ANNOUNCING: The Award For The DUMBEST “STUDY” About Wyoming

ANNOUNCING THE ANNUAL DUMBEST STUDY ABOUT WYOMING AWARD!

I've decided that each year, just before the new year, I'll give out an award for the DUMBEST - LAMEST study about Wyoming and I'll make sure to share it with the winner on their FaceBook page. I'm doing my "research" for that award now. 

Wyoming has been accused of having the worst drivers in America, the worst in education, especially higher education, poor living conditions, and the list goes on.

All of the above and more are based on "studies" done by websites like WalletHub, and many others. The people who do these "studies" never leave their homes or offices to actually visit the places they are writing about. They just Google a few things, make some really STUPID assumptions, and post.

So, let's turn the tables here!

I'm going to do a really crappy study, using their own methods, to find out which of these websites is the worst. Because I am doing a CRAPPY study, as these websites do, I'll only pick what, in my opinion, are the 4 worst websites. We won't know if anyone is any worse than these 3 because, like them, I won't take time to look.

1). A recently released study says Wyoming is the worst state in the U.S. for drunk driving incidents... According to the same study released by insurance aggregator The Zebra, Wyoming has the highest rate of deaths related to drunk driving.

2). While not as bad as our neighbors in Utah, Idaho, and Nebraska, Wyoming drivers are still among the worst in the country, according to a recently released annual report by QuoteWizard. The general consensus is that Wyoming is awesome (which it is), but according to a recent study, it's among the worst places in the country to live if you're a part of Generation Y (or Gen Y for short).

3). A new study conducted by the personal finance website WalletHub, has the Cowboy State ranked in the bottom half of their "2021's Best & Worst States for Millennials" list. As a matter of fact, overall, Wyoming ranked 37th.

4). Here we go again. Some writer at some website needed to fill his quota for the day so he decided to write an article on The Rudest City In Every State. This time it's the website called Earn/Spend/Live. For Wyoming, he picked Cheyenne. He only wrote two sentences: "Cheyenne is another example of a place that just doesn't know what to do with outsiders. They might not be downright rude, but expect some cold shoulders if you're not a Wyoming native."

In each case, these so-called "studies" have been proven to be lazy, sloppy, and beyond inaccurate. 

And the winner, and still champion, is WALLET HUB!

But just for now. This is not yet the ANNUAL award. Just a preview.

WalletHub sucks. Let's just get that out of the way first thing.

I see their stories all the time and hear media personalities quoting them. "STUDY SHOWS!" Yet more often than not when I read their "study" it is filled with mistakes and wrong assumptions. This is because the people who work for WalletHub are in Washington DC and have never been to Wyoming.

In a recent article, they noted the lack of degrees from major universities in Gillette Wyoming. What they did not know to look at, because they have never been to Gillette, is that a degree from an ivy league school is mostly useless in that town. The folks there make a lot of money in the energy industry, which requires a tech school degree.

Just over a year ago WalletHub said that the worst drivers in Wyoming were in Buffalo. They based this on how many tickets were issued by police and insurance records. But no one at WalletHub even knows where Buffalo Wyoming is. They might want to experience driving conditions before coming to any conclusions.

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So, why do they do it?

Mostly it's just about content. We now have several 24/7 news networks and an internet filled with websites of all sorts who need to fill their online pages with content. So they hire people to sit in front of computers and think up anything- a n y t h i n g. Whatever, as long as it generates traffic to their site.

This means that the people who are conducting these "studies" don't really care if what they are writing is accurate. They will Google a few things, make an assumption or two, then write it up. Their job is to post several stories a day. That's what they get paid for.

They publish clickbait- not quality content.