The term originally characterized farmers that had a red neck, caused by sunburn from long hours working in the fields. A citation from 1893 provides a definition as “poorer inhabitants of the rural districts … men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks”.[12] Hats were usually worn and they protected that wearer’s head from the sun, but also provided psychological protection by shading the face from close scrutiny.[13] The back of the neck however was more exposed to the sun and allowed closer scrutiny about the person’s background in the same way callused working hands could not be easily covered.
By 1900, “rednecks” was in common use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South.[14] The same group was also often called the “wool hat boys” (for they opposed the rich men, who wore expensive silk hats). A newspaper notice in Mississippi in August 1891 called on rednecks to rally at the polls at the upcoming primary election:[15]
Remember kids… no matter what TikTok says, sunscreen does NOT cause cancer.
Medical organizations such as the American Cancer Society recommend the use of sunscreen because it aids in the prevention of squamous cell carcinomas.
Sunscreen good
As of 2021, only zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are generally recognized as safe and effective (GRASE) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since there is currently insufficient data to support recognizing petrochemical UV filters as safe.
Okay, mineral sunscreen good
Sun on the other hand…
trust me on the sunscreen https://youtu.be/KdQbb3FXSEI
Ironically, this was played for the Class of 98 at our Senior Prom and the lyric for the song was Class of 97, the version from the album before they re-released it for that money grab with Class of 99.
The song was just a retelling of the original ‘Wear Sunscreen’ written by Mary Schmich, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune in 1997.
I thought this was common knowledge
Kids out here learning the basics of life on social media.
Kids, remember the vast majority of mortgage payments are in interest alone. Also “mortgage” means “death contract”.
And beer before liquor, never been sicker.“Kids out here learning the basics of life on social media.”
Well, they gotta learn SOMEWHERE! We certainly have dismantled public education to be less of a school and more of a free daycare.
I don’t think the etymology of redneck is part of any school curriculum. OP is just one of today’s 10,000.
idk, i learned that shit on the playground. does that count as curriculum?
blows party noisemaker
i think the bigger thing here is how broke teens and young adults don’t have many places else to hang out and do this in person.
Yeah, I feel most people my age remember things like $1 or less beers and cheap bar food like 25 cent chicken wings? And just generally being able to hang out with couch change, like look we pooled $10 we can go out. The youth now have $12 cocktails and $7 french fries at the sketchy af “dive bar”, $20 drinks and $20 entrees if they dare step into a real place or heaven forbid an applebees.
Liquor before beer, we’re in the clear, so let’s fuckin party.
Well, it’s also interesting for non native speakers who never thought about it, or just didn’t make the connection. I always assumed that was the reason for the term, but it’s nice to have confirmation.
honestly its less about mixing and more about the quantity you drink. at the end alcohol is alcohol, its just that the prior consumption of it makes you more likely to get overconfident and take things too far.
anyway, its one those you have to live to learn what your limits are, so the point is moot anyway. finding the sweet spot and managing to stay there takes a bit of experience.
Right? I don’t think anyone ever even told me that was the origin, it just sort of made sense intuitively.
Yeah, I thought everyone kinda intuitively understood this because redneck and farmer used to be synonymous.
I have this printed out in my classroom. I teach adults at a trade school and I feel it’s especially important for all adults to know it’s ok to learn new things.
Love that one
I live in a part of America where it’s repeated constantly to school kids. Also, that’s not actually the origin; the red necks were militant unionists who fought for collective bargaining rights in the Coal Wars, the part of American history that never gets taught.
Other sources were already posted in the comments showing that “redneck” referring to farmers predates its usage to refer to coal miners/communists. Definitely agree there’s a lot of stuff conveniently left out of our history books, though.
The forgotten wisdom of Cotton Eye Joe
Where did you come from, where did you go…
A “cotton eye joe” is forgotten slang for a blue eyed black man, btw.
Obvious slang is obvious.
No shit.
Lol my exact words before jumping to the comments. There’s no mysteries to be had here.
@naticus @John_McMurray You’re a mystery to be had.
The point isn’t that it’s a mystery, but that it’s a word people usually don’t really think about.
No one’s reacting to it with “Hussa, finally this mystery that’s been plaguing me for ages has been resolved for me”, they are reacting to it with “Huh, never really thought about it. Makes sense”
And I thought a “trucker’s tan” was the window-side arm of someone who drives a lot. Anyhoo, congratulations on being one of the 10,000, amigo!
