Oh people of the interwebs; you are indeed a wondrous thing. If you build something and put it up on the internet, you’ve no expectation that anyone will see it, let alone look at it. But it appears that the combination of innuendo and some vaguely sounding rude place names (actually with some very rude place names) seems to be something that the citizens of the internet actually like.
The map hit the internet at maps.geotastic.org/rude/ around lunchtime on the 6th. of February; since then, several things have happened.
Firstly, Eric Rodenbeck, the CEO of Stamen Design, whose map tiles I used on the Rude Map, dropped me an email to say he liked it. I’m a massive fan of the cartography that Stamen produces and this would, alone, be enough to make the making of the map worthwhile.
But then, the URL of the site started proliferating over Twitter … including Jonathan Crowe, author of the late and utterly lamented Map Room blog.
Then the map started to get written about. Firstly by The Independent, then by Laughing Squid, Blame It On The Voices, Reddit and io9.
And it keeps on getting mentions on Twitter, on Google+ and other social networks. According to the server logs, the map’s been viewed a staggering (to me at least) 53,000 times; this definitely classes as a first for me. So with tongue firmly in cheek and innuendo firmly in mind, it seems that if you build it, they will come can be the case sometimes.
All of which, makes me wonder … what should I build a map of next?
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Love the rude place name map…dare I point you in the direction of Blue Ball, Pennsylvania? It is near Intercourse, PA as well as Leacock-Leola-Bareville, PA. The Pennsylvania Dutch have quite the sense of humor.
It should be there now; actually it always was but the coordinates got screwed up somehow. Blue Ball PA – http://maps.geotastic.org/rude/index.php?id=20 and Intercourse PA – http://maps.geotastic.org/rude/index.php?id=102
That map is great fun! You may also want to include:
Letcher County, Kentucky
Morehead, Kentucky
My favorite here in Virginia is Bumpass in Louisa County. It’s northwest of Richmond near Lake Anna. The locals pronounce it bump-us, but naturally I say bump-ass.
When I was growing up in West Virginia there were two towns, that by themselves were not vaguely rude, but they looked that way on a road sign. As you traveled to Charleston the sign read:
Pinch
Quick
How about Muff in Ireland? Home of the Muff diving club.
55.067586N -7.26903E