THANK YOU. coming from a place where it is endemic and now living in the NE I was very confused about the love my rehab roomie had for it until she told me all about her extensive cop and conservative family and it clicked. Everyone else up here that listens to it that I personally have met is the same, and it’s never the kind of stuff I don’t mind hearing either (George jones or Gary Stewart or Delbert McClinton or even some patty loveless or juice newton). It’s always the trucks n flags n eagles shit, kinda reinforces the point
It can totally be conspicuous consumption. Have you ever tried to buy a new pair of cowboy boots? That shit is expensive. As is a lot of the other trappings of the genre/aesthetic like big trucks. Plus there's an entire subset of people who spend a ridiculous amount of money to look like they're dudes helping out on the family farm.
That's not a country only thing but it definitely rubs people the wrong way.
Growing up I had to listen to Toby Keith singing about putting a boot up Bin Laden's ass so many times it's permanently burned into my brain even though I lived north of the Mason-Dixon at the time.
You're right though, so many people here think they're rugged country men while listening to a pop music with fake southern accents by people that grew up in rich suburbs.
I was eating Korean food for lunch today at a new restaurant and the food was really good but they were playing that basic, country-esque White people music and it was terrible. I was like "Why, God?”
Feel your pain. You mean I'm a leftist, have objectively good taste but of all places I was born in nowheresville, Ohio? And I'm too poor to ever leave, let alone live in a "progressive" part of the country.
Ok God, what horrible thing did I do in a past life? This seems mean-spirited.
My high school band wrote a country song called "dead dog in a pick up truck" that talked about how my wife left me so we could audition to play at a local bar (which looking back was super sketchy to allow us in to begin with.)
I always hated country music but got into it with Johnny Cashs American Recordings and after watching Ken Burns documentation "Country Music" I am even more open to it. It is a kind of grassroot music, music of the people.
something something white cultural identification something
edit: I mean this seriously, I just can't remember what the exact terminology is for "participating in this [country music] culture as a way of reaffirming whiteness and the status quo that comes with it"
Never been to Tennessee but I guess that's all they play there. The radio stations are all country, talk shows, or gospel. No hip hop, rock, R&B, jazz...nothing. Person I knew was telling me about it, but maybe things have changed in the last 15ish years.
because it takes longer to say that I hate a certain predominant type of country music that is overwhelmingly the most likely to be heard in any public space or around almost anyone who “loves country” who isn’t a music head or a comrade. Like that’s a long ass sentence
Nickelback (or the contemporary equivalent) is terrible and ubiquitous, but you don't see people saying "fuck, I hate rock music" without qualification.
Not even saying I hate it, it’s pretty neutral to me, I just don’t get why it has such a hold on people not from the country or the south or rural areas.
A whole genre about how Hitler was the coolest thing ever, but with generous verses about how pollution, burning crosses in klan robes, swastikas and violence makes you a badass? That sums up the white psyche almost perfectly.