My fellow Americans –
Growing up in Massachusetts, a townie is someone from Sommerville/Southie/Charlestown who chain-smokes in workboots outside of a dunks, with a Boston accent.
If you’re not from MA, and you hear ‘Townie’ – do you think of this type of Boston stereotype, is ‘Townie’ different in your neck of the woods? have you heard of this word before?
41 comments
I don’t normally hear that word but I assume it means someone who is from a certain town. Someone who is obviously a local. At least, that’s how I’ve always interpreted that word.
In most places, especially college towns or tourist destinations, a townie is someone who lives there in a manner unrelated to the college or tourism.
It doesn’t really mean anything. I’ve never heard someone say it in person.
My grandparents lived in East Lansing, which is of course home to Michigan State University. Townie referred to the folks that lived there but were not students or even directly employed by the university.
It wasn’t a common term, more of a clarification. “He lives off Grand River.” “Oh, does he go to school up there?” “No, just a Townie.”
Someone who lives in a place that is notable for its college or university, who is unaffiliated with the college or university.
A “Townie” is someone who was born and raised in town, is known everywhere as being born and raised in said town, and has no chance of ever leaving said town.
I’ve never heard it used here in Florida. I always thought it was specific to someone from the south side of Boston. Kind of like Yuper.
Someone who lives in a touristy town. The opposite of a fudgie.
Anyone local at a college town or touristy area. A large group of us goes to Wisconsin Dells once a year to bar hop for St. Patrick’s and we call one of the local bars the townie bar because it’s mostly the non-tourist people who hang out there.
I have heard it before, but it isn’t something I have ever heard people say in the south. We usually refer to permanent residents of college or tourist areas as locals.
I wouldn’t know what somebody meant if they said townie
When I was at a college (WFU) in a medium-sized city in North Carolina, it referred to people around our same age who were from the area or otherwise local, but usually not affiliated with the college. Using the term definitely had judgemental/condescending/classist undertones, but most of the people our age we interacted with were people we met at local dive bars once the socializing moved off campus, so it was associated with alcoholic/druggie vibes. But we were going to the same places and doing the same things.
To me “townie” sounds really outdated. Like calling someone a “rascal.”
Growing up in NC, I heard the term in two contexts: college-age people born and raised in Chapel Hill Chapel Hill (a college town), that don’t attend UNC. And people living in or around the Outer Banks (a tourist area) and working in the local restaurants etc.
In both cases, “Townie” carries a negative classist connotation, e.g. “That loser townie keeps crashing our frat parties” or “Those townies are crowding the beach” and I invariably conclude that the person using the term is an elitist snob. Maybe it has different connotations in MA, but I’d be careful about using that term to describe people.
Casey Affleck in every role he’s ever had… especially the SNL Dunkin Donuts commercial.
Means the same thing it does to you lol
As other people have mentioned, it’s a term used frequently in college towns to indicate someone who lives there but doesn’t have an affiliation with the university. It can have negative connotations but not always.
I would also expand the definition to people who are from a touristy town and live there year round.
A “Townie” is a local permanent resident in a town or city with a large seasonal or transient population. Examples are a persons who are indigenous to a college or a tourist town, especially when they are a student or at a tourist attraction or resort.
It’s typically a term used to refer to people who live someplace year round that has a large seasonal/migratory population… I’ve heard it used for people who happen to live in a college town but aren’t associated with the school vs. students, professors, etc. associated with the school; I’ve heard it referring to people who live in/near vacation spots vs. the tourists and people who have summer homes, go to summer camp, etc. but live elsewhere most of the year.
Townie is the name of the already created characters in the Sims games.
Never heard it used in any other way.
Outside of movies with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, I don’t think this is a word I’ve ever really encountered.
We don’t use the term townie but we certainly have something similar in the NYC area. Picture your stereotypical white construction worker or firefighter from NY. Picture the white trash associated with Staten Island and some parts of Jersey, Queens and Long Island.
All I think about is Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and their string of MA based movies 🤷🏻♀️
Never heard that term before.
A native of a town with many non natives such as a a town with a college or military base.
I’ve never heard this term. I’ve lived in the southeast all my life.
Absolutely nothing. I’ve never heard that.
Townie to me is just someone born and raised in a small town that never leaves. I’ve never heard it used any other way.
Someone who lives in a “University” town, but doesn’t attend or work at said U.
It’s an insult, 99 times out of 100.
I think of someone who is a lifelong resident of a town/city and will most likely live there and never leave until they die. They’re blue collar, sorta trashy, and have a very insular outlook. They hate outsiders moving into what they see as “their” town, and are very quick to disparage any changes, real or imagined, to “their” town.
You meant to say “growing up near Boston, a townie was…”
It doesn’t mean that in the rest of MA. It just means someone who lives in their dinky town and never left.
The term townie isn’t used in Arizona. I feel like it’s a back east term specifically common in New England.
Also reading this thread I had no idea this was a regional term till now. The more you know!
Huh? Isn’t a townie just a bike?
It’s not a word people say in the region I grew up in, or the region I currently live in. I always thought it was a mildly derogatory term used by rural people who live in isolated areas unincorporated by any municipality, about people who live in towns.
Reading the comments in this thread is pretty enlightening. I was pretty far off the mark. The good news is that I never used the word myself, so I haven’t been *misusing* it, just misunderstanding it. Which is far less embarrassing.
“Townie” is a term heard mostly, or even exclusively, in college towns. It reflects a social divide between students at the college or university, and non-students of the same age living in the surrounding community. Sometimes the division is real, and sometimes it is greatly exaggerated or even wholly imaginary.
Not at all. “Townie” simply means you live in your hometown whether that is San Francisco or a tiny suburb of LA called Claremont or you live in Cotton Plant,AR.
*If you live in your hometown you are a “townie.”*
The concept of townies doesn’t really fit in the DC area population, so we just don’t really use that word.
But I agree with other comments. To me a townie would be a year round resident in a mostly transient location like a college town or beach town. Someone who was already going to be there independent of what the town has to offer for outsiders. So like, professors don’t count as townies even though they may be there for several decades and have kids in the local schools etc.
>Growing up in Massachusetts, a townie is someone from Sommerville/Southie/Charlestown who chain-smokes in workboots outside of a dunks, with a Boston accent.
Also from MA, and I feel like you left out something important–the guy you’re describing isn’t a townie because he works a blue collar job and lives in a blue collar neighborhood/town. He’s a townie because he never left the town (or neighborhood, or maybe even block) he grew up in.
So in some contexts, a townie is someone who never left the town (or neighborhood) they grew up in. In other contexts (like others have said), it’s someone who lives in a college/resort town but isn’t associated with the local education/tourism industry.
I’m in California, been here most of my life. I have never used this or heard anyone use it in reference to an American. I would automatically assume they were talking about an Australian person.
It means nothing to me. Today was the first time I have heard the term. (Have lived in Va, NC, MI, MN, and now TX)
never heard it