So I wanna know if besides politics there are other noticeable differences. I have read that people in the North can be colder and mind their own business more whereas in the Southern states people seem to be more outgoing and communal. I would like to know if there is any truth to this at all.

33 comments

  1. Southerners like far more sugar in their tea.

    They also seem not to have good winter coats.

  2. Northeast: usually nice but often rude

    Midwest: often mean but always polite

    South: nice, polite, but the South

  4. A Northerner will call you an asshole to your face, and a southerner will sugar coat it behind your back. “Bless your heart you really tried thinking today huh?”

    Vs a northerns ” You’re a fucking idiot”

  6. The cold/welcoming thing is MOSTLY a matter or urban vs rural. The north is just more urban.

    And it’s not about being unfriendly in context, it’s just there are a LOT of people around, you can’t feasibly be nice to all of them and people on foot will often be commuting which…really isn’t a thing in the more spread out bits of the country. In more rural areas there are fewer people to meet and most people on foot will be out for a stroll.

    As a result, a southerner, especially a rural one, may assume you’re up for a chat just because you’re out and about. Somebody in Chicago or Boston or New York wouldn’t assume that and instead would avoid “bothering” you, but most of them will be extremely helpful if you ask first just like anywhere else and they’ll chat just fine IF you initiate it in a social context rather than on the street.

  7. Painting with a broad brush here but you can get a good sense of North & South by taking Ubers.

    In the North, the vast majority of Uber rides involve little-to-no conversation. You get in, say hello, confirm your name and destination, remain silent throughout the ride, say thanks, and exit.

    In the South, you’ll know someone’s family history before you even get on the highway.

  8. I’ve spent a lot of time in the north and in the south, with family in both the north and south. I’ve noticed a lot, can’t list even most, but here’s some.

    Southerners tend to be more religious, so yes they go to church more, but also more of the idioms and references they use tend to be based in religion. This holds true even for non-religous Southerners.

    Accents are noticeably different

    I wouldn’t say Southerners are more outgoing, I think that’s more urban rural than north south.

    Ice in drinks. Southerners will put so much ice in their drinks, like more than 50% ice, while northerners will put a moderate amount or none at all.

    Southerners love AC, and will keep their houses/businesses at temperatures, which, if they were outside, would warrant a jacket from Southerners.

    BBQ is big in the south, whereas Northerners will more likely do a picnic.

    Cooking and food in general is a much bigger deal in the south, and every Southerner’s grandmother makes the best something. Also southern food is usually unhealthy.

    Southerners have much more of a “respect your elders” sort of thing. Never disrespect a southerners grandparents.

    The south has a higher black population than the rest of the US, but the north is probably more diverse overall.

    People in the north tend to do more stuff outside, on account of the fact they have good weather for it, whereas the south has unbearably hot, and then wet. Also as a result, people in the south are extremely unprepared for cold weather, and people in the north are extremely unprepared for hot weather. Each side makes fun of the other for it.

    There’s a lot more but I’m tired of listing stuff

  9. Demographics and subcultures. When speaking on the US often times race, ethnicity, class, and region plays a part in how people present themselves and how historically these factors formed the subculture of a given area. For instance a white and black family in the south are all southern with similar values and in many cases economic status. Both have an extensive history but a unique culture that remains separate till this day despite the many cases of cultural exchange.

    This alters greatly the more you move around depending on which factor I’ve mentioned has the most influence and how they interact with the Demographics in that area.

  11. I’ve lived in Houston, Chicago, and New Haven, and done a lot of work in rural Texas and throughout Louisiana. I will avoid talking much about the west coast, because I know less about it.

    Most of the differences are small. Houston is going to be more like Chicago than either one is like Bloomington or Beaumont. That said, there are a few.

    People in the South are generally a bit more okay with “it happens when it happens” where people in the North want things to happen on time.

    The South and Midwest care a lot about college sports. The North and West Coast do not.

    The South will tell you their food is better than everybody else. This can be contentious, but is generally regarded as true.

    The North is slightly more direct in its communication style, where the South and Midwest focus a bit more on politeness.

