6 ms·

As a new englander, living in the PNW, dreaming of returning to california sun, I sure do miss my time in the midwest (although i've never been to Minnesota spe

As a new englander, living in the PNW, dreaming of returning to california sun, I sure do miss my time in the midwest (although i've never been to Minnesota specifically). Obviously you can't generalize everyone, but the people i met in the MW were way nicer than the people i knew from the east coast or west coast. I've been invited into many strangers homes as if i was a close friend. Very few people seem to be captured by a blind viral drive towards success the way you find in places like NYC or SF, and instead people are just happy and enjoy their position in life. (not to say people don't do good work, or don't succeed at goals). If you dream of a nice middle class life, with a quaint house and a nice family, and all that jazz, it seems like a great place to be, and a culture that wants you to have it... if you're straight and white and "normal". The weather sure does suck though. Hot summers, cold snowy winters. Worse than new england, with less money to keep roads and infra in shape. That said, i find myself every fall on the west coast missing "real fall" where the leaves change and the brisk wind cools you down outside as you can see your breath. Throwing on a soft flannel and grabbing something warm to drink while you stand outside and enjoy nature...

coldpie 5y ago
> The weather sure does suck though. Ahhhhh you gotta embrace it and find the good in it or you'll just resent everything :) St Paulite here. This morning it was 9 degrees F on the way to the bus. The snow has a beautiful, sparkling layer of ice from the rainy drizzle we got the other day. Most of the plants were covered in a thin coating of ice, the streetlights reflecting through them looked like inverted icicles. It's snowing now, we'll probably get 2" this afternoon, lovely to crunch through.
- jcims 5y ago
  I live in Ohio and it's probably my faulty memory at work but it seems that our winters used to be much more like what you describe. I can distinctly recall hunting deer in -20F weather in the 80s and my cheap plastic orange vest just disintegrating as I walk. Lots of weekends and evenings spent sledding or trying to optimize packing vs throwing in a good snowball fight (afterall it's not good until someone bleeds, right?) Aside from a nice blast of snow last year, it seems that our winters are now largely an indiscriminate blah of slush and rain and I'm tired. Need to relocate north or south and i can't figure out which.
- semireg 5y ago
  It's always 80°F inside my jacket. Like the saying goes, "no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing."
- Auracle 5y ago
  I live an hour or so south of St. Cloud - you should have seen that ice on my drive yesterday. It covered the long grass that’s still around along with the trees and it was backlit by the sun making everything sparkle.
wincy 5y ago
The “if you’re straight and white and normal” sure doesn’t track with my experience. I’m a software engineer in Overland Park, Kansas, and live in a middle class neighborhood in the suburbs. Cows a mile one way and IKEA the other way. It’s the “American Dream” town, and it’s MORE diverse than when I lived in the city. My neighbors are Indian and Jordanian, Kenyan, Chinese, Vietnamese, Pakistani, African American, Caucasian (some from US, some from other countries). I bought this house from a Nepalese couple based on their names.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- packetlost 5y ago
  This is absolutely not the experience if you live in Wisconsin. Well over 80% of people here are white.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    Because it's full of German immigrants. Do you want them to hate themselves because they're a specific skin color? Would you say something similar about people's skin color if you went to Nigeria? What's your point with a comment like this? Yes America is majority white and those percentages are higher in some areas. It's not a problem.
    - sohdas 5y ago
      He's just saying that the Midwest (eg. Wisconsin) is not generally as diverse as Overland Park, which is true. You should examine what made you react so strongly to this.
      - CountDrewku 5y ago
        You should probably examine the comment at the top of the chain he/she responded to and think it over a little harder.
    - 5y ago
CountDrewku 5y ago
>if you're straight and white and "normal" Why did you feel it was necessary to put that in your comment? Are you upset that a specific skin color of people decided to migrate to the Midwest? Did you witness lgbtq or people of certain skin colors being run out of town or receiving some sort of prejudice? Or are you being bigoted and just saying that due to their specific skin color and life choices they want people with different lifestyles to not enjoy prosperity?
- bserge 5y ago
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Did you witness lgbtq or people of certain skin colors being run out of town or receiving some sort of prejudice? It's been a pretty consistent report of people I know who are visibly not “straight and white and ‘normal’” and whose prior US experience is limited to relatively cosmopolitan coastal areas who visit the Midwest (urban areas other otherwise) that not only does the WASP-normativity seem higher, but even minorities engage in more and more aggressive self-segregation from visibly different minorities, to the point of active avoidance on the street. Oddly, people who are or pass as “straight and white and ‘normal’” are much less likely to report this, and often seem surprised to hear it from others.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    - vineyardmike 5y ago
      - CountDrewku 5y ago
  - 5y ago
light_hue_1 5y ago
> if you're straight and white and "normal". Yup. That sums my experiences up nicely, although I would add "if you're straight and white and 'normal' and don't care about how people treat anyone else".
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Obviously you can't generalize everyone, but the people i met in the MW were way nicer than the people i knew from the east coast or west coast. > it seems like a great place to be, and a culture that wants you to have it... if you're straight and white and "normal". That suggests that you are using a definition of “nice” that many people (especially those who are not, but even many who are, unless the last term includes bigotry within its ambit) straight and white and “normal” would rather strongly disagree with.
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  > the people i met in the MW were way nicer than the people i knew from the east coast or west coast. The people i met were way more polite than people elsewhere. Thats what nice meant. > it seems like a great place to be... It seems to be a place that is rewarding to be in and will make you happy (if you fit in and want their cultural norms). Normal in this context = Want a quaint middle class hetero nuclear white-picket-fence american-dream style life and you're also polite and friendly just like those around you. Many people want that, especially "all american" people who grew up (white, middleclass, american) with that experience themselves (and american propoganda). No bigotry implied... thats not everyones experience, but its probably the "normal" for a native Midwesterner (from my time there).
darknavi 5y ago
> the people i met in the MW were way nicer than the people i knew from the east coast or west coast. I read once something along the lines of "People in New York say 'fuck off' but mean 'have a good one' where as people in California say 'have a good one' but mean 'fuck off'" I am from the Seattle area and prefer neither of those scenarios because we are often fairly introverted (see the "Seattle Freeze").

