Rural Cosplay is, Unfortunately, A Thing

[@CityNerd]

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[@permacultureecuador2925]

dude spends his life hating people for being happy lmao

[@permacultureecuador2925]

ehem akchtually you technically live in an urban zone 🤣

[@jerredhamann5646]

As a an actual rural welder its easy to tell the city people cause they got short box trucks with bed covers

[@TrainsFerriesFeet]

I love this topic. I live in the downtown of a mid-sized city in the Southeast (until I retire in a few years) and I rail about oversized pickup trucks all the time. My parking garage was not built for these oversized, overcompensationmobiles. They block the way and are over the top inefficient. I can't wait to move to NYC and live a car free life.

[@AMPProf]

I miss the days everything was Just deepstates fault

[@thecitizen49]

In Texas this is called "All hat and no cattle."

[@Greeniykyk]

Ha, yes! I moved to Dallas from metro Denver in the 80s. So many urban Texans in cowboy hats. The only time I'd see them in Denver (when it was called a "cow town") was during the Stock Show.

[@gaflene]

Gonna use this on my dad who hasn't lived in Texas since he was five but made it his whole personality, thanks

[@charlesthrush8134]

This video is like what I stereotype Texas as lol. Cowboy cosplayers who live in stratified developments

[@treechairhat]

With your permission and that of all Texans, I'm going to import this saying to Western Canada.

[@carstarsarstenstesenn]

lol

[@jakeeschen7868]

Rural-identified city dwellers have long been recognized as country music's audience

[@HandyMan657]

That's right. Good catch

[@luisaguilar5343]

Same reason modern country is just pop-punk with a twang, always going on about this and that in a small town.

[@anthonyrowland9072]

@@luisaguilar5343 They just make country music for people who don't like country music now. Just a rural leftist wanting Alan Jackson type country, but no, the the true patriots gave us Morgan Wallen...

[@bennymountain1]

@@luisaguilar5343 The small town they actually hate?

[@ryanfraley7113]

Nashville is exhibit A of this and why old country died a long time ago.

[@BenriBea]

Imagine in the future there being suburban cosplay where single people with no kids buy mini vans and eat at applebees

[@al99795]

lmao

[@larrysmith2655]

That’s sad because the future generations probably won’t be able to afford kids.. even if they want to

[@ccubsfan94]

Calm down, Mini vans are comfy, have good storage and some have decent tow ratings. Plus, Applebee's have good specials and cheap beer

[@dv7057]

I’ve had some GREAT steaks at Applebees

[@Eapp1480]

Holy shit think im already there 🤣😭

[@justinciallella4724]

I'm a carpenter and a farmer, and I like my small S-10 pickup. A few times a year, I borrow a larger truck for hauling large loads.

[@LymanPhillips]

Really farmers don't have money to waste on fancy pants trucks .

[@valettashepard909]

Love my S10 blazer. Gets decent mileage, doesn’t take up a lot of space, holds my smithing tools and projects okay. Even lived out of that little thing for a while. Miss minitrucks like them.

[@Yawyna124]

S-10's are dependable little utility trucks! The only reason there aren't more of them is because they stopped being built 20 years ago.

[@mperry228]

S10 club, lets go! I pulled a trailer with a truck on it from Dallas to Los Angeles a couple years ago no problem. Minitrucks are so underrated. Mine is rebodied with a 52 Chevy in my profile.

[@Luannnelson547]

I grew up on a dairy farm. A true work truck is not shiny and showroom pristine, like the big angry trucks I see blowing me off the road daily.

[@calvinmills4069]

We always called these "hicksters" at my school. Walks into class whearing orange, camo, and a bass proshop hat, despite living deep in suburbia.

[@Emiliapocalypse]

Hicksters!! Perfect!!

[@tim895]

Literally! What a perfect term

[@jfm14]

Perfect, I'm totally stealing that term. I'll never forget the first time I saw a guy wearing Real Tree at a trendy urban coffee shop in Massachusetts. I suppose he could've been a transplant or just a visitor like me, but as someone who grew up in the actual countryside... he looked extremely out of place. The folks I grew up around always dressed up a bit to go into town. I still do that.

[@goatfromhell666]

We've always called them city-its

[@judgemental9253]

That’s just half of my high school graduating class, except the suburbia part, we actually just live in BFE😂

[@HweolRidda]

I disagree that this is cosplay. These people are posers pure and simple. Cosplay isn't about trying to really convince someone (yourself or someone else) that you are Superman, Bart Simpson, Captain Kirk, Barbie, Wolverine, etc. In contrast, posers are actively trying to fool others and very possibly themselves.

[@phoenixfritzinger9185]

That stuff only applies to the Deadpool cosplayers

[@WonderSparkPuppets1]

I agree! No cosplayer believes “I AM this character” it’s just fun dress-up and hot glue

[@hardrays]

cosplay, larpers, posers and a course on etymolgy! sweeeee

[@jasonjackson4528]

Yeah, this. The old slang word posers is a much better description.😅

[@acat674]

The word Posers reallly needs to make a comeback

[@GalpsPGH]

As an urbanite, I don't look down on rural people. Rural people grow my food and provide valuable resources that we don't have the space to produce in the city. What I look down on is suburbanites who think they're rural commuting into my city and driving like dangerous jackasses, all while demanding more space be given up to them and having a tantrum when they don't get it.

[@mmrw]

To be perfectly honest, as a born and raised city kid who also has family in very rural areas: most urban people don’t “look down” on rural areas because they really don’t consider or think about them at all. It’s really a one way street of rural people thinking about urban dwellers

[@CityNerd]

well put

[@mattt4374]

There are a lot of people involved in "growing your food" , many of them are urban and many others are not actually in this country.

[@eric_has_no_idea]

Getting food to the table is a complex logistics pipeline, and it's crazy how often suburban and exurban people think they are closer to the source. Considering how little people understand about how much of their groceries are imported, I shouldn't be surprised. I guess they get to find out how little of their processed food and meat are not domestic soon.

[@thomasb8733]

As someone who lives in a rural area, I do look down on you people.

[@sakidickerson]

Rural cosplay is exactly right. Living in the suburbs talking about "try that in a small town" 😂😂😂😂😂

[@Integrating.Elizabeth]

Yes! This is the least of the problems with that song but as I'm from GA and so is he, it drives me nuts. Jason Aldean is from Macon. Population ~156k currently, still over 100k in 1990. What small town Jason? Where? Smh.

[@sakidickerson]

@Integrating.Elizabeth 😂😂😂

[@malcorub]

The guy that ran off stage without any warning to the crowd while his concert got shot up?

[@Gimme_bikelanes]

As someone who grew up in central GA (where the “try that in a small town” guy is from) this video sums up the mindset of pretty much the entire region.

[@Gimme_bikelanes]

⁠@Intergrating.Elizabeth yup, I grew up in Warner Robins and it’s the same shit there. Acting like they don’t have a metro population of almost 200k and are only 30 minutes from downtown Macon which is even bigger. 😂

[@michaeldegroot1327]

So in short, they are "Emotional Support Vehicles" for those who live in cities but think they are better than the people who live in high density built up areas.

[@statictech7]

Brilliant term. Ill be saying that from now on

[@brandonsaffell4100]

I once had a manager tell me that it was right for the electoral college to preference land over people because people in cities have bad ideas. This is a man who only ever lived in major cities, and had never lived in a rural area in his entire life. His truck was huge.

[@johncrandall5782]

Exactly, which is why they’re now insanely expensive and have a bunch of fancy bells and whistles

[@jbaccanalia]

You just described a very small man. And we do have a lot of them.

[@rot_studios]

Okay I'm saving that quote. That's perfect.

[@rossmccoun6475]

I’m a 6th generation farmer 30 miles east of Louisville Ky. This is the first video summing up the people destroying our small community. Every year more family farms lost to wasteful development (5-15 acre yards). All so they can drive there 3/4 ton truck to pull they’re 72” zero turn to town to get the oil changed….. me and City nerd may not agree on everything, but I realized years ago the only way to save my community was to build high density urban cities. We need to work together the system we have now only benefits suburban growth.

[@tubz]

people who want to live in densities 🤝 people who want to live in actual rural villages knowing suburbanites are the problem

[@bgabriel28]

The video that he refers to about suburbs being a ponzi scheme captures how wasteful and destructive that kind of suburban development is. There's another, also by "Not just Bikes" called "Suburbia is subsidized" that is also very good.

[@davidbarts6144]

Interestingly, this is how Oregon got its Growth Management Act in the early 1970’s: via an alliance of farmers and environmentalists.

[@TomReichner]

@@chillnophone2024 I think that the farmer needs to learn to use the proper words when he/she writes.

[@KlaxontheImpailr]

I think it was Alan Fisher who said "If everyone moved into the wilderness, there wouldn't be any wilderness left".

[@magic_magic1]

Kind of related, but this is what baffles me about the Cybertruck. It’s a pickup truck made by a company that has nothing to with pickup trucks and bought by people who will never need to use a pickup truck.

[@ryannatividad3137]

To be fair, the people buying cybertrucks were never cross-shopping F150s or Chevy Silverados. Completely different markets.

[@theparodymonster1]

its also like a _really bad_ pick-up from what ive seen

[@davel4708]

I'd say its main function is to provide publicity for Tesla. In that respect it has been a massive success.

[@lordvlygar2963]

I find that today's Cybertruck owners are the same people that would have had the Hummer 2 in the 2000's.

[@OllamhDrab]

Conveniently, the Cyberbin is no kind of actual pickup truck, really. It's more supposed to be an off-road toy, which it is terrible at, too.

[@Aimless_cursed_scrolling]

Modern country music plays a role in encouraging self identified ruralism by convincing people that ruralism is white culture.

[@ghostface5559]

Well more importantly it creates this mystic of rurality. They obey a bunch of stereotypes and country music gives them the blueprint.

[@Descriptor413]

I thought I hated country music until I heard the old stuff. And this exactly is why. It's rural pop that I hate.

[@Garybob-e9q]

????

[@afreaknamedallie1707]

Literally yes! As an actual southerner I absolutely HATE modern country because the fake ass twangs grate at my ear holes. It's such blatant cosplay / theft of culture for political gains.

[@bizzle2073]

It’s also because there is no real suburban culture so they just cling on to a rural aesthetic

[@potatoModel]

I worked at a tech startup and the parking lot was constantly filled with full-size lifted trucks that had never had anything put in the bed.

[@thexalon]

I live in an exurban area, and I could always pick out these people on the roads. None of them were farmers or contractors, and you could tell in large part because their truck was completely spotless in an region where you're going to get mud all over it the moment you pull off paved roads, and also because the only times you see them on the road are during the morning commute, evening commute, and once a weekend at the local Walmart.

[@CampingforCool41]

They are a plague

[@AMPProf]

So you worked for a Truck Shock company? Vroom vroom.. Ohh eww Mud on my trucks rhinestones

[@CityNerd]

It's a fashion statement

[@ecurewitz]

They probably get upset if something scratches the bed of their truck

[@sammymarrco2]

It baffles my mind why *anyone* living in a city would want a large pickup truck when they don't even use it for work. It just sounds like you're asking for higher expenses and a harder time parking. Smaller pickups with larger beds do make sense for tradesman and the like.

[@xandercruz900]

My neighbor has one. He works in construction. Happy now?

