PEOPLE ALL OVER THE COUNTRY ARE SURROUNDED EVERY DAY BY GUN-TOTING REDNECKS

Natalie Grigson, a snobbish Austin native, must be out of her ever-loving mind. The credibility of her ‘Most Redneck Cities” list is zilch when you consider that Grigson included Sacramento and Cleveland on that list. I have no doubt that by living so close to the University of Texas, she would list Texas A&M University as the number one redneck university in the country. Suffering from a frightful redneck-phobia, she sees herself surrounded every day by gun-toting, cowboy boot-wearing country bumpkins.


TEXAS: YEE-HAW! ARLINGTON, FORT WORTH MAKE “MOST REDNECK CITIES” LIST
By Craig Malisow

Houston Press Hair Balls
May 13, 2013

Arlington and Fort Worth are two of the ten most "redneck" cities in the country, according to a highly scientific study by a California-based real estate blog called Movoto.

Contributing blogger Natalie Grigson, an Austin native who boasts of her hometown's "open-mindedness," selected the cities based on such criteria as "percent of population that didn't complete high school," "number of Walmarts per capita," and "number of riding lawnmower/tractor repair shops per capita."

One of the amazing things about this list, besides the weird amount of attention it's been getting, is that it includes some decidedly un-redneck cities (at least as far as Hair Balls is concerned): Atlanta is number one. Sacramento is number eight. Cleveland slides into ninth place.

But the truly amazing thing is the squandered opportunity: Grigson's writing just isn't funny. When she's not being hackneyed, she's being elitist. Lord knows there are probably one or two remaining redneck jokes out there, but they don't appear on this list. What does appear is a quick run-down of Grigson's redneck-radar cred, a la lines like "Being from Austin [Texas], I've had my fair share of encounters with rednecks over the years...." (We can't help but wonder if, being from Austin [Texas], she's also had the stray encounter with lily-white pretentious douches. But maybe that's a matter for another top ten).

Our favorite smugly un-funny observation, though, has to be, "But Austin is not alone in this. Regular people all over the country are surrounded every day by gun-toting, cowboy boot-wearing country bumpkins."

Give it up for that Austin open-mindedness, y'all!