To preface this, my father’s family are about as redneck as can be, to the point of white trash. My mother’s family is a bit more……genteel, but still country.
I was not raised with all this raised truck, camo everywhere, dipping (I didn’t even know dip was a thing because all my family smoked), etc bullshit I see in the burbs now. I don’t even remember it being popular as a kid and I don’t have any relatives that dress in anything other than Walmart and Goodwill clothes. Maybe Tractor Supply if they have extra money.
When did this happen? It’s even spread to Canada, which is hilarious.
25 comments
I have a theory, but I am trying not to wallow in cynicism so early in the morning.
> It’s even spread to Canada, which is hilarious.
Rednecks can be found in any nation or culture, even if the moniker and trappings are different. It didn’t “spread to” Canada, it’s been there.
There’s always been hillbillies in Canada I thought. I mean, trailer park boys is from Canada
Country music got popular with suburban kids
August 17, 1999 was the day the edict came down in Michigan, I remember it like it was yesterday.
Across small towns and exurbs in the state, agents from the Office of the Governor deployed with their marching orders. Families were randomly selected, they were issued a copy of the new [Kid Rock single](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glb2U6y-GdU), [“Cowboy”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_(Kid_Rock_song)), and a new social movement of faux redneck began.
Looks at Southern redneck culture since the 1990s
Looks to be about since the 1990s for the South
There’s this thing I’ve heard called being “prolier than.thou”, where people affect being folksier than they actually are, for some kind of cred. Is that what you mean?
9/11’s fault probably.
This idea that Canada has this pristine, non-American culture is strange to me. Our cultures are 90% the same, including the differences between rural and urban.
We aren’t the genesis of it. That’s just how it is. Our symbols are embraced by them, but that doesn’t mean they are faking it.
Even in Europe the idea of “villager” versus “city” is basically the same. It’s universal. The symbolism is American because, well, we’re great at branding.
It’s roots are in the racist backlash to Obama’s election.
Hm. Well, I knew plenty of guys in the military who did all that “bullshit” who were definitely not from “the burbs” (some live there now, but have not fully converted), but…I guess it was fake.
This kind of reminds me of this one hilarious argument between a guy from Georgia (I think) and some guys from Ohio wherein the former insisted that being a “redneck” was for Southerners only and that the guys from Ohio were really just faking it with…all the things you listed and a few more. Once they’d gone through their best legitimate rebuttals (“I own a pickup truck because I worked on a farm and construction sites”; “I dip because I can’t smoke on the job”; “I wear camouflage because I hunt and that’s what was clean today”), things got weirdly idiosyncratic and kinda personal.
Then, a senior guy (from the burbs, BTW) came along and asked (it was rhetorical): “are you [not excessively intelligent gentlemen] seriously fighting over who’s the *one trash to rule them all*?”
I noticed it when I got to high school in the early 2000s. It was always weird to me to see some kid wearing Carhartt with dirty boots saying they were “country as fuck” when their parents were both lawyers and they lived in a million dollar home. I mean you do you, but it just seemed weird to me since I went to school with actual farm kids who really were country.
I guess it had to do with kids wanting to be different from their parents. Kids who grew up in the 90s in the suburbs likely had parents who were 1980s yuppies. They wanted to be vastly different and that took on a country persona.
Country music also became way more pop in the late 90s/early 00s too so more people started listening to it. They liked the ideas being presented in the songs and started exploring more. Now we have “country rap” which is contributing more to a crossover.
What it true vs faux redneck?
I mean what does it mean to be redneck?
I thought redneck was a negative term. There’s lots of country people but country people here only called “trashy” people a redneck. Like people that were rude and inconsiderate neighbors, some level of criminality, crass.
Idk sounds like gatekeeping to me
Perhaps you’ve only just noticed this now. It’s almost definitely been a thing as far as I can remember. Growing up in the 80s and going to school in the 90s in central Florida.
Although it does seem to be much more prevalent now. It’s actually quite strange to see. I know some people who I would say came from pretty nice middle class families and definitely not country at all. Introducing themselves or their significant others as “Rednecks” it’s almost like a costume change. And like that they’ve completely changed who they are.
We call them goat ropers around here. Dipping is what really gets me, growing up I knew exactly zero people who dipped.
I can tell you one of the experiences I had with this was encountering some guy that had Appalachian American plastered on his truck. Then proceeded to say Appalachia wrong and not to mention no one says they are Appalachian American, unless your the Dukes of Hazard. We say Appalachian by its self.
In 1990, Garth Brook’s album No Fences hit #1 on the US Billboard Top 200 chart (not the country chart – the big one). That had The Thunder Rolls – a huge hit – and Friends in Low Places – a massive hit. Country music crossed over into the pop scene in a big way at that point (not for the first time, but in a broader way than had happened before). With country music came country style and all of a sudden every suburban kid in America and Canada was sporting wrangler jeans, cowboy hats or gimme caps, and a dip ring worn into their back pocket.
By 1993, you had Jeff Foxworthy topping the comedy album charts with You Might Be a Redneck If… and he and his wannabes were dominating stand up (and stand up was huge at the time in general, with stand up shows on every channel at night).
Also in 1993, Bill Clinton swept into office. Southern child of a widowed mother, he wasn’t a redneck but he had that same sort of country/Americana feel that was so popular at the time.
And it just grew from there. It took an ugly turn after 9/11, when artists like Toby “‘Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass/It’s the American way” Keith started putting out shitty hyper-patriotic singles. That looped a lot more violence and nationalism (always accompanied quietly by racism and hate of the other, of course) into the scene and young white men loved it. That helped split the more working class country feeling from the I’m a redneck and fuck you feeling.
And so on. So, basically, faux redneck culture has been popular since 1990 and it just comes and goes in waves.
>I was not raised with all this raised truck, camo everywhere, dipping
And I was (I’m in my late 40s), and that area wasn’t even as rural as some parts of Texas. Guess it just varies by area.
As the great philosopher Jeff Foxworthy once said… “There are rednecks everywhere, not just in the South.”
Conversely, I absolutely love it and it shows how a culture that has its origins from a specific place can genuinely resonate with other people.
I see it but I’m Iowa and grew up in Nebraska. I think it’s due to people either from the country or have family there and pick up country lifestyle even if they are suburban kids. My cousin is like this. Her Dad grew up on a farm and she loves country music and dresses in that style but grew up in suburban Omaha. Granted she’s dating a farmer now.
We have them in Norway too
https://norskredneck.no/
There was another reality show about poor people in Norway and one of them had a car with decked out in confederate imagery
I believe it started in the early 2000s with the mainstream increase in country music because of popular singers like Toby Keith and then country artist Taylor Swift, as well as comedians such as Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy. I distinctly remember my parents falling into this trend in the early 2000s despite living in the suburbs but then they gradually grew out of it and went back to their normal “the ’80s were cool” selves. Eventually, faux redneck culture started to blend with the southern pride movement, but i’m not sure when that occurred.
I’m a software engineer, I have a carhartt jacket I love cause it’s comfortable, warm, high quality clothing, that looks good. I wear boots a fair amount cause it’s muddy or snowy. I drive a truck because it’s practical, I like being able to throw shit in the back and haul around bikes/snowmobiles/dirt bikes without a trailer.
I’m not trying to pretend I’m something I’m not. I’m a yuppie, I’ll fully admit that, but I just find the “country” style practical and I like the way it looks so 🤷