Why is it so cool to trash talk your hometown?
26th June 2015
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I consider myself to have two hometowns.
The first is Stafford, the West Midland’s county town in which I was born and raised. (And no, before you say it, not Shakespeare’s town, that’s Stratford.)
The second is Birmingham, the UK’s second city. Although I have only lived here for a couple of years since coming to the University of Birmingham, I consider it home because it was home to both my parents and grandparents; it is where my roots lie.
In my recent attempts at travel journalism, I have written a few articles that promote the culture of Birmingham, and I will tell anyone that asks that I am proud to live here. However, it seems that being proud of your hometown is most definitely not in fashion.
Time and time again I have seen whiney, complaining tweets or Facebook statuses such as ‘I can’t wait to get out of this place’ or the rather less polite, ‘This town is such a shithole.’
I even apparently offended someone on a night out because I said I liked living in Birmingham; he claimed that I have not lived here long enough to have an opinion, and if I had, I would have certainly realised by now that it is “a crap city and a horrible place to live.”
Then I thought to myself, have I really ever heard someone say something nice about where they live? It seems so normal for someone to say, “I come from [insert place name], yeah it’s just a [derogatory description] near [another place name].”
It definitely seems that the majority of people think it is super-trendy to moan about where they live, but let me tell you something, it’s just boring. As people of Britain, we hear enough complaints; complaining about school, work, money, politics, the weather - I think anyone would rather listen to someone that has something nice to say about where they live, it’s much more interesting!
The first is Stafford, the West Midland’s county town in which I was born and raised. (And no, before you say it, not Shakespeare’s town, that’s Stratford.)
The second is Birmingham, the UK’s second city. Although I have only lived here for a couple of years since coming to the University of Birmingham, I consider it home because it was home to both my parents and grandparents; it is where my roots lie.
In my recent attempts at travel journalism, I have written a few articles that promote the culture of Birmingham, and I will tell anyone that asks that I am proud to live here. However, it seems that being proud of your hometown is most definitely not in fashion.
Time and time again I have seen whiney, complaining tweets or Facebook statuses such as ‘I can’t wait to get out of this place’ or the rather less polite, ‘This town is such a shithole.’
I even apparently offended someone on a night out because I said I liked living in Birmingham; he claimed that I have not lived here long enough to have an opinion, and if I had, I would have certainly realised by now that it is “a crap city and a horrible place to live.”
Then I thought to myself, have I really ever heard someone say something nice about where they live? It seems so normal for someone to say, “I come from [insert place name], yeah it’s just a [derogatory description] near [another place name].”
It definitely seems that the majority of people think it is super-trendy to moan about where they live, but let me tell you something, it’s just boring. As people of Britain, we hear enough complaints; complaining about school, work, money, politics, the weather - I think anyone would rather listen to someone that has something nice to say about where they live, it’s much more interesting!
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