"but also provided psychological protection by shading the face from close scrutiny. "
To me it feels like this was made up by some spoiled twat, who couldn’t stand that people that they thought were socially inferior, wouldn’t show the expected obeisance by removing their hat in front of their “betters”.
I thought it was from union miners wearing red bandanas during fights against Pinkertons
Looks like use for farmers predates coal miners’ bandanas.
They took a negative and turned it into a rallying cry.
Same as with “Yankee Doodle.” Yankee was a derogatory term for Americans, because many were of Dutch origin. “Jan” was a popular Dutch name. Doodle mean, well doo-doo.
Funny how some derogatory terms get embraced and others don’t.
Nerd used to be a big insult. So was ‘porn.’
Some people have great trouble splitting words into their component parts, as if their internal GPT just stores everything as single token like “redneck”, so they never split it semantically or conceptually into red+neck.
Germans trembling
I guess Germans do need to be particularly good at this, based on the mega words they can have.
On the other hand, when listening to American Youtubers read something onscreen, it seems like they use some internal rainbow table to look up prefixes of words, and then just autocomplete the word based on probability.
I say this because during reading they often substitute words with some that sound similar, but are not semantically close to what is written.
Apparently that’s how some people are taught to read. Just kinda guess the word without actually reading it.
A man who gers! Did i get it right?
Wait until they learn the Spanish word for black, or worse Latin.
Woke mafia coming for your beans!
/s
Frijole freedom ain’t free!
Eh… yes? Isn’t that kinda obvious from the word itself?!
Yes, the south was a predominantly agrarian economy.
The entire reason it became an insult was because of wealthy urbanites disparaging the working class.
deleted by creator
You think the rich isn’t? Mostly Classist, but there’s quite a few Racists too.
Whatever you call the kind of bigotry your comment represents it’s no better. Thank you for reminding us all that it’s still around.
Being “bigoted” against racists is infinitely better than being racist. Moral-relativist false equivalences can fuck all the way off.
I am talking about being bigoted against “rednecks” who are mostly no more racist than everyone else. I grew up in redneck territory and support those who reclaim it as a label of pride.
Interesting, I read that comment as referring to the wealthy urbanites as mostly racist
Doesn’t seem likely to me, but it’s a good thought.
Do they call you downpunxx because you go down on every swinging dick within half a mile?
Found the redneck, guys
Did you know the invention of lawns was also a way to flaunt that you were wealthy enough to have unfarmed land?
And to pay an army of people to take care of the stupid lawn.
Uh, they originally weren’t paid. They were paid for.
I hate lawns so much, but there’s no other option unless you go for a townhouse/condo, which are more expensive in my area because of the great location. Why would anyone want to use and pay for extra water, then mow and trim every other week, for a patch of grass that doesn’t provide any benefit as a plant.
You ever try to play catch with a football on a “natural cactus desert landscape yard”?
Look how PaLe I aM! *laughs foppishly*
You just reminded me of that news blooper.
“I so pale…” “you’re on…” first news reporter starts the news report as if nothing happened, while the second one stiffles giggles
I swear they both give of a Pam Beasley vibe. So two Pams, and they have a Pam/Jim vibe with each other, and one is “so pale”.
Downright ghostly, my dear.
Why are people gatekeeping today’s 10,000?
No! All common knowledge belong to me.
Some people get really snarky about word breakdowns for some reason. See it quite often.
I thought it had something to do with union membership, something about red handkerchiefs.
Nah, that’s just a fish story a certain type likes to tell.
That’s one of the reasons it was popularized - coal miner unions wearing red bandanas. But late 19th century usage appears to be sunburnt workers.
Interesting. It’s kind of interesting, but in the battle of Blair mountain, there’s definitely some hints that there were already communist and anti-communist sentiments at work. I wonder if the red bandanas were a nod to communism.
yes. The book, “The red badge of Courage” was printed in 1895 and the color’s association with the far left dates back to the french revolution of the 1780s.
Also, iirc Blair Mountain was backed by the IWW which is anarcho-syndicalist and not Communist.
I dunno why the downvotes but I googled it for you:
iww Blair mountain flyer:
https://omekas.lib.wvu.edu/home/s/minersorganization/media/1109
who are the iww? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World?wprov=sfla1
history of red for left wing politics: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_(politics)
when the black flag diverged front he red flag. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_symbolism
red AND black symbolism associated with the IWW https://www.iww.org/how-we-organize/
red and black flag https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anarchist_flag.svg
Previously I had mistakenly said that the red flag dated back to the 1880s and the Paris commune. No, that’s the black flag as this article states. That split is actually kinda a big deal. The IWW and red/black symbolism is about grass roots power and not some revolutionary vanguard or dictatorship by the proletariats and I think that distinction is actually kinda important.
