this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2023
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Ask the Midwest

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submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

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[–] potterpockets 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Good rule of thumb: if your state fought for the Confederacy you are not part of the Midwest.

Looking at you Tennessee and Arkansas.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you're a bloody traitor to your country, you aren't Midwest.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Missouri feels like a southern state, but St Louis feels like a midwestern town

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

As a non-American I always assumed "midwest" meant between the northwest and southwest. So like, California and the state to the east of it (Nevada?). Are the highlighted states not more "north middle"?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You have to keep in mind that the US started on the east coast and then expanded west. A lot of the terminology we use goes back to those days, where everything west of the original colonies was "The West".

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ah, it does make sense when you put it that way.

[–] potterpockets 2 points 10 months ago

Similar to how the “Middle East” and “Far East” are from a European-centric persecutive.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Kinda? Chicago just doesn't feel very "Midwestern" to me, but I did grow up in Sioux Falls, which is definitely the Midwest.

Chicago is on the eastern edge of what I'd consider the Midwest, but it's not really any further east than Milwaukee, which is definitely Midwestern. I'm not sure if the dissonance is just due to Chicago being a World City, if that cosmopolitan vibe is interfering with a Midwestern baseline or vice-versa.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You've gotta include Minnesota. They're some of the most Midwestern people I've ever met. I think we might get a lot of it from Canada

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Absolutely! Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wisconsin...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I'm from Wisconsin, family from Michigan as well and traveled there a lot. Went to college in Iowa and dated girls in college who all were from Illinois. Now i live in Minnesota.

One thing i find odd is that Minnesotans don't do a lot of the Midwest stuff. No midwest goodbyes, no chatting up strangers as if they were your BFF, doing all the obligation events we never want to do but say "o yah we should get together", etc. The whole Minnesota Nice, aka being passive aggressive, isn't really that Midwest. Of all the Midwest I've lived in, the highest ranking one is definitely the least Midwest in my eyes.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

MNs seem like they have a Canadian influence. Based on a week I spent in Rochester and the movie Fargo, lol.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

If I read it right, those were poll results from people in those states. Have to go read it again/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yes, I know. I'm just saying Minnesota "Midwest" is not the same as the rest of the Midwest most of the rest of the Midwest is very similar.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

used to be a cartoon map about East and West coast and a vast wilderness in between known as the Midwest. Don't see it in these results but there are many interpretations of Midwest. https://www.google.com/search?q=midwest+map