Why are southerners so obsessed with being southern?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some think they are aristocrats. A family I knew from Charleston was like this. They seemed like they believed with all their hearts that they were just finer specimens of humanity.

Read Albion's Seed. Some colonists were landed gentry from England and that influenced the culture thereafter which was very different than New England.

Georgia was a penal colony, no?

I think I did read that, ages ago.
But if you are landed gentry *with money* you stay at home in the Olde Country in your pile and with your money. There's something impoverished about these "aristocrats" that had them seeking their fortunes in the Americas. I guess they still had to keep up appearances, though!?!

They were not impoverished in these cases. That's the difference. I believe they were second sons and this was a way to create wealth. The plantation farms made a lot of money. But I get your point. I think there was always Anglophilia and imitation of their religious and social lives just because they believed this was a superior way of life whereas New Englanders and Philadelphians were separatists who wanted a different culture.

[Anonymous]

I find southerners less obsessed with the south than Texans with Texas and New Yorkers with New York.

[Anonymous]

I think the only typically distinctive thing about White and Black Southerners is that they tend to go back in this country more generations than Americans in other parts of the country. Most of us know our ancestors were far from aristocrats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the only typically distinctive thing about White and Black Southerners is that they tend to go back in this country more generations than Americans in other parts of the country. Most of us know our ancestors were far from aristocrats.

This is true. My ancestors were not aristocrats or wealthy, but they have been here a long time. If anything, my ethnicity at this point is Southern, even more so than the random Northern European soup of my 5x grandparents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait until you meet a Boston Brahmin, OP!

+1 and ask how they feel about Catholics, Irish, and Italians.

+1 YEP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Uh what? Texas, NY, Boston, Chicago, Californians, Mid West Folks, all are obcessed with where they live and think its the best.

Cleveland Rocks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because they are overcompensating for low self esteem. They have a chip on their shoulder about being southern.

Dummy. People from all over are "obsessed" with where they are from. I've never met a Californian who didn't tell me in the first 5 minutes of meeting them that they are originally from Cali. Same with NYC. Miami people are just as bad. Have you ever met anyone from Tx?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know of any other US region where people are so infatuated with their location, wallowing in it endlessly and holding it up as the best place to be from.

Come again? That's all NY-ers talk about. "NYC is the greatest place on earth!!" Um... no. It is not. Californians do that as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The War Of Northern Aggression, that's what they call The Civil War

Nonsense.

It's a thing. Always heard southerners call it that, since the corporate controlled north attacked the southern states for seceding. Same as England attacked the colonists for breaking up with them.

I'm southern, and I'm an older DCUM poster. I've never heard the Civil War called by that term except in jest by non- southerners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because they are overcompensating for low self esteem. They have a chip on their shoulder about being southern.

They're compensating for being the butt of unending cultural jokes and the subject of condescension. I feel it still as a transplant, and wish that East Coasters realize how much they've contributed to this mess we're all through sheer arrogance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they are overcompensating for low self esteem. They have a chip on their shoulder about being southern.

Ahhh...so how do you explain New Englanders, Californians, New Yorkers, etc being obsessed with their cultures, schools, architecture, deb balls, aristocracy, country clubs, wealth, etc?

Those are ego based. Wealthy people are frequently pompous dbags. Southerners of all economic and racial backgrounds have a unique inferiority complex.

Real life southerner transplants in the north feel very self conscious of their accent/appearance/culture. They were taught from a young age that everyone (especially northerners) look down on them so they overcompensate with pride. Just ask some southern transplants and they will tell you themselves.

I agree with this generally, except the part that "they were taught that everyone looks down on them." That's nothing we had to be taught.

It comes out in conversations with non-southerners constantly. It's there in the stereotypes in movies and film. (Had to turn off Murdaugh last night because it was so cringey.) It comes out in the news. How our children here are taught. Hell, even the NYT crossword puzzle. And it's truly just so ignorant. I've come to see that Washingtonians are as insular as the most insular Mississippian, but far more self-regarding. All of this makes me sound like someone who doesn't want America's race history to be taught. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I just get so tired of the attitudes. Get in a car and drive 2-3 hours in any direction from DC and figure a few things out, people. -- A liberal progressive Southerner

[Anonymous]

There's truth behind every stereotype. And the data is there. South lags in just about every facet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell me you've never met someone from Boston/NYC/Chicago without telling me you've never met....

+1 yep!

Nope. It’s not the same. Chicagoans don’t write endless books and songs about being Chicagoan. And NYC is legitimately impressive. Meanwhile the smallest-town hick from the south is blathering on about it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell me you've never met someone from Boston/NYC/Chicago without telling me you've never met....

+1 yep!

Nope. It’s not the same. Chicagoans don’t write endless books and songs about being Chicagoan. And NYC is legitimately impressive. Meanwhile the smallest-town hick from the south is blathering on about it

You're in denial and clearly don't like the south. Your reference to "smallest town hick" reveals your true self.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell me you've never met someone from Boston/NYC/Chicago without telling me you've never met....

+1 yep!

Nope. It’s not the same. Chicagoans don’t write endless books and songs about being Chicagoan. And NYC is legitimately impressive. Meanwhile the smallest-town hick from the south is blathering on about it

So, you're from NYC? You are so easily impressed with yourself. Nobody else cares.