You can see the same symbolism and terminology (redneck) used in the US today: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck_Revolt
which has far more in common with black Panthers style neighborhood defense than it does with Stalin or Lenin or Trotsky.
it’s more in line with thinkers like:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Goldman
which is about building resilient communities that exist apart or in spite of capitalism. It’s not really an economic policy or ideology concerned about the existence of the state or a dictatorship of the proletariat or really even collective ownership of the means of production. You can join the IWW and work for Amazon and not be committed to a 1917 Russian style revolution. They wanted better working conditions, not a bloody coup. While I agree that that’s associated with the Marxist ideal communist ideal future post-capitalist Star Trek furture is great, I think the IWW is notably and distinctly different than what Americans in the 1920s would have associated with the word “communist”.
This was an extension of that. Unionist coal miners didn’t have red necks (because they work under ground) so they would wear red handkerchiefs to show solidarity with farm hands.
This is the history that capitalist removed from history books. That and white washing The Black Panthers, American Indian Movement and The Rainbow coalition.
Wiki says:
A citation from 1893 provides a definition as “poorer inhabitants of the rural districts … men who work in the field, as a matter of course, generally have their skin stained red and burnt by the sun, and especially is this true of the back of their necks”.[12] … By 1900, “rednecks” was in common use to designate the political factions inside the Democratic Party comprising poor white farmers in the South.[14]
Coal miners
The term “redneck” in the early 20th century was occasionally used in reference to American coal miner union members who wore red bandanas for solidarity.
Looks like sunburn predates coal miners.
Oh, both, cool!
Well it’s possible the coal miners choose red afterwards in solidarity with farmers.
I wouldn’t take that as gospel giving the single reference for that claim and the discussion for that article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Redneck
I mean to have an actual citation from 1893 that provides a written out definition is huge. These things are around for a good bit before making their way into documentation.
Reading through the talk, many people say coal and then provide links that come far after 1893.
The Wikipedia article doesn’t link to a 1893 citation. It links for a single paywalled article to make that claim. This sounds like an urban legend loop that seems to make sense until examined.
That doesn’t make sense, you get sun burn like that if you go from no sun exposure to lots of sun exposure. People working in the fields would not have been constantly sun burned unless they were albino.
Tell me you’ve never worked on a farm without telling me that you’ve never worked on a farm.
The thumbnail photo is extreme, yes. But white farm workers still get sunburns.
Grew up surrounded by pink farmers, can confirm
Modern farming isn’t really comparable to folks working the land 100+ years ago. My point is that farmers 100 years ago weren’t stupid, they would have protected themselves when necessary and would have earned an impressive base tan.
I don’t think it’s a particularly far fetched idea to imagine that people spending their days outside before the invention of sunscreen would develop more sunburns than the general population regardless, even if only once or twice a year on unexpectedly long or sunny days…
It doesn’t seem far fetched which is what makes this urban myth appealing. But this red neck theory makes loads of assumptions, like these farmers didn’t know how to protect themselves from the sun, these farmers were groomed in a way to reveal their necks, etc. In reality, they would have had solid base tans, worn hats, and probably kept their neck and ears covered with hair.
I am British by decent and lived on a boat for a year. First few months I was burned a few times but after a short while I was fine. Even when I was in places like the Bahamas. That was the same for all the other white folks, only the tourists were sunburned.
Yep. Irish descent here. Burn once in the spring, it turns into a tan and then I’m fine till next spring. (Obviously I’m not the glow in the dark type)
Most white people are not able to get a proper strong tan. And even when they do it compares to SPF 5, which is not nearly enough to protect you from working in the field for the entire day.
So, yeah, you’ll have a tanned neck, but also it will be red very, very often.
Farmers also wore hats and covered their necks. My point is that if you saw a red neck 100 years ago it would more likely belong to someone who works indoors, is groomed to expose their neck, and spent the day outside as opposed to a farmer. A farmer would know better, they’re not stupid. This is just one of those explanations that sounds logical until you dig a tiny bit.
…child of ulster scot farmers, here: yes, we tan a bit, but working outside leaves our necks perpetually red nonetheless, even with long collars and hats…
…it’s called a farmer tan for good reason…
