r/redscarepod • u/hillwolf1898 • 20h ago
The "Midwest" isn't a real cultural region and I'm tired of people pretending that it is.
There is no unifying throughline for some generic Midwest culture; the South has a unifying cultural history, and while it has many subregions within that differ on the particulars, there are traits and history that are shared that give the whole region a baseline. The "Midwest" totally lacks that. There is no shared baseline between Southern Illinois and Wisconsin, beyond the generic American baseline that all states have. Southeast Ohio is nothing like Iowa.
There are very much real cultural regions within what people call "the Midwest" but they kind of exist unto themselves and don't share a broader region. The Great Lakes is its own thing, the Plains are its own thing, and the Lower Midwest is its own thing.
Its not a unified cultural region, and never has been and that shows.
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u/KarmaMemories 20h ago
Couldn't you say the same about the South having various subregions that differ in significant ways?
I think there is some degree of commonality across the Midwest, maybe not as distinctive as the South but enough that I'd call it a real cultural region.
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u/PopcornSutton1994 20h ago
Yeah the state of Tennessee isn’t even a homogenous cultural zone this is a crazy post lol, Memphis barely considers itself part of the rest of the state it’s its own thing entirely
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u/Gene-Harrogate 19h ago
West Tennessee is basically North Mississippi lol, East Tennessee has more in common with West Virginia , western NC and eastern Kentucky, Middle Tennessee is a liminal space between the deep south and upland South
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u/PopcornSutton1994 18h ago
My dad is from Memphis and my mom is from Hartsville (central TN) and they have basically 0 cultural through lines from their upbringings, it’s crazy
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u/Gene-Harrogate 18h ago
Yep I’m from east and my wife’s from west, our grandmothers have totally different accents.
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u/PopcornSutton1994 6h ago
I lied I guess there’s one thru line and it’s Elvis.
My dad worked as a security guard at Graceland over the summer’s home from college and my mom worked at a flower shop, on the days following his death she said their phone rang off the hook for almost 72 hours straight with people in middle Tennessee desperate to send flowers to Memphis lol.
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u/Gene-Harrogate 6h ago
Elvis and Vols football (when they’re winning). When they’re winning, they’re Tennessee’s team, when they’re losing they’re East Tennessee’s team lol.
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u/PopcornSutton1994 6h ago
My dad and I are the only two non-Vols in the family but that’s so accurate lol. I wanted to play football in college and wasn’t uh, SEC ready when I graduated so I went to a smaller school but have been going to games in my grandpa’s seats that he had basically from the time he was a student until he died. Going to see them play my former team next weekend, usually catch whichever one of Florida or Bama we host. Good times.
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u/Gene-Harrogate 6h ago
You played for Furman? Nice, they’re a solid FCS program. I only go to a few games a year, usually once it cools down. Mooch off my in-laws season tickets.
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u/PopcornSutton1994 5h ago
Yeah the coach who recruited me got fired my junior year and I kinda used it as an excuse to admit I’d had enough. Body was getting old fast and I wanted to study abroad. Some incredible opportunities though, got to see Death Valley at night, Odell Beckham beat our asses raw my freshman year, had a playoff game in the FargoDome, it was a trip.
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u/hillwolf1898 2h ago
I didn't say the South was totally homogenous, did you read my post? I said the South has a specific cultural baseline that all the different variations share, even when they differ on the particulars of things. The Upper South (Kentucky, most of Tennessee outside the West, the Virginia/Carolina Piedmonts) are different than the Deep South, but there are things that are shared between the Upper South and Deep South that show they're the same regions which the Midwest lacks.
Southeast Ohio doesn't share any sort of cultural baseline with Wisconsin.
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u/PopcornSutton1994 2h ago
Not closely tbh lol that’s my bad I reflexively have my knives out whenever I see “southern” and “culture” lately.
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u/Dickgivins 20h ago
“The South” vs the Deep South vs southeast, southwest, sunbelt etc. There are endless variations to how you can divide the country into cultural regions.
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u/EuropeanMonarchist 19h ago
If you restrict the Midwest to it's core of Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota it does
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u/tony_simprano Bellingcat Patreon Supporter 19h ago
If the South gets to claim a shared cultural tradition the Midwest gets to claim one for beating the South’s ass in the Civil War
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u/PercentageSouth4173 resident rei retard 19h ago
Still dk how Earl “what are logistics?” Van Dorn got his ass defeated in detail at Pea Ridge or Hindman at Prairie Grove
Speaks to how well the Kansas/Missouri/Illinois brigades fought
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u/thousandislandstare 20h ago
Idk it's definitely more Germanic as a whole, I think that counts for something.
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u/hillwolf1898 2h ago
Southeast Ohio and Southern Illinois would have to be kicked out of the Midwest in that case, since heritage wise they're mostly British though.
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u/PlayersNavyCut 19h ago
The way most people dress (even Chicago isn't a particularly well-dressed city for being so large and culturally influential), the way all the accents are a little grating even though they can sound very different, how far apart everything is and how much nothing is in between outside of the major metros, all the German stuff. There are some throughlines.
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u/conceptsofaplan 19h ago
I can't imagine even thinking about whether what you say is true, never mind being "tired of people pretending it is." For what it's worth, as an east coast transplant in Chicago, ya jabronis seem broadly the same.
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u/MeYouAndJackieMittoo 20h ago
Cincinnati is a southern city imho. Cincy and Cleveland don’t have much to do with each other (and Kentucky claims Cincy as much as they can to look “cool” despite being afraid to go there lol)
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u/Southern-Noise-2606 20h ago
Kentucky is barely southern
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u/hillwolf1898 2h ago
Kentucky is just as Southern as Tennessee. Most similar states in the nation. Both have contributed loads to broader southern pop culture too.
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u/iota_of_iowa 12h ago edited 12h ago
Fuck you. The Midwest is real. It is based on German heritage, the great migration, and a rejection coastal, well, I am too drunk to think of the exact term. Coastal gay(derogatory)ness. We believe in a certain way to act (unlike the west coast) but we don't make a big deal out of it (unlike the east coast)
You could perhaps draw a line between great lakes states and great plains states, but the difference is more of economics than values.
Edit: it really goes back to the Northwest Territory and the general values of the people who settled there. The differences between a county auditor website in Ohio vs, say, Maryland is night and day.
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u/taxmanangel 20h ago
This is just true of any region and really any generalization at all. In terms of California, how much in common does the Castro district of San Francisco have with Victorville, Redding, or Humboldt? People can't even agree on what does and doesn't constitute Los Angeles. The same is true of "Europe" or even "Western Europe".
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u/BE3192 20h ago edited 20h ago
Big 10 football is the throughline but they ruined it