𝙷𝚒𝚌𝚔𝚖𝚊𝚗@shagbark_hick

Generations of abject economic and political neglect have a way of producing a "dark surliness" in a population. Upstate NY's poorer corners might be some of the most nihilistic, ragged, dysfunctional small-town areas I've seen in the US. Even other similarly neglected regions of the US seem not to have such an omnipresent degree of macabre cynicism and extreme fatalism. We've got no real identity. We're the place that shares a name with America's largest megacity. Everyone forgets we exist, including the NYS government. We can't really claim to be "New Englanders," "Midwestern," "Appalachian," etc. The whole state is liminal. When we travel and people ask us where we're from, we have to say "New York... but not the city... no it's not like Westchester... it's more like Canada... I actually live 300 miles from Times Square... no NYC is not 300 miles long..." etc. and still maybe 50% of people you talk to just don't get it. Gives us this underdog mentality, we kind of snarl a little, we're all pallid vitamin D deficient alcoholics, everyone looks vaguely miserable on a level that would make NJ and MA seem downright cheery. It's the American analogue to some far-flung Soviet province.