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]

    • Optional@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      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.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        “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.

        • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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          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.

          • Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.world
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            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.

      • StitchIsABitch@lemmy.world
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        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.

      • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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        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.

    • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world
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      Right? I don’t think anyone ever even told me that was the origin, it just sort of made sense intuitively.

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    The entire reason it became an insult was because of wealthy urbanites disparaging the working class.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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        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”.

    • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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      Did you know the invention of lawns was also a way to flaunt that you were wealthy enough to have unfarmed land?

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        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.

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        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.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          Being “bigoted” against racists is infinitely better than being racist. Moral-relativist false equivalences can fuck all the way off.

          • kbal@fedia.io
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            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.

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        Do they call you downpunxx because you go down on every swinging dick within half a mile?

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    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.

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        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.

  • conditional_soup@lemm.ee
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    I thought it had something to do with union membership, something about red handkerchiefs.

    • huginn@feddit.it
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      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.

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        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.

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      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.

    • someguy3@lemmy.worldOP
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      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.

        • someguy3@lemmy.worldOP
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          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.

          • Greg Clarke@lemmy.ca
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            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.

        • someguy3@lemmy.worldOP
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          Well it’s possible the coal miners choose red afterwards in solidarity with farmers.

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    "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”.

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      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

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        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.

  • JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world
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    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!

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    I thought it was from union miners wearing red bandanas during fights against Pinkertons

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      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.’

  • SolOrion@sh.itjust.works
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    I remember in school people would say something loudly- neck check? or redneck check? I’m really not sure- and then slap you on the back of the neck. The assumption was that if you had a sunburned neck it’d hurt. I can’t remember why the hell it was done, just that it was.