What judgments do people make about the places you've lived in?

Growing up in Vegas, I hated how everyone assumed that my father worked in a casino. I also dislike the assumption that there is nothing else to do but gamble. There are so many activities to do there for people that enjoy outdoor sports. You can snowboard and water ski all in one day.

I now live in farm country and I dislike the assumption that everyone is a hick and they know nothing about life outside the cornfields.

I live in Colorado, and when I talk to people who’ve never been here, they always assume that we get a ton of snow, everybody lives in the mountains, and its always cold here. In actuality we get a lot less snow than people think, and its often quite warm. And there are relatively few mountain men.

@jeffgoldblumsprivatefacilities You must drink Coors if you’re from Colorado, right? ;)

@jonsblond Bah! Lousy pisswater.

I also live in San Francisco, and have to combat the stereotypes all the time with my east Texan family members. I find it exhausting, and am always eager to get home where I don’t have to explain myself.

<—- Vegas

All the aforementioned.

Except, now it’s true ;)

I don’t know, what do people think of Philadelphia? It’s dangerous…because it is. That’s all I can think of.

@casheroo

Well, isn’t Philadelphia a fat city? All that Philly cheese steak and what not…

People assume:

I am in, or want to be in the biz.

I am shallow and care too much about my looks.

That I love the sun.

I have lived in L.A. most of my life.

@tinyfaery

So Cal?

I love the sun…part of the reason why I’ll never stop thinking about what it would’ve been like to go to UCLA… :P

Edit: I see my guess was right. :)

@DominicX I found this http://www.mensfitness.com/lifestyle/215 and apparently Vegas and quiet a few other cities are considered fatter cities than Philly.

People assume that:

I am a hippie
I am a stoner

I live in Humboldt County, California. I am also neither of those things.

@dverhey

Ha…I have two stoner friends who will be attending Humboldt State. One of them actually buys marijuana from people in Humboldt County.

I’m pretty sure the fattest city is in either Nebraska or Wisconsin.

Oh, I thought of one.
Philadelphians are known to be sports fanatics. People seem to think I’m always going to be into sports as well. I’m not. I couldn’t care less.

People: You live in Laramie? Isn’t that the place where that gay kid was killed?
Me: Oh, you must mean Matthew Shepard. Yes, yes it it.
People: How can you stand living in such a hate filled place?
Me: Oh, I get by.
People: I could never live there. I’d be afraid of what people would think of me there.
Me: Ok, well then don’t move here.
Sheesh

Or this:
People: You’re from Chicago?
Me: Yep.
People: What part? Oak Park, Schaumburg?
Me: No, none of the above. I am from Chicago, not a suburb of Chicago.
People: You can live in the city? Isn’t it busy?
Me: Yeah, but you know there’s more to Chicago than just the Loop.
People: Really?!?!
Me: Bangs head against the wall.
I once had a conversation with someone who told me that she only thought black people lived in Chicago (as if it were a bad thing, even if that was the case). There are no limits to the stupidity of the human race.

@casheroo You’re not into our cities fine sporting teams!?!? shame!~

I’ve lived in quite a few different cities. (like 10+) everyone thinks i have the accent from the previous place.

When I lived in NY, people assumed there was crime everywhere, and that the subway was apparently the inspiration for “Escape from New York” or something.

As for Philly, see what @casheroo said.

In Chicago, everyone wanted to talk sports with me, thought i followed ‘da bears’ and assumed i ate sausage. (not in a gay sense)

Living in Orlando, they want to know if you’ve been to Disney (no), isn’t it fun to live in a vacation spot (no) and isn’t the weather always great there (no)?

In Maine, do you eat lobster? isn’t it cold? (no, no)

In Texas, are you a cowboy? (no) do you have a ten gallon hat? (see previous), is there only one star over texas for real? (uhm yes. it’s called the Kiss My Ass Constellation)

In New Jersey, they ask if i’m in the mafia (i wish at this point), do i go to the shore (not since the sun poisoning) and is everywhere like Newark (no, some places in jersey are really trashy).

etc etc etc.

