Breaking Down State Stereotypes: Examining Misconceptions About South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa

It's one of the easiest, but also one of the most disrespectful things you can do - making broad generalizations about topics you little to nothing about.

But we're all guilty of making stereotypes when we're a little short on the details.

Recently, BuzzFeed turned its attention to the most common stereotypes surrounding each of the 50 states in America.

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South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota's Most Common Stereotypes

There were very few surprises with some states like Alabama ('rednecks'), California ('weed smoking surfers'), Florida ('old people'), and New York ('gangsters').

But what about South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota?

Pretty much what you'd expect from people who have never traveled to this part of the world.

For South Dakota, the typical responses invoked the state's most famous landmark:

• 'Mount Rushmore is here. That's all.'
• 'Mount Rushmore and Wall Drug.'
• 'South Dakota is empty.'

In Iowa, it was all about one particular food item:

• 'Iowa is corn.'
• 'Corn and presidential candidates.'
• 'Our food is grown here, I guess.'

As for Minnesota, a lot of attention was paid to a few very distinctive traits:

• 'Overly kind people with funny accents.'
• 'They all talk like people in Fargo, and they're all super pasty."'
• 'Basically Canadians. Lots of lakes.'