For me, "Upstate New York" = "Whatever is along the lake", AKA the north edge of the state. I don't buy the "It's everything that's not the NYC area" idea. Why can't they just call the NYC suburbs the "Greater New York City Area". You know, like every big city in North America? I shouldn't talk, since here Barrie is "Northern Ontario", despite being only about 2 hours north of Toronto.
People don't believe that there's dairy country in central New York? Wacky. Mind you, I've seen people give me odd looks when I tell them that The Niagara region is fruit country.
TV... it depends more on where it's filmed. Locally produced programs, ads especially, tend to carry more of a "feel" for the location. Also, less budget = more of this feeling. I watch Off Beat and many parts of it "feel" like the Buffalo I know from visiting the city. MST3K feels very northern, comparable to Thunder Bay but not quite. Ads for Mohawk Gas, though? VERY Thunder Bay. PoG is extremely Torontian.
I believe that this has more to do with the references that are made. If you're producing a program for a local audience, you're more likely to reference local knowledge. OBC references Buffalo city hall, on PoG talks about about the Toronto Argos, MST3K mentions small towns in Minnesota and Wisconsin, locations in Red Green are parodies of places in Hamilton ON, etc. Note that all of these series were locally driven before going to a wider market. A piece of media designed from the start as for a much wider and general auidence usually has to draw on more general pop culture references and loses the local feel.
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People don't believe that there's dairy country in central New York? Wacky. Mind you, I've seen people give me odd looks when I tell them that The Niagara region is fruit country.
TV... it depends more on where it's filmed. Locally produced programs, ads especially, tend to carry more of a "feel" for the location. Also, less budget = more of this feeling. I watch Off Beat and many parts of it "feel" like the Buffalo I know from visiting the city. MST3K feels very northern, comparable to Thunder Bay but not quite. Ads for Mohawk Gas, though? VERY Thunder Bay. PoG is extremely Torontian.
I believe that this has more to do with the references that are made. If you're producing a program for a local audience, you're more likely to reference local knowledge. OBC references Buffalo city hall, on PoG talks about about the Toronto Argos, MST3K mentions small towns in Minnesota and Wisconsin, locations in Red Green are parodies of places in Hamilton ON, etc. Note that all of these series were locally driven before going to a wider market. A piece of media designed from the start as for a much wider and general auidence usually has to draw on more general pop culture references and loses the local feel.
And that was my unasked for theory for today. XP