What makes someone Southern??

What distinguishes you being Southern? What are some key differences that separate Southern culture from other American cultures?

These are all big questions, that require more than a stereotypical and superficial answer. After living in Washington state for 7 years South for 10 years, I truly feel that the answer varies greatly and there isn't a straight recipe on how to be Southern or Northern (which may surprise some people!). Southern-ness varies from person to person and in this new technologically advancing age, the culture is being redefined and people are widening its boundaries daily. For example, Southern music used to be slaves composing and singing religious songs because they looked sought refuge in religion and God when their lives were like crap, to put it bluntly. That's how you get the common song of "i'll fly away." The songs were sungn with a fiddle, violin. Then guitars started to come into the picture, acoustic by the way. The genres of music, blues and jazz started in new orleans in the early 1900s, by blacks. Then rock and roll and gospel had their impact on southern culture with Elvis Presley. And now more modern southern music is being shaped by rap music, again by African-Americans! But listening to a certain style of music doesn't make you Southern or Northern! If I was trying to act Southern, I would immediately switch to a redneck, hillbilly accent. But this doesn't make you one way or the other either! America is a melting pot of cultures and since the South nowadays has the largest influx of people, one's history and ethnic background doesn't make you Southern anymore. So if not's speech, music, food, religion; if these are all relative, then what makes someone Southern?

I guess the answer to this question is very elusive, but I have to conclude that the Southern identity is slowly materializing away. With the globalization of the south an the new influx of ideas and cultures, post-South doesn't really exist anymore. The idea of how the South was persists as how the South is today, but a little deeper dig underneath shows its supericiality.

Southern vs. Northern upper class food

Responding to Jason's question regarding the essence of what is known today as "Southern food."

Everybody is familiar with the traditional Southern fried food. This kind of food is seen almost too often on dinner tables in homes, fast food restaurant chains, and also in family-owned small restaurants. So I wanted to see if this idea of "Southern food" is preserved in more elegant and artful forms of food. After a short enough search on Google, I found a company called Debra Jane's Classic Gourmet Southern Delicacies. You can check it out here. It's not very functional though, because the company is more recent and I am guessing the website is as a result also very new. However, it does include several pictures of the Southern food that they offer! The most notable of which I've shown here.

The website says that this company is dedicated to "quintessential southern food." Since this company started recently (2007), I feel that it offers great insight into how traditional southern food is twisted and turned into the modern southern delicacies of fancy expensive restaurants. Although it is a modern elegant type of food, you can still see the influence of the traditional ideas of southern food. For example the very first picture is one of fried chicken (well at least I think it's chicken); my point is that it is fried and very noticeable. Also, the food in the middle pictures look so fresh, that it seems like the chef had just picked it from the garden! Again, a subtle idea of the farming and agrarian society of the traditional south. But I think the strongest sense of southern culture is that it's not like the abstract art of very elegant and fancy restaurants.

Here are some pictures showing how there is a different kind of elegant' upper class food, and it almost seems that the chef's forgot they were preparing food! It doesn't look filling at all, with all the small portions, which is in agreement with a profit-oriented and ungenerous philosophy on how to run a business, which seems to fit in with a northern city-like culture.

I close with a picture of a 'northerner' kind of upper class food from the Chicago gourmet 2009 that i got from this website.

The Golden Rule

The biggest differences in the North and the South are manners and morals. In the South, many children are taught at a young age to respect their elders, which includes referring to adults as "sir" or "ma'am". This generally carries over into a respect for all. Children are taught to share and live by the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Most southerners will do anything to help others, which comes from the southern stereotype of "good ole southern hospitality". This is not to say that all northerners are rude and inconsiderate, however, southerners are usually more willing to help.


Southerners are also known for their morals. They are considered a conservative and religious people. The south is considered the "Bible belt", because church attendance is very high. Southerners are generally very strict on their thoughts of politics, abortion, interracial marriages, and sex before marriage. Not all southerners follow these stereotypes, but they are very common among the majority.

A Great Home Cooked Meal

The North and South have always had their differences. Beginning before the civil war, and still today, the stereotypes of the two can be quite ridiculous. Northerners are thought of as more rude, stuck up and better educated than Southerners. While Southerners are seen as slow, big hearted, people who eat fried food all the time. When Northerners look at the South, they see people like Shelly, the woman in this everything southern video:

In this video, Shelly is teaching her audience the way to a man's heart. She claims that by making good food that men cannot resist, you can get away with just about anything. She states that this is the game that southern women understand and know how to play. Women in the North are thought of as more independent and able to fend for themselves, less dependent on things and other people, especially their husbands. This video shows why there is a common stereotype of southerners. It claims that women are constantly making good food for their husbands to get away with either spending too much money or some other thing. The main stereotype between the North and the South here is that women have a difference outlook on the way they view men. Southern women need their husbands and Northern women feel that they don't need men in their lives, it is just an asset that they like to keep around. Although this stereotype may not be entirely true, it is a common difference associated with women in the North and South. There seems to be a higher standard set by Northerners, to be accomplished, work at a a nice job, and make a lot of money. Whereas in the South, people do what they please and seem to do it out of enjoyment.

Essentially in the South, give a man a great home cooked meal, and everything else will seem so much less important to him. A good lesson learned, taught by the original southern housewife.

The Kind, Slow-Paced, Ignorant South

Many people (especially those who do not live in the South) differentiate between the North and the South by looking at the South as a slow-paced environment filled with southern hospitality and home cooked food. The North is then seen as the reverse, filled with fast-paced businessmen living in the city. In reality, these stereotypes are not nearly as true as they once were, with the South becoming globalized and both cultures changing to a similar suburban culture.

Southerners are also seen as dumb and uneducated. While this is a very broad (and generally false) stereotype, it is partially based in truth. In US News' rankings of best schools by state, no southern state makes it into the top 10. Luckily, this is a trend that seems to be changing, as education becomes more vital in the New South.



When someone sees a video like the one of Miss South Carolina, instead of just thinking that she is dumb, they revert to a stereotype and think that this is proof that all southerners are ignorant, which is just not true.

The North and South are different?

What distinguishes being Southern? Why are there such cultural differences between the north and south, and what are some of these key differences? Try finding any images or videos to support your ideas.

The Redneck South

The term red neck was first used to describe the lower working class, because they would work all day outside and would get sun burnt. Over the years, this term became a stereotype that classified everyone who lived in the south. When I think of the term redneck, I think of a toothless white male with overalls and a mullet which is depicted in this image. However, most people who live in the south are not like this at all. Many southerners are very wealthy and live luxurious lives and are the complete opposite of this toothless redneck. Although, of course, you will find the occasional redneck who dresses and acts like the sterotype.

The media gives the south a bad reputation. Many people actually believe that all southerners are white trash rednecks. Those who have not been to the south would get a bad first impression of the south from images like this one. This could make some one not want to visit the south. Atlanta is considered part of the new south and is very sophisticated. Southerners are working very hard to get rid of this bad reputation and become known as a high class, sophisticated region.