I moved to Hollywood, CA from Rockford, IL to live with my father when I was 14 years old. When I started school at the end of Summer there my mid-western accen

I moved to Hollywood, CA from Rockford, IL to live with my father when I was 14 years old. When I started school at the end of Summer there my mid-western accent really stood out and I took quite a bit of ribbing over that. The kids there called me a "Hillbilly" because of my accent. But down in Texas, where I spent a summer a few years before that kids there called me a "Yankee" based on my accent. But what stood out to me in Hollywood was how many "cliques" there were there. One of the first things kids there told me is I had to join one. They said I could choose from "BMX'ers, Surfers, Skateboarders, Freaks, Motocrossers, Bikers, Stoners" and probably a few others. Each of those groups had their own phrases and very distinct accents and you had to talk and dress like them to be a part of that clique. So, I think one could easily conclude the same thing about speech for skateboarders as pot smokers or any other social clique. But I don't think you could detect that influence with my speech, even though I've smoked weed since before I moved to Hollywood 48 years ago. You almost certainly could detect I'm from the mid-west though.