Younger guy from the southern US here, I have done this just to fuck with people. I’m just not very sensitive to the “bite” onions are supposed to have. I can chop quite a few of them before my eyes start to water.

As an eastern european, we eat everything with onions and garlic. Hell, I even eat onions on their own time to time, it tastes good.

Southern guy probably was eating a Vidalia onion. The soil is low in sulfur, I believe, and has a more neutral acidity, so the onion is pretty uniquely sweet. I heard one older southerner call them dirt apples.