Instagram is a place for selfies, Transformation Tuesdays, and porn (not excluding the food kind). With its culture of “likes” and “hashtags,” it's also a fine place for popularity contests, which is why we're conducting one right now.
What are the most popular cities in Orange County, the ones with the most hashtags? And here we go…
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1. Huntington Beach–Over 664K Posts
Huntington Beach is the Regina George of Orange County: She's pretty, fun, and rarely takes a bad photo. Tap on #huntingtonbeach and you'll find photos of the pier, surf boards, bros, and booze that almost look too perfect. It sucks to admit, but sometimes hating on the popular girl can be really hard.
2. Anaheim–Over 519K Posts
Disneyland, Ducks, and Angels have long given Anaheim its Ms. Popular swag, and now the hipsters invading downtown are hashtagging the city like never before.
3. Newport Beach–Over 519K Posts
The feed for #newportbeach's is what most non-Californians think Southern California looks like: shirtless surfers, palm trees, lots of boats, babes, and MILFs.
4. Laguna Beach–Over 447K Posts
Surprisingly, #lagunabeach features no pictures of Lauren Conrad or Kristin Cavallari (we are, after all, not in 2006 anymore), but plenty of local art, galleries, and sunsets–the good stuff of the city.
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5. Santa Ana–Over 249K Posts
Tapping on #santaana results in some of the most random posts ever, everything from hipsters to cholos to tacos, rims, and more. And interestingly, there are a good amount of selfies– more than any other OC city. Throw in the très-lame hashtag #dtsa (55k-plus), and SanTana moves up about 400,000.
6. Irvine–Over 239K Posts
Boring ol' Irvine is popular? What?! Blame Irvine Spectrum (#irvinespectrum alone has 28k posts) and the Anteaters bumming around Campus Drive.
7. San Clemente–Over 214K Posts
San Clemente is one of the most picturesque OC cities–according to Instagram, that is. If you like purple skies, romantic sunsets, jarheads, and palm trees, then San Clemente may be to your fancy.
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8. Fullerton–Over 206K Posts
Fullerton has CSUF and DTF, which explains why food, booze, and shows consume its feed.
9. Costa Mesa–Over 170K Posts
Food and gym rats: Instagram's apparent understanding of #costamesa.
10. Dana Point–Over 123K Posts
It's difficult to pass by Dana Point Harbor without snapping a picture of it. I mean, she's a real looker. Plus, who wouldn't Instagram whale watching?
That's it for our top 10. Seal Beach almost made the list with around 100k posts, followed by Brea, La Palma (although that's almost certainly referring to the volcanic Canary island), and Garden Grove.
As for our least popular cities? Unfortunately, any place with a nonmarketable name received a low number of posts. It's difficult to find posts for Orange, for instance, because people tag different things with #orange (like orange juice and orange chicken), and #orangeca barely has 3,000 posts. If you look at #westminster, you'll see the Westminster Abbey. #cypress might take you out-of-state (to Washington, specifically), or to posts related to Cupressaceae.
And the least popular OC city on Instagram? Stanton, with just 250 posts using the hashtag #stantonca. Lesson learned? If you want to be popular on Instagram, don't use a common name.
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