[@MattOtis]

Ah, but complaining about traffic and parking is how you quickly identify your fellow rural-cosplayers at the office.

[@f-86zoomer37]

Some people feel the need to advertise their inadequate size to everyone

[@its_clean]

They don't see it that way, they see it as gas costing too much, roads being too narrow, and parking being insufficient, so when conservatives finally start talking about "fixing infrastructure" that's really all they mean. They really don't understand that they've willingly done it all entirely backwards.

[@nlpnt]

@@xandercruz900 *want*

[@geoarambula139]

My toddler also loves dressing up as cowboy . It’s adorable.

[@chadinselman]

😂

[@mariawesley7583]

Lol. I needed that belly laugh!

[@Quizack]

“Look mom, I’m tweeting bigotry!”

[@milliedragon4418]

As a little child I loved my cowgirl boots. I wear them everywhere. For me they were oddly comfortable. But to be fair it was rural, and it was only starting to suburbanize. I don't think I could have gotten away with some of my childhood ways if I had grown a more urbanized area. Well it's true that rural areas look down, or more leery of outsiders. They're just very protective of their communities.They just take more time to warm up to people. There's less social pressure to be a certain way. At least that's the way it felt when I was a child, I wasn't a civilized child. I was a girl child and I would walk around all the time without a t-shirt up until I was school age, walk barefoot outside, But I was a southerner, an outsider tended to look at a peculiar in habits as more of them came to move. Now you have this whole barefoot movement. 👣

[@RandomRabbit007]

Trump won the POPULAR vote hahaha. Thank GOD!!

[@albertsaffron7582]

My town in Australia has gone from “rural” to “beginnings of metro” in 20 years, and you can tell who’s lived here and who came during Covid, the locals drive banged up sedans and 90’s Toyotas, the new comers drive biiiiig Yank-Tanks like Ford f-150’s

[@OryxAU]

They always tail gate, blast past you when they can, and try to squeeze through gaps they obviously cannot fit in. Only someone used to city/urban living is that impatient.

[@Hubadadubada]

Yank-tanks, nice

[@Nortonius_]

Something's getting yanked here for sure 😂

[@gonzomalan]

yank tank is perfect

[@cwj2733]

more people are moving on my road. both way it’s about a 30-40 minute drive to walmart. there are multiple families of idiots that moved in and i can tell because they have the most ridiculous looking jacked up trucks and suv.

[@artirony410]

The whole "rural cosplay" thing describes like half the population of my hometown (Reno, Nevada). Reno's a weird city because half the people act like they live in San Francisco and half act like they live in rural Alabama

[@malaquiasalfaro81]

As someone from Cali I always romanticized Reno

[@artirony410]

@@malaquiasalfaro81 I have no idea why you'd ever do that unless you were from like Bakersfield or somewhere else that's worse lol. I live in San Francisco now and enjoy life a lot more

[@malaquiasalfaro81]

@@artirony410 lol I’m from the Bay originally and then the Central Valley but as a teen I just imagined sitting in the Nevada Desert and a campfire while seeing the city in the distance while I played Lonesome Town on guitar. Very specific but true lol It was fun living in the Central Valley and getting to travel and still come back home at the end of the day experience densely city as well as very rural. I guess Reno was just another city I hadn’t got to see and imagined adventures I Could get into

[@artirony410]

@@malaquiasalfaro81 Reno is basically just Fresno with casinos lol

[@jKLa]

It isn't cos play. It is just their culture. Much suburban and smaller city culture is similar to more affluent parts of rural America. Reno has a huge population of working class whites and those close to them, many with extended family connections or actual heritage at least partly in rural or small town America. Bakersfield has this. Sacramento has it. So does San Francisco's exurbs. But San Francisco itself and most of its near suburbs no longer do. That's all.

[@dylanluhowy]

Any pickup truck Facebook group is 90% people asking what are the largest wheels and tires that will fit.

[@hardrays]

must be from st louis. its getting requisite with all the stealth potholes

[@Chihirolee3]

I just saw a lifted f250 with wide rims. My husband and I laughed at the truck, as we just got an ice sheet of freezing rain. They are not only top heavy, but they can't haul anything. They even had a super fancy triple hitch. Here we are in our 400k mile Ford Ranger, in a town of 130, a 60 mile drive to the nearest Walmart.

[@JSXSProductions]

Jeep groups too lol. I know because I am a Jeeper and so I'm in those groups. But I got my Jeep because we actually go camping. My wife is actually from the middle of nowhere, so whenever we'd go stay with her parents, all there is to do out there is got offroading or camping.

[@michaeljcurry]

It's not for me, but who cares?

[@dylanluhowy]

@ I don’t care what people do with their trucks. Just making an observation.

[@caselamont3081]

I live in an apartment building in a relatively walkable area in Tallahassee that caters almost exclusively to college students, and the sheer quantity of pristine $40k-$100k+ lifted/modded pickups that just sit in our parking garage collecting dust is JARRING. These belong to COLLEGE STUDENTS from mostly upper-middle to higher income households from urban areas around Florida. To assert against the idea that pickup trucks haven't become a major identity signifier and status symbol would be absurd.

[@Getsbuffer]

I'm guessing Midtown? Pretty wild how affluent some of these kids are. I'm always surprised when I park in Woodward or Call St garage

[@caselamont3081]

@@Getsbuffer nah I'm around the chapel ridge neighborhood. It is difficult to comprehend just how many of these kids are crazy loaded. I see literal teenagers driving $150k+ cars everyday it's WILD. I grew up being told my parents are wealthy - and I more or less felt like it - until I moved to be close to campus shits crazy.

[@Getsbuffer]

@@caselamont3081 Ah, hello neighbor! I'm right on the boundary. The prices at some of those new apartments in the neighborhood are wild. I was looking at the Renegade last year and they wanted $1200 for a 4 by 4 😬. A friend of mine is paying $1000 for a 4 by 4 in Quantum, which is just an insanely bad deal lmao. The only apartment I'd even consider moving into around here if I had to leave my current spot is Whitehall. It's no surprise the students around here feel comfortable displaying their Trump memorabilia and Israeli flags.

[@caselamont3081]

@ yeah the Renegade is somehow managing to fill 5/5s and 6/6s at 1100-1300 while I pay less than $900 next door for wayyyy fewer roommates. Not to mention the fact that they weren’t even done with construction when students moved in this fall.

[@andrewprice1774]

My mother, who was paralyzed while at Ocala women's prison after a lifetime of drug abuse and mental health issues, settled with the state of Florida and wound living 5 minutes from the Bass Pro there in Tallahassee... thought she was in the "country" after years of living in terrible conditions in Miami 😂 ..every little "gated" community had a name with farm or country in it!!!

[@hankhillsnrrwurethra]

If, when you are driving down a road and meet another vehicle, you feel compelled to wave because that's a human in there and you don't see that many, you are rural. Anything less is suburban.

[@egotisticEgg]

also if the local high school has donkey basketball and drive your tractor to school day

[@xevnoc]

We're a lot more efficient and safe now, lift two fingers and nod.

[@aangranaa5352]

The classic neighbor wave. Don’t even have to be a neighbor, I just like acknowledging other farmers lol

[@hedgehog3180]

That feels like a very American definition of rural, since in Denmark the equivilant definition would be “the more people talk to you when you meet them while walking the more rural the area, if people don't even acknowledge your pressence then you're in a city”.

[@sure1313]

​@@hedgehog3180 ain't nobody walking around to chat when the nearest neighbor is a few miles away

[@IvanIvanoIvanovich]

My cousin grew up on a farm in California. Man was she surprised to found out she was a big city girl when she moved to the Dallas suburbs.

[@jnsnj1]

I get that all the time. I grew up on a farm in NJ with one neighbor. Now I live in a city with 3 times the population as the entire county I used to live in. People act like I’m from manhattan.

[@pbtrxt1988]

Same here. Had a guy extolling the virtues of his "country life" to me. He grew up in a Houston suburban subdivision that had more people than my entire county. His high school had more people than my town.

[@malaquiasalfaro81]

Yup. Moved from California’s Central Valley to East TN and it wasn’t even a quarter as “country” as Cali. Very delusional suburb

[@alinatarasyukrussianrefuge6549]

@@jnsnj1 Im an immigrant from Northern Virginia, on Long Island where the suburban New Yorkers like to absurdly conflate themselves with Manhattan sophisticates, I was treated like a cousin from Deliverance based only on my association with Virginia.

[@eddienothing9610]

​@@alinatarasyukrussianrefuge6549Lived on LI for 2.5 years and had the same experience. I came from South FL for effs sake

[@aidonsquires2546]

I grew up in rural Arkansas, on a dirt road and in a community 20 minutes from the next town and 30 minutes from a real "city" of around 95k. Most of my neighbors drove cheap, reliable regular cars and SUVs, and if they had a truck it was either for work or a base model. When I went to college, so many Dallas kids went to my school all drove huge trucks, all lifted or modified. I assure you, none of these trucks went off road and the beds never saw any duty besides loading up groceries.

[@AndyInTheFort]

I also grew up in rural Arkansas but don't remember a time before pickups. Sedans were certainly more popular back then though. Today they are an endangered species.

[@judejohnson6336]

I live in "rural" east Arkansas across from Memphis so definitely a suburb but also very agrarian it's definitely more of grey area here with a pretty even split of blue collar, agricultural, and Memphis commuters

[@user-cc7vx7sw4z]

I bet most of them were waxed and polished as well 🙄

[@mmrw]

Tbf many people in rural areas do drive pickups, it’s not like it’s only suburban people trying to pretend they’re rural. But as a signifier for being “country” or something like that you’re also right that it’s far from everyone, most country people drive whatever is cheap and/or reliable. I have family all over rural New England and you see more Subarus there than anything else because people need something with four wheel drive in the snow

[@a_mohabir]

My grandfather lived in a log cabin that was 40 minutes outside of a small town in the southeastern US. He bought a brand new Toyota Corolla in 1993. My dad gave that away to some needy people who lived in a nearby trailer park down the road and it was still up and kicking as of 2022. Now that whole area is being replaced by McMansions with lifted trucks.

[@timmytwister6397]

Rural cosplay completely explains the interior design trend of modern farmhouse 🐓

[@isray89]

I dated a rancher for a hot minute. Modern farmhouse are missing a certain.... Shitque... 😂

[@johncrandall5782]

This is true of my wife, who grew up in LA

[@IllusiveSwampMoose]

​@isray89 100%, people say they love "farmhouse kitchens" and then leave real quick when they walk into a kitchen with a tower of empty Mason jars, an oven that hasn't been updated since Vietnam, and a counter made from an oak door. You don't like farmhouses, you like the IDEA of farmhouses.

[@Splicer-lb5xb]

​@@IllusiveSwampMooseI mean, the idea of near complete self sustainability is enticing, but the practice of cleaning cowdung isn't. Nothing but respect for the breadwinners of our civilisation.

[@swamp-yankee]

When I first heard of “farm house” and looked it up I was shocked by how city slickers have invented a style that looks nothing like any farm house I’ve ever been in. So much white and pointless decoration.

[@frosmoths]

As a trans person actually living in a rural area (37 acre cattle ranch, nearest gas station is 10 miles away, my "town" has maybe 900 people at best), that segment on identity-affirming care gave me LIFE.

