Why the nastiness/rudeness?

[knke0204]

Originally Posted by yoyoma02

I'm from MN and moved out west a year and a half ago. Whenever I come home people will say rude things about California to me, too. They will say things like, "How can you live in that horrible smoggy, rude city?" or "Everyone there is a fake jerk" or something along those lines.

I don't really take it personally, since most of these people were friends of mine before the move, but they will really bash LA, even though none of them have ever been out here. It's bizarre.

Whatever dude, I work with 5 people that are FROM Cali and no one has ever said a rude thing. I think for the most part, people here love California. And those who are rude are just people who envy people who live in a place with great weather, palm trees, the ocean and pretty people

I took your post in stride, mainly because of the bolded part. That does nothing to help your argument (arguing that some lame friends of yours bash Cali, and they've never been there?. I chalk that up to your friends being boneheads, not the entire population of Minnesota)

[uptown_urbanist]

There's also a difference between someone bashing a PLACE and a PERSON, although I do think it's rude to insult someone's city/state, especially if they haven't spent much time there.

I've been thinking a bit more about this, and in my experience in different places (not necessarily Twin Cities specifically) the people who are most vocal about liking a place are most often either (a) those who moved from somewhere else and liked what they found, or (b) those who moved away, then moved back. I figure in both cases it's because they've had a chance to experience other places and are able to appreciate what it is that they like (and also know what they don't like) about the Twin Cities that they haven't found elsewhere. On the other, the people who are most vocal about disliking a place are both (a) those from a city that haven't lived elsewhere but wish that they did or had, and (b) those who are from somewhere else who DO know what they like and don't like, but find that Minneapolis just doesn't match up. Obviously if you love hot weather or feel better being able to see mountains or an ocean, this is not the right city, for example!

Just a random question: for those who have experienced people saying rude things about them due to their place of origin, how do you know the people in question are native Minnesotans? Just thinking about the people I know casually, I don't know where many of them come from originally. Sometimes it comes up, sometimes it doesn't. If you know someone long enough eventually it usually comes up in some conversation or another, but by that point I probably wouldn't be spending time with them (unless they're a coworker or something) if they're rude enough that they'd insult me personally based on origin. For what it's worth, a surprising (well, to me) number of people have assumed that I'm not originally from Minneapolis, and are surprised when they learn that I am. Those people weren't any different before or after we talked about where we grew up.

I think there are some cultural differences in Minnesota, but people are still people, wherever you are. I think there are also bound to be differences depending on specifically where you live. I don't know if my experience is representative, but the easiest place we've lived to make casual friends was a city of about 13,000 people. The easiest place to make better friends was a major city in California. Some of that was undoubtedly luck of the draw. I think it's also much easier to make friends at some stages of life than in others.

[ceeb4]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

There's also a difference between someone bashing a PLACE and a PERSON, although I do think it's rude to insult someone's city/state, especially if they haven't spent much time there.

I've been thinking a bit more about this, and in my experience in different places (not necessarily Twin Cities specifically) the people who are most vocal about liking a place are most often either (a) those who moved from somewhere else and liked what they found, or (b) those who moved away, then moved back. I figure in both cases it's because they've had a chance to experience other places and are able to appreciate what it is that they like (and also know what they don't like) about the Twin Cities that they haven't found elsewhere. On the other, the people who are most vocal about disliking a place are both (a) those from a city that haven't lived elsewhere but wish that they did or had, and (b) those who are from somewhere else who DO know what they like and don't like, but find that Minneapolis just doesn't match up. Obviously if you love hot weather or feel better being able to see mountains or an ocean, this is not the right city, for example!

Just a random question: for those who have experienced people saying rude things about them due to their place of origin, how do you know the people in question are native Minnesotans? Just thinking about the people I know casually, I don't know where many of them come from originally. Sometimes it comes up, sometimes it doesn't. If you know someone long enough eventually it usually comes up in some conversation or another, but by that point I probably wouldn't be spending time with them (unless they're a coworker or something) if they're rude enough that they'd insult me personally based on origin. For what it's worth, a surprising (well, to me) number of people have assumed that I'm not originally from Minneapolis, and are surprised when they learn that I am. Those people weren't any different before or after we talked about where we grew up.

I think there are some cultural differences in Minnesota, but people are still people, wherever you are. I think there are also bound to be differences depending on specifically where you live. I don't know if my experience is representative, but the easiest place we've lived to make casual friends was a city of about 13,000 people. The easiest place to make better friends was a major city in California. Some of that was undoubtedly luck of the draw. I think it's also much easier to make friends at some stages of life than in others.

Great post. I definitely agree with everything you've said. Nothing irritates me more than someone bashing a place based on stereotypes and "well that's what I have heard" when they have never lived there!

We as transplants happen to love it here. We have lived in other states and I do think our experiences have a lot to do with our contentment here. We have come to appreciate many things that we used to take for granted in our youth.

Although we just moved here in August, we haven't had a bad experience yet. However, I am also not naive enough to think that it won't ever happen. Unfortunately, there are crabby people everywhere. But guess what? We have the freedom & choice to walk away from those people when we encounter them. It's too bad that more people don't do that instead of judging an entire metropolitan area based on a couple of bad encounters.

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by Zoggin

I lived in the Twin Cities from 1994-2000...

M*******s run rampant in flyover country up here in MN.

What brought this rant on after 11 years? Do you think people might have been reacting to your negative attitude toward us poor bumpkins here in "flyover country" as you put it? IMHO, there's usually a good hint of the reason why in these nobody-liked-me posts, and I think I found this one.