Can a city even be macho? A snack food manufacturer says, “Yes.”
I haven’t traveled very far from the eastern seaboard, so not only do I have coastal bias, but I’m ignorant of half the possibilities, still being monocoastal. I’ve never been to OKC, so I can’t speak to the actual, subjective measure of masculinity in that city. I can scoff at the metrics of snack foods and farm supply stores, but maybe they’re right and you can smell the testosterone on the breeze there, and it smells a little bit like car exhaust and frying beef burgers, mingled on a hot summer day, and just breathing the air of Oklahoma City will make your voice a bit deeper, your upper lip a shade hairier.
But the mall? The mall is the manliest place in America?
I live in a fluffy bunny little place full of attachment parented youngsters and their folk singing, tofu eating caregivers. We’re not in the running for most macho city, and we are totally fine with that. Totally. But why Oklahoma City?
And where is New Jersey on this supposed list of the manliest cities? New Jersey is densely populated: it has several cities to choose from. It’s full of malls and chrome-plated diners and bowling alleys. It’s got Kevin Smith. Tell me it’s not a manly state.
Oklahoma!? This “Oklahoma!?”
You got me, Combos guys. Now pull the other one.
How about you, do you live in a manly place? What makes it so?
Image of West Rodeo Cowboy Hat courtesy of Shutterstock
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How about places where men outnumber women by 10 to 1, like many of the towns in Alaska? I’d guess, no matter how one calculates whatever the hell “manliness” means, that Barrow or Nome would give any suburban mall a run for its money.