What’s the biggest culture difference between any states?

13 comments

1. For some *ungodly* reason, the Midwest and northwestern states decided to start calling soda ‘pop’

2. Texas and Oregon. Texas has a cop every 3rd car on the road. Oregon has like 3 cops in the state. Texas weed is like a felony. Oregon weed is like 7/11. Texas has almost no public land even though its a huge place. Oregon is mostly public land. Texans think environmental regulations are bad. Oregonians know our state is not ruined because of laws and regulations land use, pollution even building new natural gas plants gets voted on here and doesn’t pass. Texas would just build it and them let it fall into disrepair and blow up and poison the area. Portland the most populous city in Oregon is extremely bike friendly and walkable, Houston texas i get weird looks when i walk a mile to the bar and was almost killed on my birthday in a bike lane on a street. Car culture vs bike and walking culture. In Texas religion seeps into casual conversation, religion is not generally brought up in Oregon. Politics, lifestyle, laws, religion, environmental values, almost anything i can think of texas and Oregon are at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

3. Given that we tend to immigrate from state to state without much regard, there aren’t very many cultural markers that change at a state border. Instead, cultural differences are regional, based on economic, environmental, and historical factors. It’s best to discuss regions when talking about differences in culture, and the regions themselves are not always sharply defined.

   That said, Alaska and especially Hawai’i have a lot of differences, given their distance from the lower 48/mainland. Alaska retains the flavor of a frontier state, while Hawai’i has a majority Asian and Pacific Islander population. They are going to feel a lot different than Florida.

   But if you started in Key West and moved a couple of hundred miles west each year, you could end up in those states without ever having to endure a culture shock.

4. Language varies regionally. I’m a Minnesotan and we have our own accent and dialect… it’ll be pretty similar in Wisconsin and Illinois but Virginia & New York for example they speak differently. They speak differently in the south- Tennessee, Texas, Alabama, Georgia. There’s a few others like Pennsylvania, and West Virginia that have even more distinct dialects. Louisiana is another one.

   I would say language is probably the most distinct and universal cultural difference between any state. Other than that I think any person from any state would blend in culturally anywhere in the U.S.

   But I think one of the other posters said it best- it really comes down to the fine details like race, economics, and it’s not super finite. There are more cultural variations within a state than there are from one state to another-and even those differences are usually regional (multi-state)

5. California <–> former CSA’ers.

6. I moved from West Virginia to souther California, then to Japan. Japan was less foreign.

7. Different states have different degrees of friendliness and helpfulness towards strangers, and this can even vary within states.
   .
   The South is known for helpfulness. If I ask for directions in North Carolina, people will begin good-natured arguments over the best route, and these will culminate in someone offering to hop in your car and personally direct you. They’re not a murderer, they’re just from NC.

   Maryland is less helpful near DC. But Baltimore, for all its reputation for roughness, will ride to your rescue. When my husband and I were hit by a red light runner some years ago, the stoop sitters at the intersection ran into the road to help us out of the car and yell at the other driver. Passersby asked us if we were ok and, lol, complimented my outfit.

   A Californian will not help you, like, ever, at all. I remember being an injured child, more than once, and none of the neighborhood adults poking their noses outside to help me.

8. Unless you are in an area that has a high level of transplants, there’s subtle differences between different areas that don’t necessarily follow state lines. It’s more noticeable if you go between regions. Some subcultures are more into indirect communication and others are more direct. Some are more likely to want a more centralized government and some want to be left alone as much as possible. There are changes in dialect across regions. Some subcultures warm up to new people quicker than others.

9. Alaska and Hawaii

10. Not even between states but I think Pennsylvania has some interesting cultural differences. Philadelphia in the east is very much an East Coast culture. Then across the mountains you have Appalachia. Pittsburgh is sometimes called the Paris of Appalachia since it’s the only major city in all of Appalachia. It really feels like a completely different state in a lot of ways.

11. I would say accents. You can hear a clear difference between northeast, south, Midwest, and west coast. I’m from the east coast so I hear a big difference between DC, Baltimore, Philly, NJ, NYC, Boston, Vermont/new Hampshire, and Maine accents.

12. Louisiana people don’t value schedules, very laid back without specific timed out plans.

13. Apparently using ma’am and sir outside of the South where I’m from is offensive? Apparently it induces a midlife crisis in some, and is outright disrespectful in the pacific northwest, whereas my first reaction to being called sir was “you’re goddamn right”