[@RealMisterDoge]

The identity affirming care line is killing me

[@stefanbuscaylet]

Laughed hard at the “rural identity affirming care” line personally. He’s one of those urban “smarty pants” the rurals hate and vote against. Lol

[@rftulie]

I lived in a town of less than 3000, near a small city of 30,000, in New Mexico. I intended to stay there until my wife could not get a job in her field nearby, at which point I left less than 3 years after moving there. This was 20 years ago, but I stumbled upon this principle of rural identification back then. I called it “delusions of rurality.” People who live there imagine they work on farms or ranches, but most of them don’t anymore. I got giggled at for jogging through town for exercise. It’s a beautiful place for jogging, but nobody else did that. They thought they were all still bucking hay and training horses all day. Most of them weren’t. What they were doing was working at mundane sedentary jobs in the nearby small city, not getting enough exercise, and drinking and smoking too much. There isn’t much to do there, and the economic base is eroding. Meth is prevalent. I feel bad for their economic predicament: it’s a beautiful place with old southwestern charm and - before global warming - a moderate climate with seasons (now it’s kind of hot, and the nearby mountains don’t get enough snow anymore), but there just aren’t jobs. So bottom line, I think even real rural people conceive of themselves as more rural than they actually are. It’s a fantasy that I’m not sure is that helpful.

[@BlueOrc]

lol I died -- I also died at "accidents (man that word is doing a lot of work)"

[@BrandonRhodesofOregon]

I woke my wife up laughing at that one. It’s so on point.

[@l.slayer551]

Exactly. Identity affirming care is also dumb when it’s for the rurals.

[@bleghbleghinson]

Growing up genuinely rural I never met anyone who walked around in cowboy hats until I moved to the city, where Republicans would wear them to signal how right-wing they were. There were also far less trucks than you would think, a lot of people wanted smaller cars with better fuel efficiency since they had to commute into the city as there were few jobs available to them.

[@porcupinepunch6893]

Yeah most of the farmers where I live seem to really like '80s-2000s Buick sedans or other large and midsize gm sedans

[@HowardThompson-ux7kf]

This was my experience as well going up in North Carolina. Trucks were used as trucks. Most people drove ordinary cars day to day. Though I note when I go visit family now, there are way more unneeded trucks then there used to be. I must assume this is a reflection of the truck becoming such a potent cultural and, increasingly, political signifier in the last few decades.

[@HankHillspimphand]

"where Republicans would wear them to signal how right-wing they were." thank for telling me your biased as hell. maybe they wear them like the american flag as pride of the place the live? how do you know they did it to show how right wing they are? maybe their dad wore one (that why i wear mine). i also think you story i made up. in rural america i see maybe 2x as many cowboy hats. they are older where is city i see its more on younger people. ? god now i have to worry my hat i wear a few times a week(on a ranch they are really handy) means im far right? lol

[@alexphelps7042]

In defense of Republicans & their stupid trucks, if you want to buy American & you want to buy new the options are trucks, SUVs or sport. Chevy’s small cars are abysmal & ford don’t even try anymore. I suppose tesla makes medium-ish sedans but even if everyone wanted EVs there’s more than enough problems with teslas design & service to turn many reasonable people away. Even within the truck market the manufacturers are keen to reinforce bigger=better. The new ranger does not have as nice interior options as the F series even if you’re willing to pay any amount of money.

[@Dragonaut1]

I live in a semi rural area and it’s funny to see all the people who play cowboy even though they live in the suburbs

[@Jack-ol8bb]

I live an an ACTUAL rural area (we even get rural mail service) and I own a truck but it only comes out for farm work when it’s absolutely needed, otherwise I drive a Subaru. Cracks me up when I see someone driving an 80k truck that’s too nice to be used for real work. My trucks had almost every body panel run into by tractors and the inside gets cleaned with a leaf blower.

[@hardrays]

84 chevy - gets the hose after being blown out with air. clean machine, through and through.

[@noahhendrix4219]

That just sounds like you do sloppy work. I’ve had more than enough concrete mix,lumber, motorcycle, and car parts in my truck to justify buying a $50k truck and after a $15 car wash you wouldn’t be able to tell it wasn’t new apart from 1 dent I got after hitting a deer. Even my old Subaru got used to move similar stuff and you wouldn’t be able to tell. I honestly cannot understand how “work trucks” get beat to shit other than sloppy work but maybe if you can please educate me on how driving a tractor into your truck isn’t sloppy work

[@yeeturmcbeetur8197]

We call those trucks “pavement princesses” or “mall crawlers” (mall crawler is more for THOSE jeeps (you know what jeeps I’m talking about)) here in the south. They will buy an F250 to carry a single 2x4 back to the house. They all have giant XD rims and low profile sand tires with spacers on them. The low gear and 4wd has never been used on those trucks. I can promise you. -Deep south ACTUAL RURAL person Edit: once you’ve lived around these people, you can spot them easily. All their boots are clean. All their hats are clean. Only clean pants and shirts. Just looks like they are on their way to church in a small town everywhere they go. Even with worn in clothes, you can spot them by their hands. Look, I’m blue collar as they come. Oil and gas my whole life. I’m 27 with the hands of a 40 year old. If you’re working like you should with a truck that big (oil and gas or TRUE farm work (hay bailing or running fences)), then your hands will look like you work. I suggest yall start really looking at the people who hop out of trucks. You can pin them within 5 seconds of seeing them. ESPECIALLY if their truck is always polished to a mirror finish. Bro, we get it, you’re a sissy. Now go get a damn Camry. 😂 Edit 2: TLDR: if you cannot walk out of your house, take three steps, and shoot an un-suppressed firearm without the cops showing up to your front door, you are not rural 😂

[@afreaknamedallie1707]

100% this! And when you call them out they try to call you the prejudiced city person 😂 like my dude I was born in a town smaller than the suburb they live in and graduated high school at a school that varied between 350 and 500 total students. Outta my face with this immaculate 350 you struggle to park in downtown LA.

[@yeeturmcbeetur8197]

@@afreaknamedallie1707 lol 😂 My hometown has ONE stop light. Like radiator springs from Cars 😂

[@michaelmurdock4607]

Well, I used to be able to do edit #2, but that was because of the neighborhood. 😂 Also, I can assure you that a mazda miata will carry 120 feet worth of 1x12 with the top down and with care can get up high clearance only trails.

[@yeeturmcbeetur8197]

@ 😂

[@blue-vu1ek]

I graduated in a class of 16. That is about as rural as it gets. The last time I drove through my home town, it was about as embarrassing as things could get. Almost every parking spot on main had a parkinglot princess with zero dirt anywhere, yet the drivers were all togged out in premium priced cowboy boots and hats, wrangler jeans and enormous belt buckles. The people who stayed there after graduation sounded about as stupid as one could get, but believed they were the smart ones by spouting "maga". However, they had zero ideas about how to make the great happen other than overt racism, homophobia, and misogyny.

[@nyandmu]

My in-laws are an interesting case on this. They live 25 miles outside Indianapolis on a 100 year old house completely surrounded by farmland and that has a derelict barn on the property. What do they drive? Two fuel efficient hybrid sedans as well as a minivan when they have all the grandkids in town. FIL doesnt have reason to haul anything so he doesnt own a truck. They probably consider themselves rural geographically but culturally? Probably not.

[@Oleksa-Derevianchenko]

I think that a "rural culture" like that is a kitsch, an attempt to live by a one-dimensional stereotype.

[@ghostface5559]

Ironic cause people in my big(ish) city drive pickup trucks and park it in the parking lot at their apartment complex.

[@dianauwu1312]

That's not uncommon in this state. The people in the cities band towns drive massive yank tanks and the people in the more sparsely populated sections have more practical vehicles. Probably because the gap in income between those two populations

[@simplyminded3529]

This is it. Exact same for me. Went to school surrounded by city kids who drove jacked trucks and dressed like a cowboy while they go home to a suburban house. Shit is so annoying and cringy

[@joelmayer4055]

@@dianauwu1312 I live in a very rural area (SW ND). Many people out here have drive pick-ups not as any "cosplay" but because it is easier to drive a pick-up in a pasture than a sedan. Because of this many have their primary vehicle be a nice pick-up. But they are aware of the gas mileage trade off they are making when they have to drive 25+ miles to get fresh produce. I live here and because I do not routinely need a pick-up I drive a sedan or small cross-over that gets 30+ mpg because my commute to/from work is 50+ miles each day (all highway) so a pick-up (and its often < 20 mpg) is an unwise choice for me.

[@TheElizondo88]

It makes perfect logical sense that the RUCA 4 folks see themselves as more urban than the RUCA 2 (exurbs) folks... since RUCA 2 commuters to "the city", compare themselves to "the city", while RUCA 4 live and work within their own city.

[@ian54589]

This is a really good point, the ruca1 folks are definitely culturally reactionary, but RUCA2 may be more about comparative rurality.

[@meowtherainbowx4163]

It's kinda interesting to see what people consider a big city versus a small town. My friend from Dhaka considered Lexington, KY (pop. 320K) a small village, but people in pseudo-rural communities around Huntsville, AL (pop. 240k) complain that it's too big.

[@charliemckinney7004]

Looking a the Oregon case presented, ruca 2 is kinda more rural than ruca4. At least they have a city centre nearby. The classes are nominal, not ordinal

[@ZeroGravitas187]

@@meowtherainbowx4163 LOL. Here in Nebraska anything 1K or larger is considered the Big City. Which points to where the perspective comes from. Here in Nebraska we basically don't have mixed-use walkable anything anywhere except UNL or UNO's university campuses. Everything is R1 and strip malls and big box stores....OR there's just a hundred houses and a bar and a bank and that is it. Big City basically means that there's so much R1 sprawl you can no longer walk around the place. Ergo Big City is kind of the tipping point where suburban development fails at being a place and becomes a blob. Hop on Google Maps and look up Republican City, Nebraska. The urban form is exactly what you get in any American urban/suburban area. But it is a village of only 150 people with only a bar and a grocery store and a bait/tackle shop. People there say they're country folks and rural. Even though the built environment is stereotypical American Big City R1, just frozen in evolution before it metastasizes into massive sprawl.

[@mmrw]

Yeah to not understand that is bizarre. This guy isn’t as smart as his smugness suggests

[@AtomikNY]

I live in a town of 5,000 people, and I was actually unsure at the beginning of the video whether I would qualify as “urban” or “rural”. I mean, my town and my neighborhood are fairly high density places with decent amenities, albeit small and surrounded by a vast forest. Then I learned people in actual metropolitan cores are thinking of themselves as rural, and I was like “oh”. I think part of it is how we view where we live compared to our surroundings. If I compare my town to the vast unpopulated forest around it, it seems pretty urban. But if you plopped a town of my size next to New York City, it would feel rural compared to the sprawling metropolis near it. It’s like that optical illusion where you perceive the same shade of gray squares as being really dark when juxtaposed with white squares and really light when juxtaposed with black squares.

[@AMPProf]

ha ha you might be a Redneck if

[@cortanathelawless1848]

I think it's also more complicated because a small area you can traverse well and has all amenities is more urban than a bigger area that's less dense because to me city life is a lot about how much life is actually happening in public spaces day to day

[@FullLengthInterstates]

@@cortanathelawless1848 population density really doesn't capture lived density. A classic example is a municipality that has a low population density because of the lack of side streets, but the 1 road is very well developed. rural towns also can have more concentration of services because there's really no reason to spread out a small population that much. we often think of mid rise buildings as a big city thing but many industrializing countries will build one or two 10 story apartments right at a rural industrial site, simply because that is the most efficient way to house 40 families, regardless of locale.

