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I Need to Vent a bit About this Video


Gianni1122

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Wall Of Text. Sorry for the rant.

This morning, I happened across the video below while surfing YouTube. The channel is Buzzfeed and the people on it are mostly from/on the west coast. The video is them reacting to people from other countries doing American accents. Yes, the foreign guys and gals (I can forgive them) are doing mostly stereotypical accents of Americans, but the problem I have lies with the people reacting. 

When the "reactors" start talking about how Midwest accents sound, they get it so wrong that it genuinely angers me. The accent they claim to be "Midwest" is actually (almost exclusively) only heard in northernmost Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin and even then, it's relatively rare. I'm also fairly certain Canadians would agree that the whole "about sounds like a-boot" thing is not very common and is mostly stereotypical. This helps confirm my assumption that (not all but many of) the Americans living on the east and west coasts have NO *expletive* CLUE about the states they call "flyovers". 

I was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri which is arguably the start of the Midwest (i.e. "Gateway to the West" "The Gateway Arch") and I can confidently tell you without a shadow of a doubt that nobody in Missouri sounds like that unless they or their parents originated elsewhere. Last I checked, Nelly does not sound like he just walked off the set of Fargo (his mother used to live behind my grandma in Chadwyck Subdivision #namedrop). Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken*, the accent in areas such as Chicago and St. Louis are beginning to show similarities to a Northeastern dialect; a phenomenon referred to as the NCVS (Northern Cities Vowel Shift NCVS Examples St. Louis corridor).  Moreover, many newscasters train themselves to speak with a "Midwest accent" do to the Midwest generally lacking an accent altogether (Quote: "General American" has often been considered to be the relatively unmarked speech of "the Midwest") 

A video of a bunch of bubble dwelling Hollywood types normally wouldn't turn me into such a whiny opinionated crybaby, but this video just got on my bad side for some reason. It's also worth mentioning that, generally speaking, I don't have a major issue with stereotypes for the most part.

THE VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8QbaCIskM0&feature=youtu.be

 

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Here in the UK we have a pretty wide selection of accents as well, from Glaswegian to Mancunian to Cockney. People here are always getting them wrong, someone will try and do a "Northern" accent (this refers to a Northern England, think "You know nothing John Snow") and end up sounding Scottish. Or someone will think that everyone who lives north of the M25 (read: London) is a Geordie (Newcastle accent: "Wey-aye lad! Fancy a stottie?"). Noone really gets that mad about it, its just funny usually. Its a matter of honour and light-hearted competition knowing which accents are from where here. You can get high marks, for instance, being able to pick out a Glaswegian from a group of Scots (That difference is hard to type. A Glaswegian will probably say "Big Man" at least twice per sentence). Accents are odd, I understand that peopleontheinternetTM can really get one wound up, but peopleontheinternetTM really dont matter.

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5 hours ago, Gianni1122 said:

... the people on it are mostly from/on the west coast.

There's a reason why California is called "the last stop". Those who can't hack it on the east coast, move west. :P:wink:

 

 

Excuse me; I'm from New Joisey.

Edited by LordFerret
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Meh, Buzzfeed is garbage anyway.

But technically Minnesota is part of the Midwest. As for Saint Louis and Missouri in general, it's more of a dialect than an accent (warshing, wrassling) but not everybody demonstrates it. There's an awful lot of "uneducated" dialect too.

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I moved to a "flyover state" from the pacific northwest and was shocked to find I had an accent, by people (who I thought I sounded just like) mentioning it.

They didn't have accents. They sounded like the people on TV.

Except when they said "Oregon" of course.

Edited by 5thHorseman
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@p1t1o lol. Fank yew... I wouldn't make that joke if I wasn't 1/2 English.

7 hours ago, LordFerret said:

There's a reason why California is called "the last stop"

Same reason they tried to avoid the term gold "rush"... Slow down... its just water after that...

6 hours ago, Randazzo said:

warshing, wrasslin

Haha my grandfather used to get angry* when his dad said "warsh"... We stopped saying warsh the same time we stopped saying "farty 40" before I was even born. Some of the other old folks also used to say "mun-dee tues-dee whens-dee thurs-dee fry-dee" We just don't anymore

5 hours ago, munlander1 said:

They make terrible videos

word

3 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

shocked to find I had an accent,

Word.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9ZwpC5VSBw

2 hours ago, legoclone09 said:

Well, that's your problem! Buzzfeed is absolute garbage.

I can't argue this

[snip]

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i guess the most fun and ironic is that historically the previous boss of the enterprise i was workin in that had the military market when my elder taught me the surveyor work when i was out of school was named "J...... Furher" ... and this guy had the mururoa land surveying market after each essay over the land per civilian ... amusing isn't it ... dunno but true ...

Edited by WinkAllKerb''
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