What’s a shame is that his descriptions of America are a lot more tame than the country in actuality. Surprises me most of your knowledge doesn’t come from the more vocal group of Americans…
I left my home town in 2010 and went back for a short visit this year actually. The thing I wasn’t ready too see was how much the environment changed. It was so much greener and the shrubs that were growing when I was a kid have turned into full grown trees. The Walmart was renovated 3 times and the cashier on register 2 never quit.
I knew who my Michelle was immediately. The woman has a law degree, has won awards for her books, is a regular guest on various talk shows because she's a friggin' expert. And we're both from the same podunk town in the Way South, but she somehow has perfect drawl-less speech. Kudos to her! So many of us didn't even make it out of our teens, much less the town.
watching this as a European is INSANE, also the fact that this is considered a "small town" is wild, i live in a village, i think there lives 100 people in my village, and the closest town is like 45 minutes away by car but it takes me 2 hours to commute because of the crazy lack of buses, so thats fun. there is i kid you not one bus a day, ONE. no taxi because im in the forest. at least there is one
@@HAIL_TO_THE_KING5I'm in america and the only thing resembling public transport in my town I've seen is these busses branded to my county that I see once in a blue moon, legend has it if you pay them they will take you literally anywhere in town
Of course, what might be considered “villages” by y’all we just might not think of as towns since they are usually solely residential and everyone shops at the nearby town
As someone who lives in a city and always has, it’s kind of surreal to learn about small town American life bc it’s just so foreign to me even tho I’m in theory not that far off from it. My mom grew up in a small town like the one you’re describing, as did many of my classmates. But I just can’t relate.
Same. I lived in various small towns, but I moved to a big city when I was like 7, so a lot of this shit are like vague memories or shit that I might've gone through if my life went a little differently
I moved into a massive city when I was about 6 and I can't remember anything from before I moved here, I've lived here my whole life and so many of the "hometown" experiences are just not something that actually exists for city kids
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Growing up in a small town in Alaska you have described everything terrifyingly accurate, including my ex Sarah… but you lost me at the big store, we don’t have those 😂
This is so spot on 🤣 I hated living in a small town considering I was not one of the 10billion generations that created most of the population; they also were always in your business whether you liked it or not. The "Sarah's," that still live there are now mostly MLM moms and CNA's. Big store 1 was 20 min away, and big store 2 was 45 minutes away. So was the rest of somewhat civilzation like movie theaters.
The closest hospital and grocery store was an hour away from us growing up. Fun times! Can't say I miss a second of it. Someone once hit a guy walking down the road, and it took 40 minutes for an ambulance to get there. (Both of them were drunk, if anyone was wondering)
@@ohnopleasestop483i love how anyone from a non-american country that doesnt personally relate to an experience automatically assumes its an american thing LOL
@@ohnopleasestop483 It's probably because the more self-centered a person is, the more they crave an environment where they are needed and can control others during their weakest moments to fuel their superiority complex.
@@redrum_1ghjh maybe but I haven’t met a nurse like that yet. I won’t deny that there are probably terrible people in this job but I’ve worked on several wards and we genuinely try to help our patients. But I also don’t work in the US so I can just speak on my experiences.
I grew up in a small town and all of this is so true! I went back to my hometown last year when my father died and it's amazing how much everything had changed, yet stayed spiritually the same. I was sad to see our version of the Big Store had closed and half the stores in the mall were closed, but it still hit my nostalgia in a place that hurt. I may be in my 30s living halfway across the country, but my heart will always be in my hometown.
as someone who was moving their whole life, its sad not having a hometown. The most time ive stayed in a town was 9 years. My teenage years were boring to say the least. To all of you that had a hometown, im happy for you. You should be grateful for what you have. ❤
thats so real. I've never lived anywhere longer than 6 years(bringing its fair share of mental problems with it) and hearing people actually having a home town or something like that feels so forgein to me
It's not all it's cracked up to be. I hate going home to visit my parents because my hometown is so soulless. There aren't any people I bother going back to visit because they all suck. I grew up in a strip mall suburb and it's just a clusterfuck nightmare or endless chain stores New Jersey style. Not a single one of these stores are any that you'd want to visit. I think the issue with most towns is that they're not really "small" anymore. There's too much sprawl and you never really get a sense of community to them. You never even see or speak to your neighbors, let alone know who they are. It's just all of the cons of living in suburbia without any of the benefits. I'm not sure what people even get out of the experience anymore. It's just a place where each person can have their own rooms and ignore each other all day long.