[@jasonreed7522]

I'm from a town of 10k (not sure if that's just the village or the full township) and was curious what the data was going to show. When your town is atleast a 10minute drive at 60mph from the closest other town past farms and woods its relatively safe to call it rural. Or atleast small town rural. I was not expecting 20% of the highest zone of "urbanized area" to consider themselves rural. You would expect it to be obvious that you are within a city, if nothing else your local government/municipality being called the City of X not the Town or Village of X should be an obvious sign.

[@diamondsfinest9386]

I think the biggest point is in theory, in those metro areas, you COULD take a train directly to downtown, and it would be apart of that metro transit authority. A rural town would at best only have a state or national rail/bus service. For another perspective though. I live in Winnipeg Manitoba, used to live near the edge of the city. A bus to downtown including waiting time because of delays used to be a good hour. To go to a small rural town that's also a tourist attraction in the summer because it has a beach is also an hour drive. The bus is an hour so suburbanites can cosplay as rural folk.

[@LilyLewis771]

Suburbs have so little identity and appeal of their own that people really want to be either urban or rural when they live in them. I live downtown in a big city and we get people in our suburbs who say they’re ’from the city’ but are actually scared to take public transport and never go here. (Think people from suburban New York State saying they’re from NYC because they see a broadway show once a year.) I’m sure a lot of them see themselves as rural too- it’s all about what you think sounds coolest.

[@BlueYT1107]

who knew suburbia culturally backfires on itself lol

[@kiosk5595]

Two Words: Vashon Island. Most rural cosplaying place I’ve ever seen. A bunch of people living in really quiet, spread out houses, driving pick up trucks, putting up posters saying “Pramila Jayapal abandoned *the islanders*” and then these same people work for Amazon, make six figures, and take a 20 minute foot ferry to the dense core of Seattle

[@kenlehigh6363]

Ah the tech hippies of Vashon Island

[@jKLa]

@@kiosk5595 nothing rural cosplay about any of that. They are just upscale suburbanites you don't approve of. You don't like their chosen lifestyle or (relitively, even if the majority are still democrats) conservative politics! That's all.

[@Ferret440]

I remember going to Vashon Island for a strawberry festival, expecting a whole lot of people selling strawberries and strawberry-based products. After all, in Seattle the weekly Farmers markets have many local farms selling fresh produce. That fashion Island strawberry festival had literally one stand selling strawberries. Everyone else was just food trucks that I had seen at music festivals before.

[@Winspur1982]

This really does sound insufferable. No wonder Pramila is retiring from Congress now. I miss my college days in the PNW sometimes but the roots of this nonsense were already forming then.

[@LeeHawkinsPhoto]

Try Texas…like any major metro in Texas. It’s weird.

[@rivingtonandstanton]

As a lifelong urbanite, I was hoping this would go deeper into the psychological and sociological factors contributing to rural cosplay. While I respect the effort that went into what constitutes ‘rural’, it felt like an academic tangent without deeper additional insight on why wealthy, well educated urban and suburban dwellers elect to drive massive vehicles originally designed and built for one’s work, rather than a ‘lifestyle’. Would love a part 2 that explores this.

[@RoskoTwang]

CityNerd has a civil engineering focus. You're looking for someone with a more socioeconomic/psychological focus, if you want to see that (which I would like to see as well). I'm not sure CN sees himself as qualified to speak on that subject.

[@baronvonjo1929]

Well for starters they began buying such vehicles starting in the 90s-2000s. Now majority of those types of vehciles are so expensive and not aimed towards poorer rural people anymore. And in my opinion things like sedans and hatchbacks got significantly worse over the years while big SUVs and trucks got a lot of attention and more R&D put into them. I live in the suburbs and while I'm not going offroading I would always want a SUV because our roads are just so bad and there are so many hills. I have a rental Corolla sedan atm and already damaged the bumper because its so unnecessarily low. Plus in the interiors of most sedans I've been in its far less practical and thought out compared to SUVs. Making SUVs and trucks much more desirable for families.

[@BirdmanDeuce26]

@@baronvonjo1929 The "Chicken Tax" (A 1964 US Tariff that extended to light trucks) and US Customs Service reclassification of automobiles in 1989 also heavily distorted the car market to specifically favour SUVs and "Trucks" over sedans, hatchbacks, etc. Additionally, as the US/Canada market reached saturation in the 90s and Emissions Standards required lower emissions/better fuel economy from cars, automakers pivoted to making SUVs and a new vehicle category called "Crossovers" the new family/entry-level car, as this would dodge having to engineer better fuel economy/taxation requirements. IMO this is part of why specifically you see the pivot in the '00s onward of utility vehicles becoming the new "family" vehicle. Pickups are no longer barebones Tacomas and Rangers; even the F150, previously a utility-focused truck, now basically is an Explorer/Expedition with a bed. SUVs, previously a niche vehicle for outdoors/far-rural types, became the new full-size sedan in terms of a "large vehicle w/ plenty of space for your family."

[@baronvonjo1929]

@BirdmanDeuce26 I know all that. But I think a clear issue is the fundamental deisgn of a sedan is impractical. I would never want one as my primary car. My brother has a 2016 Camry XLE with a V6 and while it's nice and drives nice its not at all good at being a family car. So low to be impractical, not much storage anywhere on the inside, not much adjustment in the back, the trunk while large wastes so much potential by restricting vertical storage. Would be quite useful if it was a wagon. And the car is so low and has had issues handling the various terrains its been in. Sedans are simply not deisgned for anything other than prisitne flat well funded paved roads these days. Same with hatchbacks, coupes, and wagons. Even if a lot of those regulations got lifted off "cars" they would still be widely impractical. Because again. Style over practicality is the priority.

[@baronvonjo1929]

@thoughtengine They exist and are very common in the US. At least I see them everywhere

[@brendanmeckler7761]

OMG, my masters thesis is on place identity in state politics, and rural identity is huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge in poli sci research nowadays, seeing you talk about stuff I have cited in other contexts is so exciting

[@brendanmeckler7761]

AND AGAIN! THE LUNZ TRUJILLO PAPER ! love u king

[@daveharrison84]

A River Lost by Blaine Harden was my favorite book about the subject that I had to read in college 20 years ago.

[@SusCalvin]

@@brendanmeckler7761 I just never thought of people in mid-sized towns as rural. People in a pop 100.000 town are townies. Life in town is closer to life in a city than to rural life.

[@jfm14]

​@@SusCalvin Absolutely. Having grown up in the countryside, even moving to a tiny village of ~2,000 people was a big deal for me. I had never lived within walking distance of anything but other farms before. So a small city of 100,000? Yeah, that's not even a small town in my book... let alone rural.

[@SusCalvin]

@@jfm14 Another comment was talking about Reno as an example. And Reno is larger than my town. Municipalities as administrative regions here can cover multiple villages, towns etc. Or none. Or just one large metro area.

[@jonsrecordcollection7172]

Wait, that was me! I'm glad I inspired one of your videos. It's an honor.

[@xb70valkyriech]

Congrats!

[@danielbishop1863]

It should be emphasized that there are two very different types of people who own pickup trucks: 1. People with an occupation that regularly involves hauling stuff (construction materials, cattle feed, tools, etc.) 2. People who don't *need* a truck, but own one in order to cosplay as a "hard-working man" from Type 1. If you are a Type 1, please do not be offended by all the anti-truck comments here. They're firmly directed at Type 2 people.

[@Joe_Dirt82]

I got 1 4wd truck, 1 2wd truck. I work union construction so I don't need to haul anything other than my dinner bucket n hard hat but I also don't daily drive them. They're for hauling scrap, other truck parts, firewood, etc. I daily drive an older saturn 5spd. I don't wanna spend half my pay to fill the tank for 2 days to get to work.

[@bfrd9k]

1.5 People who need a 4x4 for winter and/or truck for hauling dirtbikes, and/or who occasionally haul other loads as needed on irregular basis.

[@dubvuchyea502]

The third is people who like to do off road things for fun

[@Ryzard]

I think there is a type 3, or perhaps a type 2.5, and that is someone who uses the truck for recreational activities. Ex: my family owns a truck (used to be my grandpa's) and we use it to tow our RV. Took a trip around the US, regularly camp in the mountains, camp for trips like the Indy 500 every year, etc. (Note, we are glamping at best, and I know this, but it's easier for a full family to do regularly when you just pop out slides and unpack rather than setting up an elaborate tent for 4-6 people and a dog. We just like being in natural locations to hike or have fires, we are by no means roughing it) The truck is used to tow that trailer, firewood, and if my grandpa needed to move his house (also a trailer, but set up semi-permanently) we would use it then. My dad does aerial photography and has put his company logo on the truck, since people sometimes get curious about it and it's advertising (he works locally so it has gotten him customers) - the truck isn't NECESSARY for his work, but we have it, so it's just a no brainer. Because gas is a thing, we don't really use the truck unless all the other vehicles are being used/out, or we need to tow something/he is out with the drone. It isn't lifted, (Ford.... F-350 iirc, duelie, and I think lifting would make a fifth wheel un-towable lmao) not really glammed out, but it is GENERALLY a pavement princess. TL:DR; The (perhaps delusional) distinction I'm making here is that, to me, this is still functional. We could not replace our truck with an SUV, Van, Sedan, Hatchback, etc. because it would fundamentally change what we can do. We have the truck for truck things, however said truck things are not inherent to our work/life (like they would be on a farm or off the grid as my friends are) People that get to me most are ones that mod the truck to be LESS functional, while treating a truck like a car - as in, their primary method of transit (generally the dummy expensive ones. Old Chevy/Ford pickups that people have owned a while or bought cheap are fair, but if you have 80-100k for a truck, you can afford a sedan lmao)

[@Garybob-e9q]

What if You came from Group 1, does that make someone a Typical Number 2???

[@MirandaHughes-he9hu]

My favourite simplistic global metric for rurality is travel time to the nearest McDonald's.

[@francesca234]

Alternative: does the McDonald's near you open early for hunting season.

[@ZeroGravitas187]

@@J.C.1966 Well....that last part is problematic. Here in Nebraska the city of Ogallala NE is a stand alone city of 5,000 people on I-80. The stink of all the ranch lots of cow manure surrounding Ogallala goes in every direction for at least 40 miles.

[@asianboywonder2312]

​@@J.C.1966 my neighborhood is bordered on 3 sides by farms and i absolutely will not say i live in a rural area lmao im like 30 minutes from the biggest city center and the city i do live in has like 70k people. Urban farming is real

[@therefriedbean46]

Reminds me of the Big Mac index

[@dylanluhowy]

Maybe travel time to the second nearest McDonald’s. Nearest one to me is 10 minutes but next closest is 40 minutes.

[@kw6382]

The gloves come off. And what better time? As a retired Portland Metro transit operator these themes hit home. Why can't we Americans just grow up? We can have a sustainable future while sacrificing NOTHING. All we have to do is let go of the rope of (irrational) fear that we've slung over our shoulder and dragged around, in abject futility, for far too long. Good onya Ray. Not to diminish the value of prior works, this one stands on their shoulders. BRAVO.

