I just visited the Midwest. It is a land of Dans.

I spent the weekend in Iowa and Nebraska (I know Dan is from Kansas, but I figure they're very culturally similar), and I now feel like I have a better appreciation for why Dan is Dan. The disposition of virtually everyone I met was a no-frills, friendly goofiness. It was the same endearingly wide-eyed stuff I've come to expect from Dan, and I don't mean that in a snarky, mean-spirited way at all. I had a freaking blast hanging out with the midwesterners. They were some of the funniest people I've ever met, probably because they learned how to entertain themselves since there's not all that much going on. Honestly, there's something to that. Not having (or needing) constant stimuli is fairly liberating. I live in Austin, and I get so tired of all the fake-ass bullshit from "trendy", self-absorbed people who don't even really have their own identity. It was incredibly refreshing to just fill a cooler with beer and do dumb shit. We got drunk and flew a drone around in a parking lot like five-year-olds with a new toy, and it was some of the most fun I've had in a while.

And the jackets. My God, the jackets. Most of the younger Midwestern people dressed normally, but just about everyone over the age of 40 wore an utterly amazing jacket that put Members Only to shame. I wasn't appreciating them in an ironic, hipstery way, either. They were wearing jackets that haven't been remotely in style for decades, and that's awesome. I'm talking multicolored pleather bomber jackets, shiny track-style varsity jackets with iron-on lettering, etc. These jackets weren't "retro" or "vintage", they were straight-up antiques. This was a case of people wearing the exact same jacket they got back in 1948, 1973, or whenever. I got the sense that if I had asked how long they had worn their jacket, they would have been perplexed at the question and responded "this jacket still keeps me warm; why would I replace something that works just fine?" There's inherently a whole lot of not giving a fuck to that, and I'm completely on board with that.

I imagine that growing up in such an area gives rise to a general attitude of "well, fuck it, let's make the most of this" that leads to ideas like "hey, let's go ride a roller coaster while playing Super Mario 3". It's like no one told the Midwest that people are supposed to be pretentious assholes. Which is probably why Dan seems so much happier than the rest of us. He hasn't figured out how not to see the world through Dan-Cam, and I hope he never does. I'm glad to have visited the heartland of America for a bit of perspective. Not just on Dan, but on life in general. Also, I cannot fucking wait to hear reports from the Danny O'Dwyer Thanksgiving with the Ryckerts so he can experience the culture shock to an even greater degree. I hope they have as much fun as I did, and I'm guessing they will.

Midwest is such a broad area geographically, I think you'd find Minnesota + Upper Peninsula people behave differently than Wisconsin/Illinois/Ohio/Michigan behave differently than Great Plains states behave differently than Indiana which for some undefined reason is its own thing. I like UP people/Canadians the best personally and then Southerners, though mainly for the accent.

As a resident of the Midwest I can in fact confirm that we are awesome. A region of Dan's though? That may be a tiny stretch. Only tiny though.

Aw man there are no cool old jackets in my part of Missouri, just a sea of denim overalls.

I think this is generally true of people from rural areas.

I know Dan lived in the suburbs or whatever, but I still feel like his values and disposition must be like one generation behind his own, and inherited from his mom and/or dad's generation that did live in more rural areas before moving into the suburbs. Every cousin, aunt, and uncle I have who lives in a more rural community has an attitude that is reasonably comparable to Dan's, at least compared to most people I've ever met who grew up in an urban or suburban area who are nothing like Dan.

@bisonhero: Rural vs Urban is definitely part of it as well, though I've met rural douchebags and urban people that aren't assholes so even that doesn't necessarily hold up.

Nebraskan here. It is pretty nice here.

@fredchuckdave said:

Absolutely, some rural people are closed-minded in a Dan-like way that leads to them being super intolerant of people who do not share their own affiliation when it comes to race, religion, politics, etc. And yeah, there are urban people who are surprisingly cheery and generous despite their community not being as tight-knit as a smaller rural community.

But yeah, the general trends make me just think of Dan as somebody who used to live out in the country.

I live in the midwest expanse known as Chicago and we're all a bunch of assholes.

Iowan here.

I feel like Dan is a long lost sibling.

Iowa is where true people live and are free.

One of my cousins has an old WW1 mounted machine gun he bought from salvage somewhere. When we go to his place for Thanksgiving, the guys head out to shoot it into an empty corn field for a couple moments. It is stupid and awesome; I think Dan would appreciate it.

Why does the rest of the country have this weird disdain for the midwest? Genuine question. I'm from Michigan and totally don't get it.

