Every year, the City of Miami hoists a giant neon orange up the side of the Hotel InterContinental in downtown and drops it at the stroke of midnight. The thing is creatively called "The Big Orange." This year, however, it will officially be known as "La Gran Naranja" to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Florida's discovery by Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon.
People on the Internet, specifically gringos on the Internet, are really, really, really upset about this.
Let's take a look through the wonderful world of local news websites' comments sections!
From Miami.com:
From CBS Miami:
From Local10:
From NBC Miami:
Calm down, my fellow chalkies. Everything is going to be OK. Let me explain to you why this is really nothing to get upset about, let alone nothing to make ridiculous comments (in some cases under your real names) about on the Internet.
1. We're talking about a tacky (yes, delightfully so, but still tacky) neon orange.
2. The name change is just for one year. "It's just for this year," Mayor Tomás Regalado said at the news conference, according to Local 10. One year!
3. The name change is meant to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon's arrival in Florida.
4. Ponce de Leon was the first person to introduce oranges to Florida. This is a historic fact. He did not call them "oranges"; he called them "naranjas." This actually has nothing to do with Miami's Cuban population, but rather is a way to honor the man who brought Florida's most important crop to the area.
5. As human history shows, occasionally people from different areas migrate from one place to another (in the past 500 years Europeans have been the champions of this, settling all sorts of corners of the globe without much respect for the people who were there before). This is usually accompanied by cultural changes and meshing of traditions and languages. Sometimes things change. Yes, gringos, change is scary, but if it didn't happen, we'd all be speaking Native American dialects here in Miami.
6. No one will ticket you or put you in jail if you keep referring to it as "The Big Orange." No one is forcing you to call it "La Gran Naranja."
7. The "Mr. Neon" portion of the sign will not be changed to "Sr. Neón."
8. "La Gran Naranja" is fun to say. Say it aloud right now! (By the way, it's pronounced la grahn nah-rahn-ha.) Are you not smiling now?
9. Seriously, it's a fucking neon orange.
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