Think like a marketer. Because it's marketers who are peddling domains as branding tools, and choosing which gTLDs to create.

Dot-green was sold as a way for companies to demonstrate eco-awareness (think "exxon.green"), some would call this greenwashing. Originally there were some standards required from anyone wanting a dot-green domain but those are gone and anyone can get one.

Dot-black is intended to be used by an identified cultural community, similarly to dot-gay or dot-mormon.

Sometimes there is confusion. The dot-la domain is actually the country TLD for Laos, but has been marketed first as a Latino community TLD, and when that didn't work the marketers shifted focus and it's now being peddled as the TLD for Los Angeles. There might even be Laotians using it too.

Indeed, there are many countries that have allowed marketers to peddle their TLDs like generics. The Columbian TLD, dot-CO, has been used by GoDaddy and others as a fallback to those who can't get what they want under dot-com. Others have famously brought revenue to tiny jurisdictions such as Tuvalu (dot-TV) and French Micronesia (dot-FM). And how many people using bit.ly know that some of the revenue from that company funnels back to Libya?

I think my favourites are dot-wtf and dot-sucks, though neither is living up to potential.

Weirdest to me is dot-cat because it has nothing to do with felines but is instead used for Catalonia.

- Evan