[@ugiswrong]

You can’t take our trucks

[@paulpalinkas]

@@ugiswrongread it again. Ask an adult for help.

[@TomReichner]

Sacrificing nothing? Really? If the proponents of "progressive" left-wing agendas would actually not ask me to sacrifice anything at all, then I would actually concede and stop resisting the changes that they are trying to make. But unfortunately, they actually do ask me and others to sacrifice things that are valuable to us. But you said "sacrificing NOTHING", and I think that whey you say nothing you actually mean nothing, so I am really interested in how that can actually be.

[@ZombieCSSTutorials]

You grow up. It's none of your business what other people do or not. There is also no "we" it's basically you guys (the borg) v.s. everyone else.

[@gentrelane]

@zombiecsstutorials your personality has been completely manufactured by the commercials that you watch

[@DisasterAstor]

17:25 Rural Cosplayers look down on Rural People, so there’s that. Cause I live in a town smaller than 2,000 people more than 90 minutes away from a metropolitan area and we get a lot of Rural Cosplayers at our Fairs where they sneer and make fun of the “backwards townies” and harass the 4h kids. It’s something we talk about a lot out here.

[@mariaansley1519]

100% Long Island is full of them. Incidentally my town's density is over 9k per square mile, with a train into NYC every 20 minutes. Totally rural.

[@jubeat4451]

9k per square mile being in the top 10 densest incorporated places in the US, above every place outside NYC metro EDIT: completely incorrect, i was looking at per square km measurements, it's still obviously urban though, same density as Staten Island

[@eksbocks9438]

Makes sense. Considering that Long Island has always been the more affluent section of the metropolitan area.

[@mmrw]

Where on LI though? When you get really far east it’s legit exurban but as someone who grew up in Brooklyn I can’t imagine people in the rest of it not knowing they live in a suburb. Levittown was literally the first ever planned suburb and in my experience Long Island people really pride themselves on living near, but not in, the city

[@AMPProf]

can't stand Musical weirdos in truck singing in longislander english

[@orunir]

Sounds like Bellmore or Hempstead. I see the brodozers more often at Islip, infact SIRs seem to increase in frequency the further east from NYC. Those pickups are more insidious when you realize how NEW they are. Anytime I'm cut off by one, it's always less than 5 years old, absolutely nothing in the bed. Newer pickups come with bed covers now, so the vanity is more obvious. The amount of tradesmen on the island is insane, I could believe they are the largest demographic for secondhand pickups. That is whom I suspect buys the elementary school age brodozers from the posers, to subsidize their addiction to the newest and biggest in oxygen-guzzlers. Long Island is the oldest exurb ecosystem in the continent due to settlement from the oldest metropolis in the continent. Any virus to planning you find in the country, it evolved first out of Long Island. It's so old that the flight from NYC was spurred by legitimate escape from Charles Dickens misery, and that isn't even getting to the inner city blight phenomenon (another invention of cruel planning ideology). Infact the "we're not the city" psychology could even be older... the british had occupied Long Island throughout the American Revolution. I'm unaware of another area that suffered that much imposition in that war, so perhaps the island's residents then felt abandoned by the city (which bankrolled much of the revolution) that never liberated them from the british until their surrender. The migration pattern out of the city to the island could further fuel the feeling of alienation, in being "invaded". Those people in turn already decided they were not part of the city, and there you have a cycle of rural vs urban identity.

[@notrosstheross]

As someone who was born and raised in rural Minnesota and went to university in Minneapolis most of the pickup trucks I saw were either small, really old rust buckets, or both. It wasn't until you go to places like Rochester (suburban hell if it was an entire city of 100k) or Minneapolis where you saw these faux-shiny "working truck" that about 90% of the time was used to go from their McMansion in Edina to Lunds and Byerlys. It was like a different world compared to actually being half an hour+ away from the nearest hospital. It's like cosplay for people who think cosplayers are weirdos

[@Winspur1982]

My brother lives in Edina now, and his family's new house might be considered a McMansion, but if I find out he's getting a pickup truck I will disown him immediately.

[@RoskoTwang]

I do think there is a valid argument that a 4wd vehicle is preferred or even necessary in a place like MN, that's buried in snow for 5 months of the year. I owned a Ram 1500 for a few years and it did come in handy a couple of times. That said, when I sold it and bought a beat up Mazda3, I never looked back. The day-to-day practicality of it far outweighs the handful of times where a truck would be preferable.

[@barryrobbins7694]

Just prior to the elections in the United States, I witnessed a large 4x4 truck with large shiny rims, low profile tires, a large American flag mounted on the truck bed, and numerous signs complaining about gas prices. It was sparkling clean and probably never sees dirt.

[@WillmobilePlus]

So it is assumed that just because your own a truck, it is supposed to be filthy?

[@barryrobbins7694]

@ “…and probably never sees dirt.”

[@bobbybecker6435]

​@@WillmobilePlusI think his point is that the truck is a symbol, not a work truck that someone would use to make a living.

[@chaquator]

@@WillmobilePluswhy own a truck if you dont use it as intended?

[@WillmobilePlus]

@@bobbybecker6435 So it is assumed that just because your own a truck, it needs to be used "to make a living"?

[@jsksnob3562]

I live in the Sacramento metro area, and the largest suburb is a place called Elk Grove. It has a population of nearly 180,000. There's a sign when entering Elk Grove that says "Welcome to our rural community". I repeat, this is the LARGEST SUBURB of the Sacramento metro area.

[@Mrbushbtalls837]

Funny

[@redhopster]

There are so many bay area transplants living in Sacramento pretending to be country ass folk. Like bro you work from home, make 150k, and never used the truck bed your entire ownership

[@derrickb1586]

I live in a fairly rural area. Everybody wants to be Kevin Costner from Yellowstone here. The trucks of people whose lives actually vaguely resemble that show look VERY DIFFERENT from the ones who are just merely cosplaying.

[@magniloquencia]

As an English professor and baby urban theory nerd, it makes me so glad to know that people study literature and then use it to inform the good work they go out and do in the world

[@MikePritchett9090]

Free book reading pile @starbucks

[@RichardTetta]

Yep. Sort of the Stephen Jay Gould model

[@MazeFrame]

In Germany, rural living is when your "village" only got the yellow-text on green sign with the name on it and anything meaningful is half an hour drive through fields and nature away. Also your internet may "drown" if it rains too hard.

[@hardrays]

i was gonna say, sounds about the same as where i am but then i remembered they didnt call it little allemania for nothing!

[@jansteinhaus5821]

The Internet sucks even in good weather, except in the east, there is just no connection to the internet at all

[@user-ConnorKaroThompson]

In the US the actually rural areas will be 2-3 hours away from the city

[@dx.feelgood5825]

@@user-ConnorKaroThompsonit depends on where tbh. Rural places in the south can be an hour from a major city but still tick every box for being rural. I live in AL and most of the state is fairly rural with mostly smaller towns outside of the higher income cities or districts. Even the “city” I live in is far from a “proper” city largely in part due to its complete economic collapse once the pig iron furnace shut down in the 70s.

[@user-ConnorKaroThompson]

@dx.feelgood5825 that's true. I know more about the West i guess

[@tizodd6]

My mother said something interesting to me the other day, about why she wants a bigger truck/SUV. She wants one because everyone else has one, and she feels bullied on the road if she has a small car. I thought that was pretty interesting because like you, I thought people were just roleplaying. But maybe there are more people out there like my mother, who just don't like feeling like the runt of the litter.

[@凯思]

Or are justifiably worried about dying in a collision.

[@erickchavez8469]

i drive a corola/sedan. insurance rates are better for crossover/SUV because they protect you against accidents in case you get hit. it’s practically a arms race

[@sniperbloom1305]

@@Callsign_Sturmyou might be a careful driver, but accident rates are worse for the cars that sit higher because the sensation of speed is dulled so much by the seating position. some people cant help themselves when they “feel” safe enough 🤷‍♂️

[@Callsign_Sturm]

@sniperbloom1305 I don't speed and 60 is blazing to me so... 🤷‍♀️

[@sniperbloom1305]

@@Callsign_Sturm probably has something to do with your 90s suburban. i have an 03 chevy s10 and soundproofing and ride quality wasnt chevys thing in the 90s OR the early 2000s. the suspension made any kind of driving for fun a little scary in my truck but i put coilovers in the front and back and now it rides a lot better, and 60 feels like 40. the road noise is still a problem though!

[@GreenScreenBartender]

My favorite City Nerd videos are those dunking on large trunk owners and the increasing ways to analyze their fragile egos.

[@user-gu9yq5sj7c]

Someone commented that their big car was their comfort car. CityNerd had a video on comments bullying him because he criticized big cars.

[@dixonhill1108]

You're adorable, keep up the good work. "Anti Intellectualism, is against intellectualism. Intellectualism is killing the left. Left wing politics can be summed up "I'm smart I know what's best for you so you should listen to me, if not you're a bad person" I'm not suggesting you change your ways. I'm a fan of you sabotaging your own politics. I get it I"m a high IQ urbanist, I've drank the koolaid. The left is failing because they can't except that intellectualism is dominating left wing politics. The left is obsessed with creating a distinction between average people and themselves. Just look at how many liberals define themselves by the intellectual activities they pursue. The fact you say things like "Fragile egos" Yes of course people have fragile egos, this isn't an insult but a fact of life. The left is against monetary competition but is hyper hyper competitive in the intellectual realm. There entire life is based on smart living. It's a perfectly logical way of live, in many ways it's the thing to do when you've maxed out on income. But it's when your social status is determined by your raw IQ score, you make it so average IQs can't compete. The left thinks a democracy is when smart people make smart decisions to optimize the well being of the voting public, it's the heart of socialism. Democracy is when people of less than average intelligence get an equal say in how their democracy is run. The left just can't get that little idea through their little heads. The trans thing is such a good example. If you said these are gay men who like to cross dress because they feel good from cross dressing, being Trans wouldn't be the issue it is. But you have to overintelletualise something that is simple. EDIT: Nothing more entertaining when someone with an IQ of 130 says "listen to me I"m smarter than you and you don't understand how IQ isn't a thing, if you were as smart as me you'd get it".The intellectual elitism is something that transcends income. The left promotes endless policies that are heavily biased towards intellectual elitism. If you need to reed 40 books to understand your own ethical and moral framework, you're not a moral person. You're an elitist. I'm not even against a healthy level of intellectual elitism. If you're smart false humility is obnoxious. The problem is smart people have no awareness of their own lives. You see this behavior constantly in urbanist. They see everything as an intellectual adventure. How do you cook? IQ is a component, how do you date IQ is a massive component, ethic and morality? The tv you watch, how you dress? Where you travel, what sports do you watch(soccer obviously). Urbanist love cities for the intellectual adventure. I"m one of them I get it. When you realize egalitarian activities are incredibly expensive in cities, while in contrast intellectual activities very cheap, you get the divide in America. But the left can't acknowledge IQ differences because everything they do unravels. The political dominance of Trump revolves around his anti intellectualism. Politicians are salesmen, they sell ideas, they don't force ideas on people. The left has no interest in creating an open marketplace. Socialism and rule by philosopher kings is at the heart of everything they do. When the left realizes it's not about the best solutions but about egalitarian solutions to problems they'll start winning elections again. The problem is the left is stuck because low IQ populism where they rile people up to blame everything on the rich and bigoted, while being ruled by an intellectual elite. When the left is incapable of admiring egalitarian virtues, they can't win. Again the left sees life as an intellectual adventure, they can't help themselves. EDIT: FYI you know you have bad ideas, when people are fleeing a "better life" to have a better life. You call it role playing, sure but that doesn't alter the validity of the concept.

