a trip in the Lower 48, and were driving around the Boston area. Having grown up using Alaskan maps, where an inch can easily be fifty to one hundred miles, my brother was constantly losing track of where they were. He'd see a landmark on the map, gauge the distance by how far it was on the map, figure they'd be there in half an hour or so, and then almost immediately see whatever they were looking for go zooming by as they drove past it. Until he managed to get his mental images scaled to match the map, they were constantly missing turns.
posted by djwudi at 10:28 AM on August 4, 2004

Actually, I think Canada is bigger than Europe - or so it appears to be on this map. All maps distort, of course, but in squarish maps it tends to be similar across similar latitudes, so the distorition making Canada bigger would also make Europe bigger. I don't know what the distortion would be on this kind of projection, though Africa looks large, as it should.

Europe is a small continent; Russia is still the largest country in the world, but only a small part of Russia is considered to be in Europe.
posted by jb at 10:33 AM on August 4, 2004

One thing that world travel has taught me, is that there are "stupid" people all over the world.

Also that Americans tend to be very loud...
posted by Ogre Lawless at 1:35 PM on August 4, 2004

Actually, I think Canada is bigger than Europe - or so it appears to be on this map. All maps distort, of course, but in squarish maps it tends to be similar across similar latitudes, so the distorition making Canada bigger would also make Europe bigger.

If you look at a Peters Map, such as this one, the two appear rather equal in size.
posted by Masi at 1:27 AM on August 5, 2004

Nationmaster smart. Nationmaster say
Europe total area = 5.19 M km²
Canada total area = 9.98 M km² = 92% larger
Europe small. Europe weak. Canada crush Europe.
posted by Hieronymous Coward at 9:09 PM on August 5, 2004