I get harassed all the time about having lived in Israel. Also, have I been shot? You know, having lived in New Haven and all. Oh, and supposedly my life revolves around Yale because I live near it, and I’m a freaking genius because of it.

Wtf? You don’t go to crackhouses at night by yourself, and you don’t get shot. Not a terribly difficult equation.

I live just outside of Charlotte, NC. When I told someone that he asked me if I shopped at the Piggly Wiggly. There isn’t one around me. Then he went on with a list of typical southern things – none of which I have experienced. I couldn’t believe that someone could really be that ignorant.

We could never be into the arts, or into sports – other than racing. We have a growing medical community and a lot of research being done in this area. We certainly couldn’t be a strong business center, either. We’re too busy being southern belles, here. BLAH!

I’ve never even been in a Piggly Wiggly!

I grew up in a suburb of Washington, DC. It’s such a complex place, with people of every color, nationality and political persuasion under the sun that nobody really made any assumptions about me for living there (*at the time). Then, when I was 21, I moved to a rural suburb farther away, Frederick, MD. Suddenly, I was a hick. Now that I live in West Virginia, I am an uneducated hick. Sigh.

*Edit: Of course, the people in Frederick and West Virginia view me as an elitist city girl.

Johny Carson hated Bakersfield and used it as the butt of many jokes. In a lot of ways I think he helped to keep our property affordable!

I live in WV. If they get that WV is a state of it’s own (“How close to the beach are ya?” VIRGINIA beach is 8 hours away) they assume everyone is a hillbilly in the worst sense of the word, that everyone is from a coal miner town and is dirt poor. There are a lot of jokes about inbreeding and marrying your cousins.

@augustlan Not all of us West Virginians think you’re a snob. :)

People come to Virginia Beach for vacations a lot. They think the beach is sooo amazing, when the water is actually really yucky. It’s a decent city though.

@Les – My husband is from Chicago proper, too, not “Chicagoland” or “near Chicago” or Oak Park or whatever. He graduated from Hirsch High on the Southside at East 77th. He does support “da Bears” in large part because his primary opponent in both wrestling and football was a guy named Dick Butkis.

@Darwin heh, Darwin’s Husband verus Butkis….

Until the day she died my grandmother always wanted to know why ever did I move to Corpus Christi, Texas, because it is just a wide spot in the road. Of course, she was from the big city of Beaumont.

@Darwin: Awesome. That’s way down south. I’m from the North side, but I went to a private high school. The actual Dick Butkus? Wow…

@eponymoushipster – My husband may not have any teeth left but Butkis has bad knees now. They carried the same playing weight, but my husband had a lower center of gravity. They were both equally mean on the field, though.

My friend Rory is from Placerville, California, which is also known as “Old Hangtown”. You can imagine the stereotypes for that place. Although I will admit it is the only place I actually ever saw people with “God Hates Fags” signs. I have no idea if those people were from Placerville, though.

@Darwin cool.

@Les – Yes, that Dick Butkis. My husband didn’t go on to the pros because he and higher education were not a good idea. Instead he joined the Navy.

You guys are spelling his name wrong. It’s “Butkus”. It would be funnier the other way, though. :P

@DominicX: I was just going in to change that now. You are too quick.

@Facade It’s probably nicer than the Jersey Shore.

I am not from Chicago so I have no idea how to spell it. However, ol’ Dick now has a fishing show my hubby watches on Versus.

@DominicX Placerville is actually a really cool place. They finally outlawed those signs and protestors.

Milwaukee = Jeffrey Dahmer, cheese, beer, and Happy Days (for people of a certain age)

Madison = hippies, beer, wacky college hijinks (Back to School was shot at my uni)

Brooklyn = gangs, gangs, gangs Never mind that Gabriel Byrne and Paul Giametti are my neighbors… :/

@aprilsimnel for brooklyn, “hipsters, hipsters, hipsters” would also apply.

@eponymoushipster – True enough. There’s an age demarcation, though. Older people ask me about gangs. Young people wrinkle their nose at hipsters (usually not recognizing that they’re hipsters too).