[@LowenKM]

Yep, though it ain't just faux 'country folk', and Christopher Lasch predicted this back in the 70's with The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. Where he describes how our consumer culture, both Urban & Rural, is actually _creating_ narcissistic personalities... aka, "I _AM_ my McMansion, BMW, Glock 9mm, Harley Fat Boy, pure-bred Jack Russel Terrier, Ford pickem-up, Gap Jeans, whatever..."

[@dixonhill1108]

@@LowenKM You seriously think the country folk are more narcissistic than the urbanist? A narcissist doesn't want to associate with country folk, you don't know what a narcissist is. The people who are fastest to bash country folk are narcissist. It's not a perfect indicator, but narcissistic people don't by choice associate with the less educated.

[@robster7787]

His analysis is kind of a mixed bag for me as someone that has experience as an engineer in urban planning. I used to also work in the registry of deeds in both rural and urban environments. His understanding of the matter is concise, but sufficient enough to be a surface level knowledge of a topic that goes way deeper than what he provides in video. TL;DR his perspective is very biased, and thats coming from me thats from the same environment he is from.

[@kray97]

In my town, they like to pull out in front of you and literally brake check you. When their turn finally comes, they slow to a complete stop and slowly make their turn.

[@puddincup9879]

They can't afford those car payments and are constantly looking for someone to rear end them so insurance can help them out.

[@brayxan4741]

I come from a rural area in Saskatchewan, but I very much prefer the city. Something I notice is that rural folk will so often talk about how they are looked down upon by the city dwellers, but whenever I’d go to the city and I mention I’m from a small town, nobody ever sneers or makes a condescending comment of any kind, if anything they’re like “That’s cool.” Really goes to show how one sided the urban-rural divide is. I find city people tend not to think about rural people and places that much, not out of any superiority complex, but just because there are a lot more important things than a culture war.

[@Timidor23]

I admit here in the States the Trump phenomenon has soured me on rural people in recent years, but in general they seem way more condescending to us city folk than I've ever seen city folk be to them. They act like we're lazy, government dependent, never worked a day in our lives, have no morals

[@wyldhowl2821]

Well, I do not know anyone here in V- [very urban BC] that gets snarky towards people from SK. (General coldness towards others is common here, but not to anyone in particular.) AB might be another story though; fake urban rednecks from Calgary are about as popular as unrepentant Leafs fans from the GTA.

[@reubendensmore4648]

@@Timidor23 Are you referring to actual rural folk or the kind talked about in the video?

[@Timidor23]

@@reubendensmore4648 Actual rural folk

[@Brad-uh7be]

@@Timidor23 Well you guys do preach rent control and extended unemployment benefits. Polyamorous relationships are more common in the city. As someone who came from a rural area and worked in the city I've met my share that said they were in poverty yet lived in an amenity-laden apartment complex and shopped at the costlier grocery stores. They say they're broke but could afford their quarter bag of Northern Lights and craft beer.

[@Zippsterman]

I'm a beekeeper as a side business, I got the smallest truck I could get since I'm not too keen on sharing an enclosed space with the 50,000 stinging insects I'm in the process of relocating while operating a moving vehicle at speed. They're not always particularly happy after getting boxed up and driven around. I'm also the "friend-with-a-truck" that gets asked to help out when people need to move stuff, which I don't mind - it's my duty as the friend-with-a-truck, and I usually get some pizza or something and a fun hangout out of it. My brother also borrows it regularly to haul project dirt bikes and tow trailers, the deal is I get to use his car in the mean time and my truck comes back with at least as much gas as it started with. It works out quite well.

[@Zippsterman]

@@Callsign_Sturm Not quite the point I was going for. Most people don't need a pickup, and even if you do need to move a lot of things other types of vehicles can suit their needs better. Transporting flying stinging insects is a case where you really do need that external bed. Having another reason to hangout with friends when they ask for help doesn't bother me in the slightest. I also love old vehicles but if I'm going to be driving it every day on highways full of other people then I'm taking the crash safety and gas mileage over style given the opportunity.

[@itookallthenames]

I need a big truck for my work too, but this video isn’t about us

[@Zippsterman]

@@Callsign_Sturm The newer vehicles are safer, not the old ones.

[@Zippsterman]

@@Callsign_Sturm The new vehicles are safer, not the old ones. I do agree that the anti right-to-repair stuff and the predatory data collection is BS, thankfully that hasn't reached me in my 2014 yet.

[@l.slayer551]

@Zippsterman I make my living on a small-scale mushroom farm( clandestine for a reason) and the ten year old four banger Tacoma is plenty for hauling manure, grains, bales of straw, and other materials necessary to keep the business profitable. Definitely wanna get a few hives for personal use. So fascinating!

[@frojo9]

"Self-identify as rural". Transrural. Truck/tractor

[@falsemcnuggethope]

Dressing in rural clothing when you live in an urban setting makes you a cross-dresser.

[@ZeroGravitas187]

@@falsemcnuggethope Don't say that out loud near our governor. Actually do. With a megaphone.

[@vanillainfusion]

one joke

[@x--.]

omg, this should be a bumper sticker I can -vandalize- helpfully suggest to large truck drivers.

[@daltonbedore8396]

JDTH+ (John Deer Tractor Harvestor Plus)

[@weirdfish1216]

Please make a video about TIFs. They may be “boring” but they’re so important to city finances and development. If more people are educated on the topic, maybe we can change some local policies regarding them.

[@jackieknits61]

Living in a city that abuses TIFs for te benefits of wealthy neighborhoods at the expense of poor areas, yeah please talk about TIFs

[@josephfisher426]

They are bribes that shouldn't be used unless you're getting something that the market won't pay for, like affordable housing.

[@unicornathon]

I want to see a video about TIFs too!

[@GlenMcCabe]

Bring on the TIF and SDC video! It would be worth showing to our councillors here in Auckland, NZ... despite a few measures lately, we're still subsiding sprawl :(

[@MrAtom55]

Colorado: bUt I nEeD iT fOr ThEmOuNtAiNs! It's weird. I can somehow manage to go hiking virtually every weekend on some pretty funky and terrifying dirt mountain roads in my Crosstrek (basically a slightly lifted station wagon), and most of the cars I see there are Crosstreks, Outbacks, and sedans. Which makes sense. Doing hairpin turns up a mountain on a dirt road where you can't see anything 15-feet in front of you is the absolutely most dangerous vehicle to go up one of those types of roads on.

[@Solstice261]

Modern trucks are just straight up so big and tall they are borderline useless for off-roading, bu this point they should just admit it's to run people over, most honest to god people living in rural areas I've seen will be keeping old trucks wich have a lot of space to carry stuff but are relatively low to the ground, not these monsters

[@esgee3829]

ok so where do you put your fox tailgate pad then? lol. i'm not in co and surrounded by these idiots too.

[@x--.]

yeah, anyone who has ever been on a dirt mountain road without guardrails would never choose a large pickup truck. Small, agile is my preference.

[@Brad-uh7be]

I live near Asheville where there's a lot of Subaru drivers. One minute they're hating on the trucks. The next they're kissing up to a co-worker who has a truck to help them load furniture they're buying off Craigslist.

[@mmrw]

Me in Denver with my tiny Subaru sedan that could probably fit entirely within the footprint of these giant lifted trucks. As long as you have four wheel drive you’ll be fine anywhere in the mountains

[@a.gravemistake3061]

Nothing is more American than pretending you're a farmer. The founding fathers loved doing it.

[@mimief7969]

A huge huge portion of Georgia is just affluent exurbs full of people who are terrified of Atlanta but work around it.

[@c.d.9035]

The fact that "urban" is often a code word for "Black" is also relevant.

[@Desmaad]

I blame white flight.

[@rudetuesday]

Absolutely. When people talk about classism, I wish they'd remember that race and ethnicity are classed in the US (and not only in the United States). All of this is connected to our identity politics.

[@user-gu9yq5sj7c]

There is a makeup brand called Urban Decay. There is a site called urbandictionary that is full of trashy things. Urbanity is associated with being broken down, trashy, immoral, poor, woke, etc. While some people stereotype and romanticize the rural and rural people as good, wholesome, hardworking, peaceful, and natural.

[@Vlasov45]

@@Desmaad Do people usually flee places they're happy and safe in? Call it what it is. Ethnic cleansing of productive low crime citizens from inner city neighbourhoods in the 60s abetted by government welfare policies.

[@josephfisher426]

But within cities it is really just as bad. Baltimore has one middle-class mixed area, one lower-class mixed neighborhood, and a whole lot of segregation...

[@wafflesnfalafel1]

Thanks for the vid sir - my neighbor's son avoided school but now lives in his mother's basement while taking loans out on a 1 ton pickup and a Jeep while jumping from job to job and calling himself a "contractor" while avoiding paying for the two daughters he has with an unmarried woman. You are a positive (though depressing) influence on our little planet, thank you.

[@celticwelsh]

I'm only halfway thorough and what I thought might be an interesting video on why do many American's think of themselves as rural are actually not, is instead a weirdly hostile attack on people who live in suburbs and commuter towns.

[@tonyarmbrust]

Pretty much standard operating procedure here in Bakersfield. A lot of Good 'Ol Country Boys and Girls riding around in large trucks. Most of them live in bougie neighborhoods, like Seven Oaks. Which is a gated golf-course community with fake English countryside street names, and fake Italian villas for homes.

[@jKLa]

Those upscale neighborhoods aren't most of Bakersfield. I know Bakersfield and most of the big pickup owners live in regular mostly blue collar neighborhoods!

[@jKLa]

Most big pickup owners in Bakersfield live in ordinary neighborhoods. Most are working class. Those upscale neighborhoods you write of are only a small fraction of Bakersfield.

[@michaelcap9550]

Fake Scottish country street names = Dublin, OH. If not for a certain golf tournament, Dublin would be a village with little effect on traffic.

[@TheQuietPartisLoud]

Ohio born and raised, here. GOD do I know the cowboy cosplaying well. It's so bad.

[@mmrw]

In Ohio too that’s so weird lol. Especially after having lived out west I find it just bizarre when people who live where there are no real cowboys think they’re cowboys

[@UserName-ts3sp]

Yeehaw. Gotta Chevy in my truck and a beer in my beer.

[@robmarlatt4437]

I was going to say that this video sums up Ohio perfectly. There really are not very many truly rural areas in Ohio, but at least 50 percent of the population thinks that they are "country folks". You can't drive fifteen minutes in Ohio without passing through a town of some sort, unless you are in the SouthEast in the national forest area. This explains why Ohio politics does not match the population statistics of the state.

[@insanospaz]

Maybe not by actual metrics, but I would definitely call where I'm at rural. We're not country folk though. It's a small, recently upgraded to village status, with 2.5k pop. But I-75 and an actual city of like 12k is only 20min away.