Like whenever Scott Bromly talks about visiting Michigan on The Comedy Button and he's like deeply offended that people visit Applebee's, we have 4 seasons, or that someone had the audacity to be fat near him. If that's the rest of the country then fuck the rest of the country.

There's a lot to the midwest so its hard to bunch us all together, but as someone raised in a Wisconsin family in Indiana, you aren't too far off base. Dan wouldn't feel out of place in my small home town like the other crew probably would. I guess I can see the happy go lucky and goofy comparisons. It's not like we have much to do out here. Have to get as much enjoyment out of the simple things as possible. I'm generally on the more open-minded side of things compared to the people around me, but I'm probably still fairly close minded by comparison to the rest of the country.

@mechakirby: I live in Michigan (Lansing) as well and while there are nice people around for the most part it doesn't seem to be much different than mainstream American culture (which is to say: extraordinarily self centered people). I'm a fairly cynical person but I think if the people around were universally jolly/happy-go-lucky then I'd probably feel a bit different.

As far as insulting fat people that's just a comedy trope, don't think anyone actually cares that much as long as you don't have offensive hygiene or something. The smartest person that worked at a McDonald's where I worked during college was absurdly enormous, but there was much more to learn from her than the rest of the staff combined on both official and unofficial levels.

If my choice in activities is firing a WWI machine gun at a cornfield vs. standing shoulder-to-shoulder with smarmy hipsters to attempt to order a ridiculously overpriced drink at "the cool new place to go", it's not even a contest.

I'd just like to point out that microwaving hot dogs in shoe boxes is not typical of Michiganders. I did microwave a fat free hot dog once and it blew all the fuses in my dorm room but that's as close as I got to hot dog shenanigans.

I live in suburban Kansas.. it's basically a xerox of any other suburban area in the country except with better BBQ and crazy people running the government. God, I miss Missouri.

As a Nebraskan I'd be curious to know what parts of it you stayed in/places you hung out at. Omaha and Lincoln are very different cities (I'm an Omaha myself), let alone how different they are from the rest of the state.

I still find it odd to think of any of the Great Plains states as being part of the Midwest, but then I grew up in Oklahoma which is neither midwestern nor truly southern.

@nodima I flew into Omaha and hung out there for a while. I really enjoyed Omaha. It was clean, modern, and impressive. I spent some time walking around the Old Market, went to the Passageway, went to a few record stores, found some scarves for the wife for Christmas, checked out TD Ameritrade park, and just had a good time. I wish I would have had more time there, honestly.

I'm just gonna say most people that I've met from the Midwest remind me of Dan. For instance the roommate I had for a while from Wisconsin was definitely a Dan type character. Pretty much colored my view of the Midwest.

"The Midwest is made up of people whose horse-and-buggies broke down on the way to California and they just said fuck it."

-Dan Harmon

Behold! The PROMISED LAND!

Everybody is just jealous that we have all the fresh water.

And that a good percentage of that water goes into making delicious beers.

Yep. I didn't realize that people thought this was just a freak thing.

I know a lot of people like Dan. Shit, I have done a lot of stuff Dan talks about. The weird things to me about Dan are like not knowing what egg whites are. I mean, that seems like something you just know. Or at least you know it's not the shell even if you don't automatically correlate egg whites to the white part of the egg.

But ya, Dan isn't some anomaly. There's a lot of people like that. They're cool people.

Edit: And ya, I live in Austin too. The people here, specifically, seem confused about life in general. It's probably because it's a college town plus so many people come here from all over- it's cool though I like Austin. Austin is going to be the new Hollywood some time in the next decade which could be good or bad- I don't know.

And, no offense, but you shouldn't put people in Austin down. The way you talk makes me believe you're no different since you're so confused about how other people are in other parts of your own country.

Ah, it's a shame you couldn't make it to Benson, you may have had some solid flashbacks to Austin depending on the night. Also, if you're ever back in the area, I bartend at Pageturner's Lounge in Dundee and fellow duders are always welcome.

@fredchuckdave: As they say Indiana is made up of people from Kentucky who were driving to Michigan and ran out of gas....so yeah there's that.

@fredchuckdave: wait, Ohio is part of the midwest? really? Wouldn't it be mideast, at the most?

I'm so fucking confused now because of including Ohio, Michigan, etc... into the midwest thing. And here I thought I was done with this kind of confusion =/

As a former resident of Ohio, yes, it is the midwest. If you were to take a drive in the state, it's a bunch of flat land. It also gets rather cold in the winter, and it rains a lot.

I think it's because, when there were just the 13 original colonies were founded, Ohio WAS considered the west. It's all a matter of perspective.