Living in a college town is having half the businesses going bankrupt in the summer and not being able to leave the house on football weekends. But if you live near the stadium you can make serious bank by letting people park on your lawn on game days, so there's that. Woo!
The way that Tugg said " I love looking at Christmas lights" just absolutely made my day. The way he is just talking so much crap about everything else and then is just so happy is awesome. Also medium sized suburbs, all your friends live close it's awesome
The part about the ghost mall with the lone Auntie Anne's is too accurate. It's among the last surviving things at my local mall that has seen everything except a Rave, a JC Pennys and a Dillards Clearance Store shut down. There's no Hot Topic, no Earthbound, no Spencers, no Macy's, no Sears, and one of the last big chains there was a Shoe Dept. store that closed a few days ago. I wouldn't especially care that much about the evident march of time, except that I have so many memories being there with friends who have since passed away, and so sometimes when I go there to join all the old people on an air conditioned walk when it's too hot or cold out I'll see one of the boarded up shops and remember I used to be a kid running around in there with one of my friends and how that was some of the only times I'd get to spend with them because their parents didn't want anyone over at their house. I'm glad I got to have the memories and friendships, but looking back from where everything is at now kind of sucks.
Idk, as a Michigander, driving was everything. I lived in a fairly decent township, but since I didnt drive until i grauated high school, I never went anywhere independently or without notice, and most of my activities were outside the township anyway, so I never got to know people as townies. Despite being born and raised in one place, I have no feelings about it or the people there either way. It's interesting to see that I apparently missed out on some quintessential American experiences, which this channel makes me think about a lot.
Hey, as a middle of nowhere Ohian, I get you, we were in the same boat. The nearest "actual" town was 30+ minutes away, and the nearest "fun" town took over an hour to get to. I know my neighbors pretty well, but neighbors constitute as anywhere from half a mile to 10 miles away. And most of them were my parents age or older, so most of my "knowing" people was from people-watching rather than actually knowing them. All of my fun growing up memories involve miniature "road trips" or school!
oof ouch, way to call me out. As another Michigander, all my high school friends were from neighboring towns that happened to go to the same school as me. We didn't have the hangout spot, because after school we were all a good 30 minutes apart. We didn't do a lot of drinking because we'd have to drive home (or be driven home) at night. Really bums me out how much "Americana" I missed out on in suburban hell.
@thisisbeagle2605 Omg same here. I also lived on like the very very edge of town so there was nobody who went to my school that lived anywhere near me. Everything was way too far away.
I hope I'm not alone in my age group watching your vids, but I have kids your age. And still, everything you say... EVERYTHING YOU SAY...holds true for me, as well. It's just that the original baseline of comparison is many more years removed. But all absolutely accurate. You spend WAY too much time in my head, Tugg. Happy holidays!
I saw the most suburban thing earlier today. I helped my buddy move a fridge, and when I was leaving his neighborhood I had to pull over to make way for the smallest Christmas parade. Just a dozen or so waspy white folks zombie walking down the street dressed in festive sweaters. Their "float" was a red minivan pulling a trailer full of children.
My first date with my future husband happened partially inside of the big store in his hometown. Three years later, I’m still grateful he took me there to buy taillights for me because he saw mine had gone out.
My mom's side of the family lived in a small town, and I remember how big of a deal it was for them when the Big Store opened there. It's like the town went through a complete, rapid transformation after the Big Store put down roots, and it's insane the boom in tourism and population that happened over only about 15 years.
I too am a resident of a small town in Mass, relatively close actually, and that picture of the providence bridge absolutely sent me. The pjs at dunkin, loitering in walmart, YOU DIDN'T SAY IT but we both know there's them people fuckin' tweakin' out on the grass traffic islands, and folks with their shit in trashbags begging for money wearing solid white sneakers in all of the busy intersections. What I'm tryna say is, when I found this channel the humor just... struck me. And hearing how close our homes are, it's immediately apparent it's because we share culture. It's a rare, beautiful and... disgusting moment when you find someone from New England on the internet just like us. This dual sense of pride and shame, of understanding in more ways than one would wish they'd understood. God speed, my fellow dunky junky. Stay out the flint.
