Why does everyone hate/mock/ridicule Birmingham?

24 comments

1. As an American I love Birmingham! It’s the birthplace of Ozzy and Black Sabbath sound. I was cutting through an old alley and the song war pigs came to mind. I dig that town.

2. I think a lot of people who have a negative opinion of Birmingham, base it on the post-industrial areas on the motorway outside the city.

   The city centre has had a lot of investment and regeneration in recent years. I think it’s a great place for a city break.

3. I don’t believe that ‘everyone’ does. My mother, for example, would have no idea.

4. Birmingham gave the World Jeff Lynne, I am grateful to Brum for that!

5. It’s a “done” thing to do I suppose. These things get their own momentum.

   The accent is awful and certainly the last time I was there (I was in a hotel near the bullring) just before covid there was a really shocking number of rough sleepers.

   On the plus side there’s some lovely pubs and I’ve generally found Brummies and Black Country people to be really lovely – assuming you can understand them.

6. As someone that lives in Birmingham I’d say it doesn’t get that much hate. The black country/Brummie accent does get ridiculed but the same can be said for other regional accents across the country.

   Not everyone’s bought up speaking Queen’s English, yaaah.

7. I like the place but I do only go for gigs, shopping and the Christmas market. So my experience is always linked to good things.

8. I don’t hate the people from there any more than I hate anyone else, I live quite close in fact, but I think it’s pretty dull compared to our other larger cities. Liverpool and Manchester are hubs of culture, you’ve got football rivalries, iconic music history. York has the architecture and history and Vikings, London is London and then Birmingham is…y’know, a place. It’s just suffered from it being in an industrial area. It’s not fancy or exotic or futuristic or a cultural heavyweight.

   Try and pick the odd one out here from a list of ‘second cities’.

   Milan, Rotterdam, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Zagreb, Montreal, Abu Dhabi, Rio de Janeiro, Busan, Yokohama, Porto, Birmingham.

9. Because it is a god forsaken shit hole… some good restaurants though

10. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone that insulted Birmingham, the worst I’ve witnessed is people doing wildly exaggerated accents.

    As far as I’m personally concerned, Jasper Carrott is a treasure. I remember when he made me howl laughing reading [insurance claims](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQJn4qX1YHU), not to mention The Detectives.

11. Because they’ve never been to Walsall. Or Nuneaton.

    ​

    Unfair, but…

    I don’t know, I don’t think it’s fair, as I rather like the city, but I think it’s to do with “punching beneath its weight” culturally. And the reasons for that are complex….

    Manchester had a trendier music scene (a lot of good popular music from Brum and nearby, just not trendy for the most part). Liverpool and Manchester have better football teams, generally. And Brum is maybe just about too close to London (and maybe Bristol too) to be a big regional cultural centre in a way that its population size really ought to make it.

    Plus the legacy of “Crossroads” and the accent.

    In the past I’ve have mentioned the disastrous town planning decisions of the 1960s/70s, but at least some of the more egregious atrocities committed then, at least in the very centre of the city, have been revised for the better.

12. Have you heard the way people from Birmingham say Birmingham? It’s high value. But never met a brummy I didn’t like. Went to the NEC once it’s fairy big.

13. Jealousy

    And I intend to reply to every reply with “jealous”

14. Only been to Birmingham twice. First to see Counting Crows at the O2 Academy and then to see Nightwish at the Resort World Arena. Everyone I met was really friendly and pleasant to chat to. Obviously it isn’t representative of the entire city, but I never felt particularly unsafe. It has its share of sketchy areas, but you could say the same for pretty much everywhere else.

    As someone who lives in Stoke-On-Trent you could do much, much worse than Birmingham.

15. A lot of it harks back to the big redevelopment it received in the 60s. Brutalist, soulless structures. The accent is often mimicked when portraying a stupid person.

16. i don’t hate birmingham but i do find the brummie accent so funny/quirky. there are actually a lot of really nice spots up in black country

17. They don’t.

    Utterly bizarre statement to make.

    You’ve imagined that – I don’t think Birmingham gets any particular attention than any other city for ridicule.

18. Cat Deelay. BUUUURRRMINGUM

19. People on here bash London too.

20. I find with the UK most towns/cities are just the same, a lot of shitty disgusting areas but also a lot of peaceful nice areas. We focus on the negative because A. We’re British and B. Things are collapsing around us so it’s hard to think about the positives.
    Personally I’d never go to Birmingham incase I get cut by the peaky fookin’ blinders.

21. I feel like Jeremy Clarkson made a joke once on Top Gear circa 2005 and everyone just jumped on the bandwagon.

    The accent doesn’t help us either.

22. It’s a shithole that makes me feel completely uncomfortable and alienated whenever I’ve visited

23. I think it has a lot to do with not being considered north by Northerners but not south by southerners. So when it’s bashed it’s not stuck up for by a “tribe” and then it’s an easier and easier target as the cycle continues.

24. Can someone explain why some people pronounce it “Birminam.”