YouTube Clips Expose How Chicagoans Really Sound
CHICAGO (CBS) -- If a popular, but clichéd, stereotype is to be believed, we Chicagoans all talk with exaggerated accents reminiscent of the old "Superfans" Saturday Night Live skit.
We pick up "pop" and "sassage sammitches" at "da beef stand over by dere." We call our living room the "frunch room." And we proudly call ourselves "Grabowskis."
But we all know there's more to being a Chicagoan than that. In fact, there are two new YouTube videos, whose creators have jumped on the "S**t People Say" bandwagon, that expose some the many endearing, and annoying, remarks we make.
The first "S**t Chicaogans Say" clip was posted a week ago by Matthew Montalvo, of the Belmont-Cragin neighborhood.
The old chestnuts of our common lingo are all there – from "Huh?" to "Wassup, joe?" and from "gym shoes," to "Da Bears."
Montalvo showcases Chicagoans' spirited and undying defense of favorite sports teams past and present. LeBron, Kobe and even Derrick Rose are "good," according to the video, but none compare to Michael Jordan.
And our common habits are also exposed, from chasing CTA buses as they pull away from bus stops without us to having cell phone conversations while driving, but putting our phones down in our laps when a police officer happens to drive by. And as many of us may have done at some point, Montalvo takes a toy tricycle that a neighbor was using to protect a parking space and hurls it into the snow.
As of Tuesday, Montalvo's video had 155,375 views and 725 comments.
Two days after Montalvo's video appeared, Robert Bacon, Marie Maloney and Tess Borgerding posted their own video, filmed largely on the sidewalks along Broadway in the East Lakeview neighborhood.
Their clip showcases the common everyday problems we Chicagoans run into, from movies being filmed outside our apartment buildings to the Red Line always smelling like urine.
Also exposed is our frequent obsession with the identity of our neighborhoods, whether we wonder, "What neighborhood technically is this?" or point out, correctly, that "Wrigleyville is a sub-neighborhood of Lakeview."
We are reminded of how we love to point out President Barack Obama's house, and how we refuse to accept that the Willis Tower will ever be called anything other than the Sears Tower.
And while Montalvo merely expresses disdain at the notion of ketchup on a hot dog in his clip, Bacon goes so far as to swat a hot dog right out of Borgerding's hand onto the ground as he scolds her for drenching it with the forbidden condiment.
Some people have left comments on Bacon, Maloney and Borgerding's video, complaining that it was too focused on young professionals from the North Side. But Bacon fired back at those charges on his own Web site.
"I'm sorry that we didn't have time to go to every neighborhood in Chicago and film what each side says differently. This is a 'S**t ___ Say' video, not a documentary," Bacon wrote.
And a few detractors notwithstanding, fans seem to be flocking to the clip. As of Tuesday, it had racked up 651,985 views and 1,515 comments.
CBS Chicago Web Producer Adam Harrington contributed to this report.