I live about 15 miles away from Detroit MI! I’m not sure what one might think?

@aprilsimnel i’m a hipster dufus. plus, i live in philly, which means i’m a quasi-hipster, at best.

Philly used to be the fattest city in the country, but, alas, no longer. A previous mayor put us all on a diet. We are, however, the city of Philadelphia lawyers, and the city that threw ice balls at Santa Claus. If we can’t screw you with fatty food, we’ll sue you. And if that don’t work, we’ll chase you out of town with ice balls. Yo!

@daloon ice balls? i think i knew her!

Quiet, @eponymoushipster, or I’ll send Santa Claus to visit YOU!

Oh man, do I get off on obscure threats!

lol

@DominicX Oh yeah. Humboldt State. Rated somewhere in the top 10 for Stoner US Schools… It’s got a cool vibe about it though, usage and all.

I have never had a negative response to people discovering that I live in Australia. Often a great deal of interest. I sometimes get mistaken for British or South African, I have spent lot of time in the UK and when much younger, in Rhodesia – back when it still was Rhodesia. When people think that I am South African there are some very negative responses – they can’t tell the difference between a Rhodesian and a South African accent.

Australia: Sexist. I did a lot of reading about gender issues in Australia when I was in school. Also, Australia seems about 15 years behind everyone else in fashion, music, art, etc. Plus, those Flight of The Concord guys say Australia sucks.

@tinyfaery

Yes, in some ways it is a bit old fashioned. That is changing pretty rapidly. I don’t know about sexist, the average Aussie girl won’t take much nonsense. I have never had anything to do with “Flight of the…” so I can’t comment.

There are a LOT of Aussies on Fluther, be interesting to see if they are following this thread. As for music, fashion, that is nonsense, it is that same as anywhere else, we are not isolated from industry, including the fashion and music industries.

Our TV shows stream from the US and UK, every new release video, or CD/DVD is on sale here at much the same time as anywhere else, there isn’t much to pick between the larger cities here and those in the US or UK. There are some difference in the outlying communities.

@DarkScribe Flight of the Conchords is an HBO tv show and they are apparently New Zealand’s 4th most popular folk parody duo… They’re great.

florida is:
– where “old people come to die”
-always sunny!
-lots of bimbos
-all anyone ever does is go to the beach or go clubbing in miami
-everyone’s rich down there…

When I went to college in the Midwest, a significant number of my dorm mates thought that I was a witch because I came from Massachusetts. I guess the way I laughed at that idea did nothing to dispel the notion.

I live in Canada, anytime I spoke with an American (at my old job) it was always the same:
-Every Canadian ends each sentence in Eh! Eh.
-Everyone lives in an igloo.
-Canada doesn’t have a military.
-The capitol of Canada is Toronto.
-All Canadians speak French.
-I drive my dogsled to work

Every Canadian does say Zed, though. ;)

lol, nope

@tiffyandthewall my favorite term for Florida is heaven’s waiting room

Who cares? Why would I even validate an assumption based on that?

I live in Ohio which most people confuse with Iowa or Idaho (don’t ask me why). The assumption is cows (correct), corn (also correct), I must live in Cleveland (not correct, no cows and no corn in Cleveland), I must live in Cincinnati (not correct, pigs but no corn in Cincinnati), that I must live in Toledo (not correct, honest scales but not so many cows or corn in Toledo) or that I must be a Buckeye fan (damn skippy).

@Kayak8 Or that you can’t drive (damn Ohio drivers)j/k

What I know about Ohio: Cincinnatti has a nice zoo, and it gets really complicated to get a beer there sometimes.

When I was about 12 some girls from out of state came to one of our Girl Scout meetings, I can’t remember for the life of me what they were there for, maybe talking about camp or something, I don’t know. Anyway, they were surprised that we had running water and in door toilets! I live in Kansas, I mean, it’s very midwest and kinda backwards-but seriously! No running water and outhouses? I was appalled.

@chyna That one is true so I didn’t mention it

@eponymoushipster well that almost sounds pleasant. (;