Happy Thursday! It's bright and sunny here in the paradise I call home. That's right, ladies and gents, I am from perfect, amazing, sunny, gorgeous Florida. Which isn't the South, although technically it is the most south. I know it's shocking that I'm not a southern belle, raised on sweet tea and chivalry. It seems that everyone I follow on Twitter or interact with on social media is suddenly a southern-freaking-belle. Guess I'm the odd man out. I'm not really upset about it. I just am a little confused as to when Oklahoma started being considered the "good old south?" Isn't that the Mid-West? Or am I just a really bad cartographer? (That's a person who makes maps, for all of you kids out there skipping class and dwindling away your intelligence.) It's like suddenly, everything is a southern thing, too. Oh, you drink wine in Tennessee? How southern of you. You have a Lilly Pulitzer sorority print wallet in North Carolina? Southern. You wear Nike running shorts in Georgia? Well slap my ass and call me Sally, you're a southern-god-damn-belle.
I get the whole God-fearing-bourbon-drinking-SEC-football-loving-truck-driving-country-music-listening southern boy thing. It's sexy. What isn't sexy is everyone trying to play to a stereotype that somehow became cool because of Twitter. Maybe it's just because there's not much else to do in the middle-of-no-where-Arkansas except tweet about wearing pearls and drink with fraternity guys. Don't get me wrong, I frequent my Twitter more than some would prefer, and I do like me a nice fraternity gentleman, but I've got this whole other slew of things to do in life that make becoming the perfect southern belle last on my list.
In fact, I feel like I really have the best deal here. I grew up living on a beach. I go to college 30 minutes from where everyone goes on spring break. I can get a tan in January and keep it until November. There's something charming about a beach-side town, about the temperature reading at the bank reading 102, about getting caught in a 4pm rain storm. There's a lot to be thankful for, not having to shovel my car out of snow, or skid on ice, or run the heater 4 months out of the year. I'm not saying that North Carolina isn't gorgeous, and that the south doesn't have its charm, and I blast Blake Shelton in my little SUV like it's nobody's business... but all of America isn't the south, and these 50 states have so much to be appreciated aside from Mason jars and front porch swings.
oh my gosh i SO agree! i'm from florida too but now live in north carolina and everyone really is obsessed with being southern!
ReplyDeletethere are some very confused people who think that florida is the south because it is in the south of the country. one time some one even said to me well what side did it fight on in the civil war?! as if that would be their trump card. i replied spanish? escaped slaves? really though!