On October 12, 2021, a map supposedly showing searches on the pornography website Pornhub went viral on Twitter as social media users laughed about the bizarre sexual preferences of their compatriots.
The state of Texas, for instance, liked lesbian porn, the map claimed, the Northwest states searched for “Asians,” and Oklahoma liked … Gothic Hospital? And Tennessee liked … Kevin James?
This map does not feature genuine data of the searches people use on Pornhub in various states. This is a joke — an old joke.
This map has been floating around social media since at least February 2019 when it was posted by @sortabad. When the fake map went viral again more than two years later in October 2021, they claimed credit for the map and shared their original tweet:
Pornhub does release analytics via their “insights” page and they have released maps in the past that show the top searches by state. Here’s one such map from around election day in 2020.
In 2016, they released a map that looks similar to the viral joke map (except, unfortunately, for the inclusion of Kevin James).
So what does all this mean? Do Tennesseans find or do they not find Kevin James sexy? Well, we can’t really answer that. But we can say that the answer isn’t reflected in this viral joke map.