@dudeglove: Mormons came from upstate New York, near Rochester, but they moved to Utah during the manifest destiny period of the US. I think around the 1840s.

The US government literally gave the Mormons the shittiest piece of land they possibly could. Beyond the nice scenery in the southern part of the state there is nothing worthwhile in Utah. They even took Nevada out of it because there was possibly silver there and the US government wanted it.

I don't know that I'd call Austin a college town. It's a big city that happens to have a college in it. But yes, people do come here from all over. Most of California and much of the Northeast is here now, which is another topic in and of itself. I don't think it's unfair to criticize some of the people here, either. Most Austinites take themselves way too seriously. Austin is a cool place to live and is about as good as big cities get, but that isn't a license for its citizens to be pretentious. Yet that's often exactly what happens. People go to the "cool" places/events and then deem themselves cool by association. A conversation that happens a billion times a day in this city is "Hey, have you been to (insert place/activity)? Man, I had an awesome time there; you should go". That's a passive-aggressive pile of narcissistic one-upper bullshit that grows incredibly tiresome. I swear that half these people don't even actually enjoy the shit they brag about doing; what they enjoy is the bragging itself. Your Hollywood comparison is valid. This place is become more artificial by the day, which is probably part of the reason why I found the Midwest's comparative lack of bullshit to be extremely refreshing.

I wish I knew more people like Dan. I like Dan. Dan has personality. Dan is unabashedly himself. And Dan's here to have a good time. That's awesome, and in my experience, Dan sadly is a bit of an anomaly. I'm not trying to make this a "fuck Austin" thread or anything, as I do like it here for the most part. I'm really just trying to point out why I enjoyed my visit to the heartland. Perhaps I should have stated it better than a somewhat reductive comparison, but Austin is my frame of reference since I've spent a ton of my life here. From what I can tell, people tend to shit on places like the Midwest too much and laud places like Austin too much, so maybe this is just my way of trying to balance the scales a bit; I don't know. I feel like too few appreciate the simpler things like interacting with genuine people, while too many presume "attractions" are just inherently fun even when many are a hollow fucking beating in reality. Ultimately, what I'm trying to say in my typically verbose, rambling way is that the Midwest is a good time if people give it a fair shake. That's all.

@dudeglove: Well, when a Momma mormon and a Daddy mormon love each very much the birds pollinate the bees and then the stork delivers a mormon. =)

I'm pretty sure that is scientifically accurate.

I have yet to see someone tell someone else to purify themselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka.

That movie was set in the mid west right? 0_o

Just outside of Omaha myself. Omaha is rad. Feels like a big, thriving city but is completely navigable by car. You can get anywhere in twenty minutes or less. Girlfriend and I are big fans of the Crescent Moon Alehouse. Lots of great restaurants in the area, too.

@notnert427: Ya, maybe you can tell I don't hang out with a lot of people here. I have lived here (in Austin) for 6 years now, and bought my first house so I do like it here. I guess I just like to see the best in people when I can. The thing is, though, you are not wrong. The people here can be really fake. It even goes as far as in jobs and stuff- which is even worse than just people you meet about town. There's a really strange dichotomy that I don't like, but other things that I love about it. I don't know. Austin is confusing right now. I make the college assumption because I guess I'm near 6th street a lot. The closest bus line I tend to take goes to the college too and it's not far from me. I do acknowledge there is actually more to Austin than just downtown, though. I mean Beecave is in Austin and that's way out there (Suburbs or something I guess?), but it just seems like most of the Austin identity comes from downtown. But ya, Austin is nuts. As I said, it's becoming a lot like Hollywood (I grew up in Los Angeles and went to an acting school as a teenager in Hollywood, so I base my comparison on that).

Your second paragraph is fair. I come at this from the perspective of having been to a lot of places in a fairly short time (I'm only 32 and I've been all over the US and the world already), and often end up arrogant about the bubble people tend to live in about the world not considering that that isn't really anyone's fault nor is it a bad thing per say. So I apologize for that much, but my main train of thought is that people should consider more often how much more to the world there is even before they experience it. Maybe people would be more likely to branch out and try new things and places instead of the same thing all the time (like clubbing and partying) if they stop to realize that there is more to the world then where they are.

I don't know. I just think people tend to not want to think about it- even beyond people who just feel like they're stuck where they are.

Anyway, I ramble too so I'll stop. I think we mainly agree on this side point anyway. =)

I find it weird/intriguing when people mention states like Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Idaho, either of the Dakotas etc. I forget those places even exist most of the time. I live in NJ and I've always wanted to get the heck out of here because 1. I hate the cold 2. It feels so irrelevant to my interests. It seems like everything related to cars, nice weather, terrain, and video games is in California. Now, for various reasons, actually living in California seems like it would have a fair amount of down sides so I don't exactly want to live IN it, but at least near it so I could go there and see and do things.