I love when he brings up his town, because I live about an hour away from it (I live in Northern Rhode Island, he grew in Southern-ish Massachusetts)- it just makes me relate even more to things since I also grew up and live nearby to where he grew up :)
6:30 that reminded me of when my aunt told me about how in sex ed, they had watched a video about stuff like STIs, but the different diseases were played by people in costumes. one kid in her school had the misfortune of looking like the dude who played gonorrhea, so his nickname for the rest of his years in high school was “gono”
You hit the nail on the head in almost every aspect for me. However, instead of a mall in my hometown, we just had a Dairy Queen that was rarely ever busy and my friends and I would sit in that DQ for hours on end and play Uno.... I am still the reigning Uno champion
@@HAIL_TO_THE_KING5 I guess I can understand that. I currently live in Oklahoma and even though I don’t live in a small town, the ones I’ve had to visit have everything spaced out that it would make not owning a vehicle extremely life limiting.
Watching this makes me sad that I've never had a home town. I've either only lived in the country, miles away from civilization or in a neighborhood that I never got to experience anything in because I was 6
But I'm only 15 my hometown is Santa Clarita CA so not really a town more like a home City it's a suburb of Los Angeles or for real though like my history teacher is a coach😊
I remember when my hometown got it's first Supercenter in the late 90s. It was a whole affair. Anyway, there was always this really nice lady that worked there all through my childhood and teen years. I love back in my hometown now, and I saw her today. She's still there with a 40 year badge and the same smile. She was telling this young couple that she hated how they got rid of the rollback smiley stickers because she would give their little kid just all of the stickers and okay I'm gonna just go cry for a bit now.
One thing you forgot to mention is how casually people in small towns drink and drive. It was wild to go from college, where everyone has a DD or calls a ride, back to my tiny ass town and realize that people are just getting lit and going home.
So good. I love your videos. So relatable, and the fly being down is the chefs kiss, cherry on top of the whole thing...if that makes sense. Cus we know it wasn't planned.😂
Wearing sweatpants in my hometown is the exact opposite for me- all of those people know my grandma, and I know very well that they're gonna gossip about me after church so I can't let myself be caught in anything less than top form 💀 In the big city at least the only one I'm shaming is myself, not my entire family by extension
Went back to my hometown for a high school reunion definitely more on the depressing side of things to see a bunch of classmates who never left and did much of anything after graduation.
My hometown has a guy that walks round the town with an upside down boat on his head with a load of fabrics on it and a mask to make it look like a creature, with a load of people playing the drums and scaring children. True story
One of my small town guys had a stroke and his face was turned into a permanent grin. The other was a slow guy who rode a bicycle everywhere and stalked the high school girls.
5:04 Oh my goodness my dad told me about his hangout spot as a teen. It was a by a river in the woods. He told me abt the night before he graduated high school him and his best friend went to a party and they brought 12 pks of Dr. Pepper and Coke bc they didn't drink. Anyways everyone else brought beer and this girl walks by w/ beer can in her hand and sees the Dr. Pepper beside him and says “Hey can I have some Dr. Pepper? This beer tastes bad.” so he gives her some and she gives him the beer and walks off. He just stands there for a few seconds and then a classmate walks by, sees the beer in my dad’s hand and yells “ALRIGHT RODNEY!” My dad looks at the beer can and chucks it as far as he can into the woods 😂 TLDR: @ party my dad brings soda, young girl trades her beer for a soda, someone cheers my dad on bc they thought he was drinking beer so he chucks the can as far as he can into the woods.
