Greg from Minneapolis Metblogs is in Austin for SXSW and he posted this very funny list today:
Top 10 Things Idiots at SXSWi have to say about Minneapolis
1. Wow, it must be warmer here, even though it’s been cold in Austin this week.
2. Life must go by very slowly there compared to (insert where idiot person lives).
4. The person I’m rooming with at my town is from Minnesota. Her name is Zara. What? You don’t know her.
5. I was there once. Actually, just in the airport. It was okay.
6. Oh, well I’m sure you can’t wait to leave there.
8. I love Fargo.
And MNSpeak has some very entertaining comments as usual. My favorite, “Just tell them that we’re like the Velvet Underground of cities. Everyone is doing stuff based on our influence, but the true intrinsic genius of our works won’t be recognized for quite some time.”
I’ve never encountered attitudes like this, most of the time people are very cool. When I was in Seattle and talking to this girl outside of the EMP, and I told her I was in from Mpls, right away she talked about Husker Dü and The Replacements. And while taking a tour of a church in Dublin, the guide asked us if we were from the North Shore. He was very familiar with the state even though he had never been.
Chris and Jamie, I’d be interested in hearing what people in Seattle and Maine say when you tell them you are from Minnesota?
Two most common responses in Seattle:
- I’m from Minnesota too!
- At least you’re not from California. All those people do is complain about the weather, drive up housing prices, and make traffic worse.
Seriously though, people in Seattle often have ties to Minnesota, and usually a good story or two. They see that the places are pretty similar and they LIKE Minnesota, although, like me, they prefer Seattle. (Makes sense of they’re living here.)
Seatttleites are smart enough to know that Minnesota winters are colder AND the summers are hotter. (I’m convinced that some Californians thought Minnesota had snow on the ground all year.)
My landlord from my first stint in Seattle often talked about his long-ago trip to the Boundary Waters. He was still amazed by the mosquitoes.
A number of my friends from here (who were transplants to Minnesota to begin with) have jumped over to Seattle. It’s a pretty strong pull and they all love it there, but they miss it here, too.
Ha! The above list pretty much embodies what I encounter here on a daily basis. There’s quite a difference between the east and west coast attitudes regarding the upper midwest. The ‘ol stereotype about East Coast bias is dead-on. Only you get a strange take on it in Maine, as REAL Mainers like to isolate themselves from anyone from “away.”
The most common things I hear:
- Wow, I’ve been to Michigan.
- Oh, do people really talk like that?
- Ohhhh…yah?
- But you don’t sound like that?
- The summer must seem really warm here? (Maine summers are ridiculously mild by comparison)
- Are there really 10,000 lakes there?
- Thanks for David Ortiz… the Twins were stupid!!
- Thanks for Kevin Garnett… the Wolves were studpid!!!
- Randy Moss…(insert smart-ass comment about the Vikings)
- Oh. I’ve never been there. But I bet it’s nice.
- Always, always some comment about the movie Fargo (if I had a dime for every time I heard that…), especially when I say that Nell is from there. People often don’t believe that it’s a real city (much bigger than Portland), people live there, and travel away from it occasionally.
In general, peeps in the East are idiots about Minnesota. Even when they try to be smart or sensitive about it, they say something assinine. Even my good friends here.
I think that Bostonians (and New Englanders) and New Yorkers are so fiercly geocentric that they just don’t pay much attention to things outside of that sphere.
My experiences in Seattle and Portland OR have been pretty similar to Moen’s. Most of that is probably due to a large number of MN transplants in the Pacific NW.
Jamie, do Mainers feel the same way about Bostonians that Seattle-ites do Californians? (or even about New Yorkers?)
That’s my favorite so far :)
I’ve had the Michigan comment a few times, including on the chairlift at Sugarloaf this weekend.
REAL Mainers (and I don’t use that term loosely!) definitely have some contempt for Bostonians, and Massholes in general. And a lot of that stems from how they feel about those from “away” doing the things that Californians do in Seattle. They have money, drive up housing prices, and drive HORRIBLY (although Mainers are just as bad, only this is their territory and thereby their right).
But there’s more to it than that, and it leads to a different topic. From an outsider’s perspective, Maine is a terribly conflicted state. On the one hand, Mainers seem averse to change and progress. They don’t seem to want new people moving here, particularly from the Boston area or Mass coast (where the money is). They want to keep things the way they’ve always been (which ignores reality).
On the other hand, they have to rely on tourism dollars– particularly along the coast–which makes the summer an exercise in tolerance and patience because of the hordes from “away.”
The result is state having very high income tax (8.5% for income over $17,351) high property taxes, and very few jobs. They make it prohibitive for businesses to operate here. There’s a brain drain too, because of the lack of opportunities. Even the lawyers make a pittance here, right Sam ;)
It seems as though these economic walls are built to quell the invasion from “away.”
I just got back from SXSWi myself, and have to say the comments I heard on Minneapolis (”and that other city”) were overwhelmingly positive. Prince may have come up one or two times too many (meaning one or two times total), but people seemed to be fairly knowledgeable about our community and our arts scene in particular.