So to come back around to my point, if I feel like NJ, with a high density population and right near NYC is boring and irrelevant, I cannot fathom what it must be like in those sort of states I mentioned above. Obviously I'm coming at this from mostly ignorance. It's probably not all that different from where I live which is all strip malls and some farm land and horse farms for all the rich people.

I never hear about anything happening on those states. The only time I ever hear Kansas mentioned is when its referring to their Google fiber internet or something. Just whole sections of the country seem so detached from all the dumb mainstream crap. I picture simple people (not as in dumb) dealing with simple old fashioned problems like farms and crops. People actually knowing locals because so few are around. Being able to go into your backyard and shoot a gun for fun or ride a dirt bike without needing some sanctioned pre-made government designated property where you are allowed to ride. Beautifully scenic and empty roads where you can go 5 feet before being paranoid that a cop will pull you over for going 5 over or having an expired inspection sticker.

I could probably ramble on and on. It just seems to weird to me. Feels like there would be so many aspects of it that are awesome but so many that suck. Like.. would I have to drive an hour to eat at a Wendys? Man that would suck.

Edit: New Mexico is another one I forget exists.

@shiro2809: Ohio is definitely considered "Midwest," the term comes from the 19th century when the "West" was almost completely unsettled if that helps you; still doesn't make that much sense. There's definitely overlap in the geographical definitions of the states west of the Mississippi though.

You got some things right about living in Kansas, and some things wrong. I grew up in a small town (population less than 5000) surrounded by many farms.

I knew every kid in my high school, and just about every parent. You can't just shoot guns in your backyard, but out in the country nobody is going to say anything. You could ride dirt bikes out in the country and stuff, but it wasn't like there were 100 foot dirt ramps and stuff.

The cops in my town were really mean, and yes, you would get pulled over for going five over, or having expired tags. One problem in my town was the cops shooting dogs. That seemed to happen more than it should.

People weren't shielded off from the outside world. We had the internet, TV, video games, etc. It is very scenic, especially summer evenings. We had to drive 15 miles to get Wendy's, but we did have a McDonalds, Subway, and Pizza Hut in town. Most people ate at the local restaurants, or cooked at home with food that was grown or raised a few miles from their homes.

It really isn't as backwards as people think. Sure, life is a little different, and we didn't have problems that you find in a big city, but I'm sure we shared a lot of the same problems many other people do around the country.

I am from Wisconsin and we have beer, cheese, and brats. I am fine with all these things.

I think a lot of people tend to hear "United States" and think that there's a lot of commonality and similarities between states, when in reality the huge geographical, cultural, and ethnic differences make Idaho almost a different country than New Hampshire. No, it isn't a night and day difference, but it's big enough for anybody with half a brain to notice it.

And yes, the midwest is quite nice, although for about 6 months out of the year nature is actively trying to eradicate all of human existence in a period generally referred to as "winter."

I live in the southwest suburbs of Chicago and can't imagine leaving. People move away for weather and whatnot, but I like the people around here a whole lot.

Hearing stories of New Yorkers or people in California just makes me want to stick around.

So, what's the rate of alcoholism?

@fredchuckdave said:

@shiro2809: Ohio is definitely considered "Midwest," the term comes from the 19th century when the "West" was almost completely unsettled if that helps you; still doesn't make that much sense. There's definitely overlap in the geographical definitions of the states west of the Mississippi though.

Checks out.

@noizy: Ha, you'd see a lot more blue here in the southeast if folks were being honest. Moonshine country, etc.

I'm not even joking when I say that the primary factor that keeps me living near the great lakes is the fact that basically every political thinktank in the world seems to believe that we're only a few decades away from fighting wars over water instead of oil. I for one welcome the day when wars are fought over water, and the great lakes region rules the world. Welcome to the new Saudi Arabia, bitches! Where the water barons all have bratwurst breath and wear nothing but Zubaz!

(As long as Canada doesn't fuck with us, that is. This is our water, jerks!)

My brain imagined a sea of people all identical to Dan.

You're just not hip enough to live in Austin, man. Come back when you can deal with my fresh vibes.

Hey now. Just because I'm a native Californian who thinks the rest of the country is inferior doesn't mean you should think I'm an asshole!

New York actually does scare me, though. Not sure what the California stigma is? Too laid back? Vapid?

I've never been and never met someone from either.

Honestly, the lengthy Bombcast discussion about Burning Man made me think everyone in the state goes to Burning Man.