Being a rural hick doesn’t make you southern. It’s only been the last 20-30 years that Midwest small towns have been trying to preteend that they are southern rednecks.
I’m 47. No it hasn’t.
Not only am I 47, I’m 47 and married to someone who’s family goes back to Indiana from the mid-1800s, mostly the Owen County area.
It’s the South. It is. You go to Kentucky or Tennessee, it’s basically the same culture except they get to call themselves Southern. Even most of the traditional food is much more southern. Grits, okra, cornbread, you name it.
If you went to Tennessee and thought it was the same culture as Southern Indiana you didn’t do anything but drive though and stop for food a couple times.
If you went to Tennesse and you thought it was the same culture as Florida or Louisiana, that’s also true. What’s your point?