coldpie 5y ago

> The weather sure does suck though. Ahhhhh you gotta embrace it and find the good in it or you'll just resent everything :) St Paulite here. This morning it was 9 degrees F on the way to the bus. The snow has a beautiful, sparkling layer of ice from the rainy drizzle we got the other day. Most of the plants were covered in a thin coating of ice, the streetlights reflecting through them looked like inverted icicles. It's snowing now, we'll probably get 2" this afternoon, lovely to crunch through.

jcims 5y ago
I live in Ohio and it's probably my faulty memory at work but it seems that our winters used to be much more like what you describe. I can distinctly recall hunting deer in -20F weather in the 80s and my cheap plastic orange vest just disintegrating as I walk. Lots of weekends and evenings spent sledding or trying to optimize packing vs throwing in a good snowball fight (afterall it's not good until someone bleeds, right?) Aside from a nice blast of snow last year, it seems that our winters are now largely an indiscriminate blah of slush and rain and I'm tired. Need to relocate north or south and i can't figure out which.
semireg 5y ago
It's always 80°F inside my jacket. Like the saying goes, "no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing."
Auracle 5y ago
I live an hour or so south of St. Cloud - you should have seen that ice on my drive yesterday. It covered the long grass that’s still around along with the trees and it was backlit by the sun making everything sparkle.

wincy 5y ago

The “if you’re straight and white and normal” sure doesn’t track with my experience. I’m a software engineer in Overland Park, Kansas, and live in a middle class neighborhood in the suburbs. Cows a mile one way and IKEA the other way. It’s the “American Dream” town, and it’s MORE diverse than when I lived in the city. My neighbors are Indian and Jordanian, Kenyan, Chinese, Vietnamese, Pakistani, African American, Caucasian (some from US, some from other countries). I bought this house from a Nepalese couple based on their names.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
packetlost 5y ago
This is absolutely not the experience if you live in Wisconsin. Well over 80% of people here are white.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Because it's full of German immigrants. Do you want them to hate themselves because they're a specific skin color? Would you say something similar about people's skin color if you went to Nigeria? What's your point with a comment like this? Yes America is majority white and those percentages are higher in some areas. It's not a problem.
  - sohdas 5y ago
    He's just saying that the Midwest (eg. Wisconsin) is not generally as diverse as Overland Park, which is true. You should examine what made you react so strongly to this.
    - CountDrewku 5y ago
      You should probably examine the comment at the top of the chain he/she responded to and think it over a little harder.
  - 5y ago

CountDrewku 5y ago

>if you're straight and white and "normal" Why did you feel it was necessary to put that in your comment? Are you upset that a specific skin color of people decided to migrate to the Midwest? Did you witness lgbtq or people of certain skin colors being run out of town or receiving some sort of prejudice? Or are you being bigoted and just saying that due to their specific skin color and life choices they want people with different lifestyles to not enjoy prosperity?

bserge 5y ago
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Did you witness lgbtq or people of certain skin colors being run out of town or receiving some sort of prejudice? It's been a pretty consistent report of people I know who are visibly not “straight and white and ‘normal’” and whose prior US experience is limited to relatively cosmopolitan coastal areas who visit the Midwest (urban areas other otherwise) that not only does the WASP-normativity seem higher, but even minorities engage in more and more aggressive self-segregation from visibly different minorities, to the point of active avoidance on the street. Oddly, people who are or pass as “straight and white and ‘normal’” are much less likely to report this, and often seem surprised to hear it from others.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    - CountDrewku 5y ago
- 5y ago

light_hue_1 5y ago

> if you're straight and white and "normal". Yup. That sums my experiences up nicely, although I would add "if you're straight and white and 'normal' and don't care about how people treat anyone else".

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Obviously you can't generalize everyone, but the people i met in the MW were way nicer than the people i knew from the east coast or west coast. > it seems like a great place to be, and a culture that wants you to have it... if you're straight and white and "normal". That suggests that you are using a definition of “nice” that many people (especially those who are not, but even many who are, unless the last term includes bigotry within its ambit) straight and white and “normal” would rather strongly disagree with.

vineyardmike 5y ago
> the people i met in the MW were way nicer than the people i knew from the east coast or west coast. The people i met were way more polite than people elsewhere. Thats what nice meant. > it seems like a great place to be... It seems to be a place that is rewarding to be in and will make you happy (if you fit in and want their cultural norms). Normal in this context = Want a quaint middle class hetero nuclear white-picket-fence american-dream style life and you're also polite and friendly just like those around you. Many people want that, especially "all american" people who grew up (white, middleclass, american) with that experience themselves (and american propoganda). No bigotry implied... thats not everyones experience, but its probably the "normal" for a native Midwesterner (from my time there).

darknavi 5y ago

> the people i met in the MW were way nicer than the people i knew from the east coast or west coast. I read once something along the lines of "People in New York say 'fuck off' but mean 'have a good one' where as people in California say 'have a good one' but mean 'fuck off'" I am from the Seattle area and prefer neither of those scenarios because we are often fairly introverted (see the "Seattle Freeze").