[@smallduck1001001]

My view is that those self-identifying as rural are the elitists. They appear to regard themselves as superior, that they know better than people who commit their lives and careers to a topic, that they have a monopoly on common sense. Calling non-rural people as "elite" is pure projection.

[@ryannatividad3137]

I agree. Suburban, ruralists, often conservatives are the epitomy of exclusive and dehumanizing for anyone in their outgroup. They never explicitly say it, but they often seem to believe their way of life, their "common sense" sensibilities, and their values are correct and "normal". This happens with urbanists, intellectuals, and liberals as well to some extent...but the fake rural, suburban conservative framing of non-rural, non-conservatives as intolerant "elitists" is gaslighting and othering at best. As humans, we are all prone to doing this, but I try do do my best to not fall into this trap. It is not helpful or constructive socially. We should try our best to be tolerant of people views, until they cross a line where they begin to tread on the well-being or rights of others.

[@vf1923]

There are two different types of "not enough money": A medium kind of poverty, where you can't afford to buy a million dollar house in the city centre, and a low kind of poverty, where you can't afford to live in the suburbs because you wouldn't be able to afford the car or the commute. Most people who live outside of the city perceive it as both too scummy to live in (noisy, dirty, dangerous, full of undesirables) but also far too expensive and elite to live in. "Not everyone can live downtown and like walk everywhere, stop being so elitist." "Ugh the city has so many scummy poor people walking around, it's dangerous." I don't mind them doing their thing, but the problem is that it tends to impact me far more than I'm interested in meddling in their neighbourhoods.

[@eksbocks9438]

Their whole motivation in life is just to rebel. Regardless of how much damage it causes. So, they will adopt a culture that is opposite to the place they live at. Because they know it will make people uncomfortable. Just like how a bully does things in school. -This concept is basically called an "Anti-Culture." Where one group actively strides to keep other cultures from doing their own thing.

[@wyldhowl2821]

Well, think of it like being "trendy" within your tribe / subculture. Trends change - what's eternal is the part about some people needing to always be on-trend and shunning the untrendy people or other subcultures that are out of place in that locale. It is elitist (no matter if they cosplay being "against the [other group] elite")? YES. They might not be the real elite of their social subculture, but they want to be. Is it exclusionary? YES. They are keen to judge & exclude others, because of their own fear of being judged and excluded. So yeah, if you want to put it another way these "self-identfied rurals" are mostly phonies and try-hards; its all a sort of fashion trend to them too; they try to live according to some stereotype of what they're "supposed to" be doing. Making your own mind up and being very "take it or leave it" marks you as someone outside the group. In that way, they can be just as snobby as the foppish art-gallery glitterati of urban areas which they say they have nothing in common with.

[@a_mohabir]

It's hilarious when a "hard-wroking, tough, anti-elitist" refuses to take the bus because "it's too dangerous" or "for poor people with no car".

[@brycekelford8069]

all the people living in suburban developments ending in "Ranch" 😮

[@JKRBW]

Clicking to watch now. I live .4 miles from the elementary school and less than a mile, a ten minute walk trhrough suburban houses with sidewalks, from a dentist, chain grocery store, a gas station, multiple pharmacies, gyms, different denominations of worship houses, and coffee shops. Our small city was established with a minimum acre buy-in and has lots of horse lots. The "country girl" stickers on one of my neighbor's eight cars makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. This isn't the country, folks.

[@peterm4348]

When I was living in Dallas, everyone seemed to have a strong identification with a farm or ranch, whether it was a cousin's or a friend's or a grandparent's. It's hard to get rid of that rural identity when your fondest memories come from being out on the land, especially when most cities in Texas have very little character to identify with.

[@peterm4348]

@crowmob-yo6ry you talking about the DART light rail? Yeah it exists but the city isn't dense enough and the stations aren't in good locations for anyone to really use it

[@mindy1609]

This is a major phenomenon in Boise, ID. So many wannabe farmers who live in a culdesac and get their produce at Fred Meyer

[@wolfy_dragon]

This is sadly so true haha As someone who lives in the area

[@mindy1609]

@wolfy_dragon Yeah I'm from Meridian lol it's like 80% of the people who live there. Boise proper is slightly better but not really

[@Random59427]

In my own experience as someone who grew up 40 minutes from Houston. A lot of the growth of exurbs that we’ve experienced here have only happened in the past 10-15 years. The growth truly has been astounding. Acres and acres of fields that used to hold cows are now covered with neighborhoods filled with similar houses and cul de sacs. A lot of the people I grew up with were rural people that have since given in and moved into one of these ever expanding neighborhoods. But they still hold onto their rural identities. Many of them commute in Ford Super Duties to their offices in and around the city. And many have parents and grandparents that still live “out in the country” where they grew up.

[@coachelly86]

People’s personalities are tied to their car or truck and it’s so depressing

[@indianapatsfan]

Couldn't you say the same thing about not owning a car? Ray certainly does.

[@meikgeik]

@@indianapatsfan Exactly. People who bash on people who drive cars are just as lame as the people who drive coal rolling trucks they never use for anything other than a couple 2x4's. Some people like driving cars, some people like riding smelly underfunded trains. It's absurd to expect me, a disabled person to be put through extra pain and suffering because people don't think I should own a car.

[@ianhomerpura8937]

​@@meikgeik meanwhile us people who drive and also love trains just sit nearby eating popcorn while you all fight to the death.

[@raaaaaaaaaam496]

@@indianapatsfan the difference is that bikes are 1/1000 the cost of a car

[@Solstice261]

​@@ianhomerpura8937and those of us who live in countries with good train infrastructure and don't have to stand such bad faith arguments laugh in actual infrastructure

[@redblackthorn]

I spend all my vacations camping in remote locations, driving through rural communities, I always know I'm in the country once I start seeing more Priuses and small cars than trucks. Suburbs and cities have more trucks than the real rural areas.

[@swiftymctitties]

I feel like I'm the opposite of this. I live in a crappy suburb, but behave as if I live in a city. I bike to work and try to take the train whenever I can.

[@benbullard1172]

Nothing says "I love small town hospitality and tight-knit community" like driving your blinged out Tonka truck from Walmart to your ranchero style McMansion in the thick of the suburban sprawl

[@ajrothBU09]

As a physical therapist who has worked in cities and in exurbs and suburbs I see this very clearly. The suburb/exurb patients are much less healthy, especially the ones who clearly would self identify as “rural”. They do nothing. NO-THING physical, and that is their primary problem

[@yazminshroff5221]

I don't even understand how someone can live rurally and be unhealthy. When I lived in the country, I rode a bicycle, hiked on trails, rode horses and threw haybales around in haying season. I don't know how or why I would live rurally if not for the ability to do these activities.

[@brennanc4321]

Most people who live in rural areas that are mainly exurbs and bead room towns commute to work. There's not much they can do besides drive to work, home the store. Real pod life stuff .

[@Clownconspirator]

What bothers me the most is looking at 3/4 ton trucks from before ~2006. They are much smaller than todays 1/2 ton trucks, even midsize trucks look monstrous now. My dad owned an f250 from 2005, it was big but he replaced it with the latest generation and it’s obnoxiously large- a truck that does the exact same thing.

[@donaldendsley6199]

The older trucks really aren't that much Smaller something like an inch shorter, and maybe an inch wider. The biggest thing is with the new trucks the radiators are much larger as the engines produce a lot more horsepower. I've got a new f-250 And it's really not terribly different from the '92 we had, but it feels a lot bigger driving because the hood is much boxier and larger/higher.

[@Clownconspirator]

@ I guess that’s sort of what I meant. The hoods being taller makes them seem much bigger.

[@badm0t0rf1ng3r]

​@@Clownconspiratorthey're the same length, but the height is insane. And even the length be skewed by those longggg beds

[@pisceanbeauty2503]

As someone with a sedan the headlights are so distracting.

[@nicholasbeck2649]

I swear. I would just like a pickup trucks that's basically a car with a truck bed. Now all that's made is gargantuan monstrosities with no truck bed.

[@HIDLad001]

Both us city dwellers and the folks in rural areas shouldn’t be fighting, we should be uniting to fight suburban sprawl. Suburban sprawl sucks both the rural areas and the cities dry, and provides nothing good in return. The rural areas provide valuable agricultural resources and the cities are valuable business hubs that provide jobs and tax money. Suburbs however do NONE of these (except people roleplaying being rural)

[@wadebacca]

Those huge pickups are so impractical that I, a person who has a small homestead with sheep and hundreds of chickens, live in the boondocks of Ontario Canada, I drive a Nissan leaf.

[@mozsab]

I bet the people in RUCA 1 who say they’re “rural” are people who equate urban with black

[@tomfields3682]

😂

[@jimmydee1130]

Well, who embraced the URBAN label first - Those People or everyone else?

[@corruptedhiker]

You people who say "Those people " should say at least say "blacks" if that's what you're getting at. Show your true colors, man

[@derickcastillo9083]

This is so interesting to me on a personal level. I grew up in the middle of a city. My mother grew up on a ranch and farm and my father went back and forth between the farm and the city. I had no personal experience with rural life. I fell in love with and married a rancher woman and now I train horses and work the ranch every week, in addition to my job as a teacher. We always laugh when people we know think they know what ranching is because they have watched Yellowstone. When someone asks me if I am a real cowboy, I respond, “I don’t think I qualify.” My wife and kids and I live on an acre and a half, next to a city of nearly one million people (Albuquerque, NM). We have two horses, two dogs, three goats and one barn cat, am I urban or rural? We voted for Harris. So maybe we are city folks.

[@sevenandthelittlestmew]

You’re probably not rural. If you live in Rio Rancho or Bernalillo, or Los Lunas to the south, or Tijeras or Edgewood to the east, that’s a no. If you live in Quemado? Then you’d be rural. Areas near ABQ or Santa Fe, though, are definitely exurban.

[@derickcastillo9083]

@@sevenandthelittlestmew Yeah, we live int South Valley.

[@foamyesque]

I suspect some of it is a relative thing: if you're travelling from a small town to a large city for work or whatnot, that makes you think of yourself as more rural, whereas if you stay within a small town, you think of yourself as *less* rural because it's the people from the outskirts of that that are commuting in to them.

[@firefly9838]

Good point.

[@SilentObserver2009]

I'd say it's a general misunderstanding of what defines 'rural' vs 'urban', and the whole concept of 'suburban' existing in popular thinking but not existing according to census data. Sometimes the difference is obvious, when the urban area is allowed to develop properly and sensibly and results in appropriately high density of buildings; and sometimes I can understand why someone who lives in a 'suburb' or 'exurb' dominated by copy+paste single-family housing sprawling over several square miles might think of themselves as 'rural'. They don't have apartment towers, large amounts of townhouses, residences as a 2nd/3rd floor above a business, etc, all the defining things people tend to think of when they picture an 'urban area'. They picture a dense New York City borough, not something like the satellite cities mentioned in this video.

[@valerieherman9075]

Hey, a thought for a sequel to this episode: Hippie farmers vs 🤔 "Patriot" farmers. I'm not sure how to describe them. They're the political opposites of the rural world. I guess you would say I identify as rural, but I live in the city- because I am trying to get to a rural area to live. But I have a hard time finding rural communities that fit my goals. I want to farm naturally, multiple heirloom species, rotate crops, not use chemicals, live With the land, use solar, drive a small, hybrid truck, welcome new ideas and people- a Hippie farmer. The rural communities I want to live in seem primarily to be the "Ridgidly American, proud, strict, religious, unchanging, black and white, 'that's how we've always done it', conquer the land, individualism, anti-intellectual" farmers.

