How is your region portrayed in pop culture?

Well, there is I-49, which I'd rate the worst 200-mile stretch of highway anywhere.

 

There are some differences from Murphy to Manteo. "Vastly" different? Dunno about that. Dunno that it's any different from many other fairly large states in that there are transitions in landscape and the natives as one goes from Point A to B.

Folks in WNC probably prefer the mountains, while much of ENC likes the beach (though there are exceptions ... ). I could see your point about WNC merging with eastern Tennessee, though ... the Piedmont and ENC aren't that much different, excepting that ENC doesn't feel a fraction as metro as the Triangle, Triad and Charlotte Metro do in the Piedmont.

 

Yeah, but that triangle formed between I-49, I-10 and I-20 to the north is very much a land that time forgot.

 

Just some thoughts that hit me during a second glance at the "South" discussion:

1) The South appears to be shrinking. Nobody ever says a place "used to be" in the Northeast, West, Midwest or Southwest. But "used to be" gets said about the South all the time. Is the South endangered?

2) Southerners believe it much smaller than non-southerners: The Michigan native says it begins south of Indianapolis, the southerner says it barely goes past Tennessee; the northerner says Va's south begins at Fredericksburg, the southerner says it barely includes Va's southwest corner, etc. Guess it just depends on what perceptions you're used to, Kentuckians sure look, talk and act like Southerners to me, but I suppose to a Mississippian they might not.

3) There's a contiguous region that includes much of Kentucky, southern Indiana, southernmost Illinois, much of Arkansas, and southern Missouri that shares a very similar hybrid culture that is part southern, part midwestern, but not squarely either. It's also a pretty damn rednecked region. Wonder if any anthropologist has identified and labeled it yet.

 

I live in Central Virginia. I'd say I live in the South, but not the Deep South. Of course I grew up in a state that fought for the Union, so natives might disagree with me.

 

The Meth Belt?
OneToothia?
If you extend it eastward a bit you can put parts of Tennessee in there as well and call it Hillbilly Land.

 

I like the Meth Belt. Redneckistan and Hicksylvania popped in my head, but the Meth Belt is clearly better.

 

Boston is the world's biggest college town and our economy is total hi-tech and dependent on immigrants from India, China, etc. In my town, Lexington, the median house price is $500,000 and 25 percent of the population are Asian or Asian American.
And our image in pop culture has been Robert Mitchum in "The Friends of Eddie Coyle," "Good Will Hunting," and the "Nomahh" sketch on SNL. It's pathetic. Or, as the French say "nostalgie de la boue." Which means nostalgia for the mud -- a mud that pretty much doesn't exist anymore. Holy Toledo, housing in Southie is more expensive than housing in Lexington on a square foot basis.
The weird thing is, people in Boston hate the pop culture image, but if you made a TV program about a bunch of Asian high-tech employees here on temp visas, or students at MIT, they'd hate that even worse.

 

Weird. I kind of like Hicksylvania. Really describes most of the people who live there.

 

a. Elizabeth City and Murphy have about as much in common as, well, nothing. (and if I every have to go cover a game at Eliz City State again I'll scream. Super nice folks. Great spread in the press box but my gosh that's a long haul.)

b. Whaaaaaaat? I spend quit a bit of time in Duplin County and it's culturally on level terms with New York, Paris, London and Rome. Heck, they've got a winery. ;D

 

Some of this is people applying one label to too wide an area. El Paso and Richmond, for example, are much further apart than Boston and D.C. Some states (Florida, southern Louisiana, Texas) are really regions/cultures unto themselves, and some of those (Texas) have multiple regions in them.

When I lived in Boston, they considered anything south of DC "the South." When I lived in Nashville, they considered everything south of them "the South." When I lived in Texas, they considered everything east of Louisiana or south of Arkansas "the South" except for Florida. When I've visited my dad's family in Georgia, they considered only Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama "the South." When you actually get to know the cultures down there, you can find distinct differences between the true Deep South (those three) and the bordering states. There's a difference in the rednecks you find in Georgia and the hillbillys you find in Tennessee and the Ozarks.

A basic rule of thumb is to follow the barbeque styles. If you reach an area with a wildly different style of bbq (vinegar vs. none, beef vs. pork), then you're in a new region in the south.

And that's before you get to freaking Texas, which has at least seven distinctly different regions in one stupid state. You've got the Piney Woods/east Texas, Northeast Texas (aka, DFW and sprawl), the Gulf Coast (aka, Houston and sprawl plus Corpus and Padre), Central Texas/Hill Country (San Antonio and Austin), the Valley + El Paso, West Texas and finally the godforsaken Panhandle, which is really closer to Kansas than Texas.

Most pop culture portrays Texas as West Texas or the Valley, though there's a definitely from 1980s era Dallas.