    The North puts a bigger focus on educational prestige and ranking colleges. In the South and Midwest, your state’s public university is basically as good as Harvard as far as employers are concerned.

    The racism is very different. If you live in the South, you know Black people, where I’ve met a surprisingly large number of people in Chicago and the Northeast who have never had a personal relationship with anybody from another racial group. So you’re more likely to hear something outright hateful from an old southerner, but you hear a lot more mundane but frustrating ignorance in the North.

    The South is poorer. It just is. Especially if you take out Texas, Nashville, and suburban Atlanta, it gets really noticeable really fast.

  12. Northerners use the wrong word for cokes. And they use BBQ as a verb. That’s just wrong.

  14. Northeasterners think it’s polite to respect someone privacy bubble.

    Southerners think it’s polite to say ma’am and sir and ok to chit chat with strangers.

    Deeper than that there isn’t much difference.

  16. >Besides any stereotypical political differences, are there any noticeable differences between people in the North and people in the South?

    READ: What are some other stereotypes?

  17. As a tourist, I find southerners far far more welcoming. Especially Texans. I fucking love you guys

  18. Then there is all of us who live in neither. I’ve said this before but I feel like people tend to just think of the US as the north and the south when there is a whole 2/3 of the country that isn’t geographically in either.

  19. In the north when a family member goes off, they’re hidden away. In the south, they’re put on display and shown off.

  21. Southerners as a general rule are a lot more touchy feely. We touch each other on the arm when we talk and often hug you to say hello.

  22. Rural areas in the north are almost always 100% white. The south has tons of rural black people, and they’re just as ‘country’ as white rednecks.

  23. People in the south are more used to warmth and people in the north are more used to cold

  24. Every southerner I’ve ever worked with talked slower than the northern folks. And it rules. I never have to ask a southern colleague to repeat themselves but I do have to ask northerners to.

  25. There’s a bigger expectation to be polite down south, even to people you don’t like. The North tends to put a bigger expectation on being honest and genuine even if it’s a bit impolite. Northerners are actually more in to community life (in the sense of living in walkable cities and towns and having local and state governments provide more services to the community), while southerners have more independence focus, spread out communities that you often need to drive or walk long distances. Fewer neighbors. Preferring if government is minimally involved as possible.

  26. Very few physical differences. Obesity is more prevalent in some southern states but that’s likely due to the much. better. food they have. Many cultural differences but not as many as you may think.

  27. Southerners are much more polite to strangers. Midwestern folks have a horror of causing others inconvenience. Northeners are dismayed by politeness because they worry you will expect them to reciprocate.

  28. Southies are mad about food. They always talk about it. Yankees despite having a pretty good cuisine of their own don’t seem to have made it part of their identity.

    Yankees used to be more commercial, and Southies more agrarian. That also had a cultural and an ideological flair (a lot of that is past).

    There are different signature literature. I am really into the New England Renaissance. I am not much up on Southern authors.

    The South is more hierarchial.

    Some of these impressions are obsolete.

  29. I’ve noticed that the farther South I’ve gone, the more common it is to see casual live music. And I don’t full on concerts or performances, it could just be some dude playing guitar at a restaurant, someone on piano at a bar, or even a little ensemble playing on the street.

    This is super uncommon in the North – usually if there’s live music, that’s the main event of the thing we’re going to. Otherwise if there’s music it’s just playing off a playlist, not live performers. Live music on the street is also not that common.

  30. I’ve lived in Texas and Louisiana. I’m a native NYer.

    The south is far more easy going. The north is always hustling.

    That’s the biggest difference I noticed.

  31. Southerners think that Northerners think they are better than them. Northerners know they are.

  32. The problem is that you’re kind of lumpy in a bunch of different places together. New England and the Midwest and New York City are all in the North and they are all very different from each other.

    Appalachia and the deep South and Virginia are all in the south and are all very different than each other.

    And then you’ve got places like Pennsylvania that probably has more in common with West Virginia and Kentucky than it does New England or Indiana. So it gets complicated.

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