Tw: Americentrism
Lately, I’ve found myself mulling over the dichotomies between Ohio and Florida as they exist within the memeosphere(I don’t have another word for this)
From personal observations, it appears to me, within the context of American culture and it’s relation to its individual states, that these two polities hold a unique position of elevation relative to others. While states like Texas, California, New York, and many others have their associations (Ala alambama and incest), Florida and Ohio(henceforth referred to as Flohioda) stand apart from the rest in that they call to the mind of the observer commentaries on the more myopic aspects of American life.
However, it should be said, that the entities and the dolor with which they contend with are of notably different flavors. The salt to one’s msg, or the coke to one’s Pepsi, if you will.
In Ohio, representative of the Midwest region, we see the general malaise of a landlocked people. The ire of being the ‘flyover’ state. ‘Here lies dust’. This in part perhaps stems to deindustrialization and the rise of neo liberalism. Where thousands of jobs that once held up a prosperous economy were shipped to overseas labor in pursuit of ‘free markets’ and globalization. One wonders what the taste of the state might have been prior to 1971, but as it is now, it holds in the place of American consciousness as the beholder of dread and despair. Memes concerned with this subject oftentimes call to bewilderment, dejection, at a realization perhaps of ‘I am here, in Ohio.’ Near Equidistant from the new poles of finiancialized and tech based capital, one sees in affect the anignorosis of being in the ‘middle of nowhere’.
Whereas Florida, on the whole, seems to be the resting place of American absurdity. Here is a locus of anti communist formation and soon to be focal point of climate change. Here is a concentration of a well to do retired populace, the final resting place of reactionary boomers.
The sunshine state in which the sun shines on all aspects of its depravity.
Editorializing, sure, but where we find the origins of the effusive ‘Florida man’, we reveal its lax reporting laws, where by the nature of it, the crazy crimes that can and do happen anywhere, aren’t sold off for headlines in some degree of protection to the privacy of alleged parties.
Although, how much of it is just a meme, ie not reprasentive of true reality? To what degree is it more a ‘nickelback is bad’ of modern times (the author has no opinion on nicleback and has never heard a song). Can it be said it’s reputation is a holdover of testimony and not aqquaintenship to the state itself? If you’ll allow the author to insert themselves; I can say having lived in the state for a time in childhood that is in fact crazy and does suck.
Perhaps in the case of Florida, it could be the heat. It drives some people crazy, and in observation of reports of crime and it’s increase in the summer time, we see in effect how the geography of a locale might affect the character of its inhabitants(if I used those wrong I stg).
One wonders how these phenomena developed. In my estimation, the flashpoint of Florida weird began or was greatly exacerbated by the bathsalt zombie incident. Where in the ‘aughts, a crazed man high on bath salts ate the face of a man in public. News of this was sensationalized and after the fact cemented an image in popular consciousness of what the state was like. Immortalized in the show ‘Atlanta,’ of Childish Gambino fame, where it was commented on directly by name. And in its follow up finding a sort of, brinksmanship of absurdity as progressively weirder headlines coincided with some of the wildest shit u ever seen dog.
These are things that interest me. And as sea levels and temperatures rise, and America enters what seems to be a new recession, we can find a preview of what’s to come in these two states, as they are already there. The Ohioization of America is seemingly inevitable, and without intervention the scenario of an astronaut looking down on a large squarish continent might not seem so far fetched.
What do you think?
. If you really think of it, each state with cultural impact often bleeds into its neighbors somewhat. Like if you think about the flordia crazy stereotype or dreary ohian, these are containers for a real subset of people even beyond the arbitrary lines of a state.