[@paigeh1670]

I doubt its all reactionary politics that causes people in exurbs to consider themselves rural relative to people in micropolitan areas. I think it's partially the fact that when you're next to an urban center, you are relatively rural. When youre in a small city next to really really rural areas, you are relatively metropolitan. While people from major metros would consider me to be rural growing up in small cities in the South, I feel like a city slicker because there was more than one grovery store in my town. Everything is relative.

[@DuncanAdkins]

I think that the key divisor between the RUCA Code 2 and Code 4 places is their relationship to the central city. Much like a teenager that has just enough independence to feel all of the ways that they are under the thumb of their parents, yet still immature enough to not understand the many ways that they cannot survive on their own and how much their parents do for them, RUCA 2 locations *want* to rebel and be seen as their own thing, and act out thru rural cosplay. Meanwhile, the RUCA 4 locations are more like someone who left home at 18 and is getting along on their own. They have no need to cosplay independence because they live it, and don't have a complex around their relationship to their parents, as they are more of a peer relationship than a parent and child. They respect the other metro area as it is distinct from them, and there is value to both their carved out space, AND the greater amenities that the larger metro can bring, while not having a significant suburban presence to blur the lines between the two and create an unclear boundary. As you said, suburbs are a non-place, and so they have no larger social fabric to fold into the way you do in a city center, whether that center has 5 million people or 60,000. I think that the idea that cities are inherently foreign to the human experience is incorrect, just in the sense that cities are to humans the way anthills are to ants- they are a terraforming of the world around the relationships and roles we more naturally take on, with the space folded and warped to fit. Even if each person can only maintain ~150 relationships at a time, the dynamics of a city allows those relationships to work better thru proximity, shared experience, and simplicity of connection. Once you _strain_ that by putting people into the non-space that is a suburb, where they have the terraforming of a city with none of the agglomeration effects of density & overlapping spaces, it's almost unsurprising that people will act out in a way that rejects their reality. They are in constant tension, between the ideal of a city that they get tastes of on occasion, and the isolation of rurality with none of the benefits therin. I again think that's why the RUCA 4 locations reverse the trend- there is a clarity of boundary between the urban and the rural that allows both to exist without straining the identity between the opposite poles of urban and rural. I think that in so many ways, the suburban experiment has failed, and this is yet another example of why it's coming apart at the seams. Cities have existed since humans started farming, yet we have only been able to (sorta) sustain this dual-lifestyle for the past century or so. With the cracks showing up more and more every day, I doubt that we can sustain this form for too much longer.

[@beejls]

Yep yep yep there's a reason people say they're from Chicago and not Schaumburg. Schaumburg's a place you park while you raise your kids. Then everybody gets the hell out of Schaumburg. Wash rinse repeat on many of Chicago suburbs.

[@thomasopp9104]

Very eloquently put. Nice work

[@smrndalodz7182]

@@beejls I have met people who grew up in such suburbs. I was always shocked by 2 things. One was how little independence these people had growing up. Like without mass transit, you're basically dependent on mommy and daddy to go anywhere until you're 16. The other thing was how they all characterized the places they grew up as awful and boring, how many of these bored kids did drugs, but yet how many of them couldn't imagine raising their own kids in anywhere but a suburb. Also, if you meet someone from Chicago, they don't tell you they're from Chicago, they name the actual neighborhood. People from the Chicago suburbs seem to want the street cred of being from the city, but they like to hold the city in some form of disdain as somehow not good enough at the same time.

[@beejls]

@@smrndalodz7182 spot on! If you’re really from Chicago, you say which neighborhood you’re from. Far too many people in the suburbs want it both ways. They want all the amenities of Chicago, but they don’t want any of the responsibilities of the costs of paying taxes in a city with all the social and societal services available.

[@smrndalodz7182]

​@@beejls They also want the street cred that comes with living in Englewood, but with the social status that would come from living in the Gold Coast, and the hip factor of Logan Square, all while actually living in what is pretty much a strip mall.

[@Eskimomatt]

I like how you didn't feel the need to blur "Indianapolis" from your list because no one would ever want to rip it off.

[@isray89]

Born and raised in Indy - can confirm. Every transplant I've met says the same thing: Indiana is a wonderful place to be from. Not to be - just to be from.

[@mcphersonsound]

I recognized this a lot when I was in University. Dudes acting super farmer when they are from San Clement

[@sirhenrymorgan1187]

Oh, so what JD Vance does? The suburbs of Cincinnati ≠ Appalachia.

[@starventure]

Leave Hamilton county and it is rural.

[@f-86zoomer37]

@@starventureit’s not Appalachia though. It’s also not “rural” either. It’s called exurban

[@timk7073]

Butler County, where Vance is from, is pretty gritty and urban (especially Middletown and Hamilton). There are a lot of Appalachian folks who moved there several generations ago to work in the now-shuttered factories.

[@sirhenrymorgan1187]

@@timk7073 That's what I'm saying. Vance is from a gritty urban area but he claims to be from rural Appalachia.

[@timk7073]

​@sirhenrymorgan1187 Agreed. I live here and cannot stand the guy.

[@DVeck89]

I think a major barrier to more people embracing urbanism is housing. Apartments/homes close to or in a downtown area are either insanely expensive or crime-ridden.

[@WinstonWolfe73]

Meanwhile, everyone seems to be against allowing the suburbanites to keep working remotely.

[@trevinbeattie4888]

Never heard of that targeting suburbanites specifically; it’s generally aimed at all office workers whether they’re in the same city or working from other countries.

[@kyrannify]

This video was the best recommendation I've received from KZbin in a year -- I was laughing out loud and subscribed immediately. I was raised by rural identifying people who own two massive trucks and cosplay rurality even though they've lived within 30 minutes of a metro area for the last 40 years of their lives. Nice to know there's peer reviewed research out there about this phenomenon... Time for me to head to Google Scholar.

[@enchantedbananas]

well people larp as witches, fighters, Rockstars, and even NPCs. Larping as a rancher is just really popular, polluting and weirdly subsidized by the government.

[@michaelmurdock4607]

I'm a level 92 share cropper. My party keeps me around because every harvest season, I put all my XP into my horticulture ability. as long as I roll at least a 3, I can make plants grow just by looking at them.

[@RealPeoplePerson]

Maybe rural-urban identification is in part shaped by the relative size difference between where you live and the metro area you most experience, be it where you work, shop or the one you see on TV. If you live in a suburb or exurb, and your experience of the metro area makes your community feel tiny in comparison, perhaps you're more likely to identify as rural, regardless of the real size of your community.

[@BrisLS1]

Thank you, thank you! Helleluyah! Ridiculous people driving jacked up $100k Jeeps with handicapped plates.

[@wsc2004]

I can stop laughing when I see this

[@kristingallaty8301]

This is one of the best things I've seen on KZbin, in that it ties together US culture, politics (national and local), literature, planning, manufacturing, healthcare statistics, automotive industry, science, self-identity, capitalism, misinformation. It also shows how important it is that people who have a background in a different field (English Lit dealing with our adjustment to the urban migration period of our history in this case) bring their knowledge to the table. Thank you so much!

[@dylanakent]

Easy way to tell if you are city/suburb vs rural: Do you have water from a pipeline or a well? Do you have a sewer or a septic tank? Gas lines or propane tanks? Street lights or darkness? Is the pickup truck you own actually dirty and used in your line of work everyday or is it just a overly large and strange commuter car?

[@FullLengthInterstates]

As an infrastructure focused channel, built environment and amenities this makes much more sense to me than whether you can commute to the city. Most state capitals are small so you get into farmland fairly quickly. The difference is how you live and what you are doing. Most people lose on occupation because there simply aren't that many rural jobs. In terms of lifestyle, I would say that many suburbs have the same disadvantages of rural areas. My town is considered urban/ suburban (40 mins from the city) but there are roads just 10 minutes away with big fields, no shoulder, no sidewalk, no sewer. Definitely possible to do rural home/ recreation here.

[@user-account-not-found]

It's for offroading in the mountains, does that count?

[@TheRedKing247]

This doesn't work though, I come from a village of 1,400 where it was 20 minutes to the next town where we had proper sewage, water, gas and street lights. That might work better for rural and urban vs isolated communities though, or at least if you do have a well, a septic tank, propane tanks and no road lighting then you're definitely rural whereas you could still be rural if you don't.

[@DeandreSteven]

This comment was more succint and info dense and simultaneously more use than this dorks video and all the shitlib comments Actually helpful distinction

[@chublez]

Quicker test. Can you fire a gun in your yard legally?

[@mactan_sc]

highway queens the lot of those trucks. especially if its lifted or wheelbase widened

[@kw6382]

I think you mean 'track' but point taken.

[@Kyle1972-Indy]

I came across an article a couple years ago where they crunched the data on the people arrested at the capital on Jan 6th and what they found was most of them were not rural, but frustrated conservatives who lived in heavily blue urban areas.

[@CharlesBallowe]

I just looked up my ruca code - I think I agree on the dependence on the local more urban dependence, but its also a neighborhood with an average lot size around 5 acres and bordering on farm land. I can easily see the people living here thinking of themselves as rural. My neighbor hunt in the woods, own tractors, and drive trucks because they haul heavy equipment for work.

[@sldulin]

A couple of things that contribute to this that you didn't mention, number 1 is the "drive till you qualify" effect. Exurban, semi-rural places are what is affordable to a lot of first-time buyers and then suburban infill comes later. Number 2 is that to afford a house anymore requires both partners to be working and since the rise in women enrolment in higher education, their incomes are comparable to their husband's. Oftentimes their respective jobsites are located a good distance from each other so they triangulate to split the difference and that plops them into a semi-rural area.

[@Ray03595]

It's so cringey. This is a thing in NEW JERSEY of all places too, and not Southern Jersey where there is actually some rural land. They are cars you can tell have done nothing but been driven around suburbs and hauled nothing. I just dont understand it and I don't know a single woman impressed by a large truck, only other men who also like to cosplay.

[@cloudyskies5497]

Here's another weird one: I once had the strange experience of listening to a lady who claimed suburbanites were more concerned about nature than urbanites because they could keep gardens in their yards.

[@isray89]

Could is the operative word there. Most use it as a testing ground for roundup.

[@tinfoilslacks3750]

I mean, they only experience suburbia via the myopic lense of their own houses and streets. Most suburbs do just have more greenery than most cities. It's not proper green space that could actually support wildlife or facilitate an ecosystem, but it's clearly visible greenspace that a lot of american cities just don't have. This happens all the time with literally every issue. There are things you can see and things you can't see unless you dedicate lots of time to digging through the data. She can see that the suburbs have more green space than the city. She can't *see* the manner in which a walkable high density city is good for the environment by lowering emissions and reducing sprawl. Cities protect the environment by limitting the degree to which they take up space that can otherwise be taken up by nature. It's like how you can see the 1 in 1 million people who contract a disease from the vaccine they receive, but you can't *see* the millions of people whos lives are saved because of the immunity created by the widespread use of the vaccine.