These Are 7 Texas Stereotypes That Actually Aren’t True, As Told By A Lifelong Texan
I never rode a horse to school. 🐎
A giant cowboy boot in front of a yellow building reads 'Big Texan'. Right: Three longhorns stand in a field.
I bet you can name a few Texas stereotypes off the top of your head without giving much thought to them. Eating scrumptious barbecue, wearing leather cowboy boots, and riding horses to school to name a prevalent few.
There are countless memes about the state on the Internet, and even an old Spongebob Squarepants episode poking fun at "Texas-isms" like square dancing and saying "y'all".
I've lived my whole life in the Lone Star State, which means I've heard all the classic Texas clichés there are. Most of them are on this list...and they aren't true at all.
Everyone has a cowboy hat.
I'm sure many of my fellow Texans would agree that cowboy hats are really only for ranchers and good ol' boys. The only time I've seen someone seriously wear a cowboy hat was my friend's grandfather from El Campo, Texas, and he actually raised cattle.
Barbecue is the food at which we excel.
Don't get me wrong, we have pretty great barbecue here, but save that for Tennessee or North Carolina. Honestly, Tex-Mex is where it's at. It has exclusively been our thing since the late 1800s, and there's nothing quite like the enchiladas from your neighborhood restaurant.
We've never experienced snow.
It regularly snows in the panhandle during the winter, but the rest of the state has had its fair share of snow, too. Shall I remind you of the icy winter storm in 2021 that wiped our electrical grid for days?
Everyone drives trucks.
Just like riding horses to school, not everyone lives this reality either. You'll see a lot of them on our roadways — the normal and the "jacked-up" kind — but I've seen them in every U.S. state I've visited.
We don't all have the Texas twang accent.
It really depends on where you're from and who you grew up around. I'm from the Houston suburbs and born to Yankee parents, so no southern drawl here. I do say "y'all" of course, as every true Texan does.
It's not all desert land and hot weather.
It gets pretty rainy in the late spring and early fall, so much so that it floods in many parts of Texas. With that rain typically comes an oppressive blanket of humidity.
Everyone is friendly.
You obviously haven't driven on a state highway at any given time, or sat through the endless construction traffic that inundates each major city. Texas drivers are mean!
