Torrenting is kind of like smoking pot: Pretty much everyone has tried it, except for the people who don’t know how. Sure, there are those who abstain for moral reasons, or out of respect for the law, but if you sit them down in front of a pirated copy of The Expendables 3, they’re probably not going to say no.
But all this usually takes place behind closed doors, and that’s why a recent series of infographics (produced by a real estate blog, of all things) is so interesting. The methodology is as vague as can be—the website simply says it “collected data about the location of seeding nodes for the top 300 most popular torrents,” meaning that this is technically a study about who seeds the most, rather than who torrents the most. But if that data is correct, Florida, Vermont, and Washington are the nation’s top pirates, while West Virginia, Iowa, and South Dakota the least piracy-inclined. (Which seems odd, because there’s a lot more to do in Seattle than there is in Sioux Falls.)
As far as TV goes, the Rust Belt is also the Game Of Thrones Belt, and Fargo is popular among Californians who are apparently curious about what this “snow” thing is all about. 24 is predictably popular in the conservative states of Kentucky, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and, oddly enough, Vermont. Outliers include Orphan Black, the most-torrented show in West Virginia, and The CW’s Beauty And The Beast—which New Yorkers love either because of its 9/11 backstory, or because they’re confusing it with the version George R. R. Martin wrote for in the ’80s. The movies map is way more all over the place, although it does out New Mexicans as a bunch of closeted Adam Sandler fans.
[via Uproxx]