Didn’t expect this on a Sunday. My home time felt like a fever dream ngl. It was like a small town with a massive gate and a huge apartment complex in the middle. It’s a really weird placement. People were nice though.
three things i've remembered about my home town [that i still live in for some reason]: 1. our Big Store is a goddamn heb which is a texas grocery store. i think it's for poor people idk but i love heb. never buy the heb brand doritos though 2. our mall is shockingly still together. my two older brothers and i would go hang out there for like four hours most days during the summer bc our mom worked at the gap there. this was back when sears was closing so my brothers and i went to go play hide and seek in the upper level and one of my brothers hid in a freezer. an employee saw him climb in and didn't care. another time my brothers zipped me up in a suitcase and left me 3. i used to live in a rich neighbourhood and now that i'm poor i miss the christmas lights every house would have. there's this one house that's been doing the music light things for like 15 years at this point and no one knows who they are
I grew up in a city (built like the suburbs) and the only difference was the many, MANY warehouses surrounding us-that and a mall that was only useful for Spencer’s and Auntie Anne’s
Tugg I know you're just a dude on the internet trying to survive like the rest of us but I just want to say that you're funny af dude and your videos help me chill tf out when stressed. Never binged so many videos in a couple days lol. Keep on keeping on. Appreciate it bro. 🙏
Hey Mr. Tugg, just wanted to say that the photo you used at 9:12 with the truck is actually only 2 blocks down from where I grew up, and they went all out for both Christmas and Halloween
I have ICT exam tomorrow and my dad asked me why I was on my phone.. So I paused it on 0:20 and told him that this guy is explaining how to convert to Hexadecimal from Binary..And it worked!! Tugg just saved my life..🤣
0:10 the fun thing is coming from a town w both, in school you got the kids who never wear the same outfit twice, right next to the trailer park kids, and Jesus Christ did THAT make for a hellscape lmao
9:32 picture. That's Galena, IL. Dubbed the "friendliest main street in America". This, I know because I worked there. Great shopping spot, terrible parking. Good luck.
I live incredibly rurally, and I'm glad Tugg shouted out my favorite pastime, waving at anyone and anyone who I drive by or drives by me in my one horse, two church, no store town.
as someone born n raised in erie peninsylvania but luckily got out when i was a teen, i couldnt agree more. my hometown is literally the saddest town in the world and noe everyone i grew up with is addicted to fentanyl and alcohol. but still love the place for the good memories
in my small town theres no where to hang so teens congregate in the sewer holes. i’m not even joking i have heard kids in the sewer holes SO OFTEN i dont even think about it.
I ever lived in Italy but more or less is basically all the same.... Is true the phrase "all world is a town" you make me feel happy and nostalgic, thank you Tugg ❤
5:20 I actually was hanging out that night, me and 4 of my friends we're at that hangout spot and we found this lake, we lived in North Carolina so naturally we love fishing, a few weeks later we got our fishing rods and our kayaks and went a little bit upstream when a huge storm ran by, we managed to escape it but my friends that were behind us asked for a break But we couldn't hear them, we kept on going and then we realized that they weren't behind Us so we went back and looked for them but all we found was my friends hat, a torn up life jacket, and a capsized kayak, we spent four hours looking an calling 911 but we still couldn't find them, the search parties went on for about a month and then they just stopped, we still don't know what happened to this day Rest I'm piece Ethan and Andy, wherever you are
I was the kid with the basement in my city. Parents were divorced & I lived with my pops & he didn't give a fuck about what I did down there. Had a door that led from the backyard straight into the basement so everyone could come & go whenever. On the weekends it was the party spot, & during the week, it's where everyone went to smoke bud. Good times.
So I’m pretty sure my aunt is a Sara! The only difference is she did settle down with my filthy rich uncle. They are so good at making you feel insignificant, and like your less then them! The way he talked about a Sara is so accurate to my aunt. I despise both of them, but I can say that because they despise me too! 😂 3:42
My dad is definitely an Eric tho. He knows way to many freaking people, and any social event he goes to he ends up being there for hours just catching up with people! I hated school because I have many family members that went to the same school. Teachers immediately didn’t like me when they saw my last name. 😅
I'm 15, and my family moved into a "hometown" about 3 years ago. It's very much as you described. I'm trying to make the most of my high school time here, but I don't have many friends. Any tips to help me get a good hometown high school experience? I'm genuinely asking here
I would just like to say, you freaked me out with this video; it was a little too close to home. Literally. The map at 0:30 went through my hometown. Stop stalking me, Tugg. I will call authorities.
