ST. AUGUSTINE, Florida — The idea came to radio personality-turned-podcast host Pete Melfi last year after he organized “the laziest race in racing history,” a beer race from half a kilometer, and the participants had a great time.
Wouldn't it be fun, Melfi thought, to have another race, this time followed by a big party? What if the topic was the meme that launched thousands of headlines about his home state: Florida Man?
Their idea morphed into an all-day competition with quirky events: a mullet haircut contest (short in the front and long in the back). A “duel in the mud” with pool float tubes. An “evading arrest” obstacle course, with real sheriff's deputies chasing the contestants. (But, to be clear, there were no actual arrests in the race.)
“We understand that Florida is strange,” Melfi said. “We welcome that.”
If the rest of the United States—even the rest of the world—is going to see Florida as a laughing stock, then its residents want to be in on the joke, too.
Florida Man has been a cultural phenomenon for so long that some in the state have spent quite a bit of time thinking about what it means, how to challenge it and what it says about the state's identity. Perhaps the games in St. Augustine could also be an excuse to explore the evolution of the meme — and Florida itself.
At the height of the meme's popularity, in the mid-to-late 2010s, it seemed like everyone was making fun of the outlandish and unfortunate stories pulled from the state's bottomless barrel of mugshots and reports. The @_FloridaMan Twitter account, now X, attracted hundreds of thousands of followers. But the owner of the @_FloridaMan account took it down in 2019, citing concerns about mocking people's behavior on what is often one of the worst days of their lives.
The first Florida Man Games were held at a fairground and tickets cost $55. The competition awarded $5,000 to a winning team. Hundreds of people came to enjoy the relaxed Florida atmosphere.
A team from north Tampa, the Red Eyed Gator Huggers, brought a mascot: a 5-year-old green iguana named Mikey.
“What's more Florida than a scrubbed iguana?” said C.J. Mays, Mikey's owner, as she stroked his back.
The contestants devoured a huge pile of pork with their bare hands. Women dressed in pinup style competed for the title of “Florida Ma'am,” including one who sported cans of carbonated water as hair curlers. Organizers were forced to improvise for the mud duel after someone “smashed” the plastic pool in which it was to take place, Melfi said.
Among the competitors was Joshua Barr, a 37-year-old Citrus County man whose three-person team was called the Cooter Commandos, after a local river turtle.
Mandy Millam, 37, whose husband was a Cooter, said he was still too often misunderstood by people from out of state.
“Florida has a wild heart,” he said. “We have a wild nature. But people perceive us as having wild abandon. “We don’t cross that line as much as people think.”
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