There is something strange afoot in the City of Bellflower, according to an interesting if flawed new study. Despite its moniker, “the friendly city,” the analysis says nearly one third of comments made by its residents online are hostile, rude, or disrespectful in nature. That makes it the most “toxic” city in California.
Why so angry, Bellflower?
The study was conducted by blog comment hosting service Disqus in conjunction with Wired Magazine. Their researchers analyzed online comments from 92 million people nationwide and the results showed 32.7% of comments coming out of Bellflower qualified as “toxic.”
Business Insider tried to dig deep into Bellflower’s demographics and online presence to figure out why it has so many internet trolls. But it came up short. So let us help.
Is it possible the comments are originating from just a handful of people?
That was the case in Park Forest, Illinois which took the top spot for trolling nationwide. 99 percent of the toxic comments coming out of that city could be traced back to just two people! We’re guessing something similar happened to Bellflower; we just refuse to believe it’s home to that many trolls.
Switching gears for a second, it looks like Vermont takes the top spot for the most toxic state in the U.S. The least toxic state is New Hampshire.
If you’re wondering how your city ranked, be sure to check out Wired’s internet troll map here.