Yeah Kentucky is very Southern, not in the Mississippi delta plantation way* I think most imagine the "south's" traditions. But there is a large swath of Appalachia in Kentucky and Tennessee that has a very Southern way about them. You don't get much more devastatingly poor than some of the areas either but they do give us Bourbon Whiskey. Some powerful hicks. My question is, is how do Southerners view Florida? It doesn't seem to have the same Southern traditions as the Carolinas, Mississippi, or Alabama. More a scary methhead uncle. *except the horse racing thing which is very Southern aristocrat.
In general, I've found that the western part of the panhandle is what you would call the "southern United States." From Jacksonville south is the "tourist/retirees" part.
You think the majority Florida is retired people and tourists? So are those the people commiting the Dimension X-fucked uppedness I read and hear about in the news every single day? I've been to Waffle House in Orlando and it was a freak show straight from a black hole. That was in a major city. Ask Black Jesus to fill in rural details, I'm sure he will spin you quite the yarn of vitriol.
Florida is the fucked up schizophrenic cousin that you wish wouldn't show up to family gatherings. I grew up in West Palm in south Florida and I went to college in Orlando. Retirees with money go to Palm Beach County. But the eastern part of Palm Beach(Turnpike out to the beach) is really shitty and its where most episodes of COPS are filmed. Way out west towards the middle of the state and around Lake Okeechobee are towns with the highest concentrations of AIDS and HIV in the United States. I won't even grip a gas pump out there. Riviera Beach(browntown) is where all the shootings happens. Miami is weird combo of Cubans and Haitians(who suck). And Broward is a shitty combination of everything but just really ghetto. The red state part of Florida is everything north and west of Palm Beach. Thats where the real shitshow is. Where the George Zimmermans of the world are. Where people eat faces and hold Klan rallys.
I have a theory on South Florida, because we are a horrible mish mash. I think every weirdo, miscreant, misanthrope, derelict, and mentally ill person gets it in their head that paradise will be awesome. Live by the beach! No Winter! So they come here and the humidity absolutely fries whatever is left of their brain. They came in a tidal wave starting in around '99. No shit, Palm Beach County is the number one spot for rehabbers, by the way. The old school Florida Cracker, a charming creature somewhere between eccentric and redneck, is a dying breed. It's a shame. My dad and uncles were a lot like that, lot more cultured though. My friend's dad too. A little wild, a little weird, actually capable otherwise. Some of them beach bums, a little hippie that wanted the slow life where they could drink Bud and listen to the waves. They all bred together with the normies, made something unique, something oddball for a brief while. They have been almost run out completely by progress and gentrification, leaving us with a lot of transplants, trash, shallow folk, and a lot of very crazy, volatile people. This place wasn't always cold hearted, but it is now. The last bit of magic will soon be condos. What's left of the real Floridians is pretty much out west in Loxahatchee, in the boonies. Oh, and that bit about the highest concentration of AIDS? Xray is 100% right. No joke, God has forgotten Belle Glade. Town produces a majority of the sugar America consumes, but is poor as shit. It's disgusting.
I live in rural Minnesota, right in the middle of farm country. We've always had our share of rednecks around here, but a new trend I've noticed is everyone who is 22 or younger thinks being a country ass dipshit is cool. They all wear cowboy boots and western shirts and listen to shitty ass mainstream country music. They drive around shitty trucks with stupid redneck sayings on the back window. Apparently "Yee yee!" is some sort of exclamation to them. I swear to god, if someone says that to me they're getting bitch slapped. I'm not sure what happened. When I was that age we were into riding dirt bikes, drinking and listening to heavy metal. I knew plenty of people who were into country music, but they didn't go out of their way to turn their lives into a fucking Luke Bryan music video. These morons are two generations away from Scandinavian immigrants and have the accents to prove it, yet they try to act like they were born and raised in the fucking backwoods of Georgia or something. Maybe I'm just getting old, but the whole thing seems lame as hell.
Belle Glade.... Isn't that the town with the statue of a family literally fleeing in terror? That should be a sign.
I think you've got to make a distinction between southern, redneck, white trash, hillbilly, and country. For somebody who doesn't live in an area with any of these things, it can be hard to tell the difference. Here's my opinion on the breakdown: Southern has a more genteel, cultured feel to it. I can see parts of the bigger cities in Kentucky falling into this category. Rednecks can be found in any part of the country, sporting their big trucks and guns. A lot of times they live in smaller farming communities though they are also intermixed in some of the bigger cities, like Mobile. There is a fine line between redneck and white trash. White trash is straight up malicious and will cut you for meth money. Hillbillies are mostly found in the Appalachian areas. They'll cut you or maybe pour some water in your gas tank if you fuck with their friends and family. Country has a more western feel. Think Texas ranch style, horses, boots. The white populous of South Eastern Florida is white trash and retirees.
I think you broke it down quite well. Being southern is definitely a culture. Rednecks, and they were proud to be referred to as such, were the confederate flag flying douches living out in Loxahatchee of Palm Beach. Wore camo tshirts and dark blue jeans and boots of some sort. Like working boots, not cowboy. Many if not all had a constantly running level of racism in their personalities and would get into fights with the black kids at my high school after calling them niggers. Go figure. White trash are the trailer dwelling, Dolphins boxers with one sock drinking Jack straight from the bottle and beating his pregnant wife. There's no culture or group they identify with because no one likes them. The cops are routinely being called out to the trailer parks for domestic violence and busting meth heads. They have southern accents for some reason but it's hard to place where they are from. It's got to be the default lack of education way to speak.
Here on the west coast of Florida it's pretty much just a mirror image of the east coast. The retirees and the rich all live along the coast. Instead of Cubans, we have Mexicans(great hard working people), and Haitians(for the most part suck) on this side. And I would venture to say that the redneck and meth heads all stay to the east of SR 951. In fact, rednecks and meth heads are pretty much all you'll find between SR 951 on the west coast and the Florida turnpike from 75 south on the east coast. North of 75 every thing that Black Jesus and other have stated applies.
Thanks for not making me feel alone about the Haitian thing. If there was ever an argument against immigration, they would be it.
Outside of the south, I know that Vermont is pretty redneck. One of my dad's best friends was our mechanic and he's from Burlington, and he loves NASCAR, country music, and his shotguns. He also loved bourbon, but ended up having to give up drinking because it had gotten him into trouble. When I was in college I went out with a girl who is from Montpelier, and she also said that Vermont is very redneck. I don't know if anywhere else in New England is like that.
I thought starter fluid is ether. I select the most round point end up, then shove the potato through a sharpened PVC end. So the tater is very bullet-esque at that point. Having a rifled barrel would be awesome.
Starting fluid is in fact ether. Pro tip: when you sharpen the cutting edge of the barrel, cut the bevel to the inside of the pipe. this makes for a much tighter fit and a much better muzzle velocity.
These are all farm kids though, so technically they are country, but what annoys me is the effort they put into trying to look and act like they're from the South. It's like they're forcing themselves to be rednecks because they think it's cool, when otherwise they'd just be normal kids.
Up here you can blame Rascal Flatts for people pretending to be country while living in an Ontario city. From there its a chain reaction of poser shit from F-G Line to any crappy rock that throws in a fiddle to be called "country". GOD I fucking hate Rascal Flatts. Their lead singer should be thrown in prison simply for looking the way he does. They beat country music to death with a rock, raped its corpse, pissed on it, set it on fire then force-fed it to its own children while laughing the entire time. If the ten most horrible pedophiles joined together in a Voltron of creepiness and hideousness, it would look like this: It's like Tom Cochran raped the Shoggoth and that was the result.