Everyone complains about Stockholmers (Stockholmers should be silent)

You have described it so well.
I lived in Halmstad for four years. I was actually both horrified, surprised and saddened by the image of us Stockholmers. It's incredible that this perception is so prevalent in 2022. It feels like the prejudices come with the mother's milk. If you then meet an unpleasant Stockholmers at some point in your life, your prejudices are confirmed/reinforced. All the nice Stockholmers they meet can never compensate. A prejudice is difficult to reconsider and erase.

Interesting to read! However, I myself have not experienced anything like this when travelling in Sweden. Then you can discuss what a "Stockholmer" is. Many people, like you (Helena), have moved here from a smaller town. That includes me. When I moved here, I was told by a colleague that you are only a true Stockholmer if your family has lived in Stockholm for three generations. I never asked where she got that from. Or do you have to be born and raised in Stockholm to be considered a Stockholmian? I have no idea.

Yep! That's how it is, and you've certainly heard this and that. I argue and say that it's a myth, just like the fact that Smålanders are stingy, Scanians are stingy and Norwegians are buttoned up. Then there is usually no more ...

I'm glad you brought up the subject. Some of my best friends are from "the city". Wonderful people, we have gone on ski trips to Austria with a bus full of Stockholmers, lovely and uncomplicated. There is another side of Stockholmers, which we experience around us where we live. The houses are bought up by Stockholmers, the prices are skyrocketing and our children cannot stay because of the price increases. It is of course a problem, around us now live only former Stockholmers, nice and social, we who live there know that, but everyone who lives further away from the water is angry that their children cannot buy a house in the city. A two-bedroom apartment in Stockholm is enough for a farmhouse in Skåne. I think the negative image. As you describe Helena has to do with this. Rich Stockholmers take over houses in beautiful seaside areas. Our neighbours, Stockholmers, are all very nice and beautiful, they have also ensured that our house has doubled its value in a few years. Anyone who knows any Stockholmers knows they are nice people, just like you and Peter....

Interesting. I both agree and disagree. Of course there are bad eggs everywhere and so are nice people. However, I can understand where all this comes from.
I grew up in a sparsely populated area in Lapland. I moved around a lot in Norrland, lived in Stockholm for 3 years, Skåne and have also lived abroad in big cities in Europe. The place where I have felt least at home, least seen, least heard, least respected, least taken seriously, least understood, has been in Stockholm. Not all the time and by everyone, of course, but by far the most times... It is a feeling of bullying, which comes from everything from the looks you get, the way you are addressed, the looks you don't get when you are expected to get them, sentences, pronunciations, questions, lack of interest, ignorance, unwillingness to learn, the way you answer, etc. I have never felt so empty and misunderstood as during the 3 years in Stockholm. All this is also in the media and in political decisions.

I think it is based on a norm, the urban norm if you want to call it that. Where Stockholm is the norm and anything outside of it is considered deviant.

Domestic activists describe it all so well:
"Norms govern society and the urban norm is about how places, and thus the people who live and work in those places, are valued differently. The urban norm is constantly present throughout the entire social apparatus, from the national to the super-local level, in politics, the media and between people.
The urban norm is about power structures in which the city has the right of interpretation, acts as a starting point and is seen as desirable. As a result, everything 'outside' the city is seen as peripheral, deviant and less valuable. It is the urban norm that labels rural areas as depopulated, welfare-dependent, backward and wasteful. At the same time, the city is characterised as innovative, inclusive, diversity-enriched and a place for investment. This needs to change as the urban norm:
* creates an untrue picture of society
* negatively affects people's self-image and self-esteem.
* prevents (usually public) investment where it is most needed.
* subsidises the city's unsustainable way of life and construction"

It is this that we see in the looks and speech and behaviour that we see får👆🏼
So it has absolutely nothing to do with a small clique of Stureplans people, it's bigger than that.

I apologise if this became negative towards Stockholm again, but would like to explain from the other side, where it may have originated from. It's sad to read about the different occasions and people you encountered through your travels in the country. I am sure you are nice, it sounds so:)
But just as you have encountered prejudice because you happen to be from Stockholm, we northerners have been subjected to exactly the same thing day in and day out for decades and decades. I can probably list a hundred or so just off the top of my head.

Let me give you a few examples:

My husband and I were living in Stockholm, without children and all the trappings of fatherhood. One rainy November evening we were out with some friends, going from one pub to another with a group of like-minded Stockholmers. We were open-minded and talked happily, whereupon one of them asked me where I was from. -From a village in Lapland, I reply.
He backs away and quickly replies: -Oh, shit! Isn't it just sickly dark there? He gives me a look of disgust and looks sceptical. - No, I reply, why would it be, there's snow there now. But here it's really dark, I say. He gives me an even stranger look and starts talking to his own mate instead.

Or the office I worked at in Stockholm. A 57-year-old eloquent and sophisticated lady in the office had received some brochures from Kiruna because a large conference was to be organised. The woman was good at her job and a nice lady. Over coffee, she takes out the brochures and turns her gaze to me and asks: -You who come from Norrland, what is it like in Kiruna? You know people there, don't you?
I don't understand the question at first and say: - No, I was in Kiruna once when I was 12 years old, otherwise I don't know any more about Kiruna than you do. It's just as far from Kiruna to my village as it is from here to Gothenburg.
She rolled her eyes and said nothing more to me.

Or the time I came to work in Stockholm and pointed out the beautiful autumn colours of all the trees. A colleague snidely replies: -Ha, who has time to look at trees! I'm too busy looking down at my new leather boots, ha ha, and laughs derisively at me and the northerner who would rather care about nature than new boots.

Or all the times you smiled and tried to open a conversation on the metro. Murderous glances back.

Or if you defied the right-hand traffic rule on the escalator. Looks, sighs, stamping feet - Oh, move over, you bloody country bumpkin!

Or all the countless times you have been asked - But WHY do you want to live in Norrland? Here in Stockholm there is everything!
What all? I reply...

Or - Stockholm has everything you need!
Well...I certainly don't answer that, how can you know what I need?

Or -You can't move back to Norrland, you want to give your children a future, right?
Yes, that's exactly what we want, I said.

Or how, since the 80s, the weather report has been shown on TV from the bottom up. Always starting in southern Sweden and quickly sweeping over the "northern part". Why? Everywhere else you start from the top and go down....

Or how, for example, gardening magazines thunder out articles in February - Now it's time to rake the lawn! Well, why then, there are about 3 months of snow left... I once emailed and asked why they never started in the north. I got the answer that we in the north could then look up older articles when they became relevant to us.
Hm... what about what is considered the norm again?

Or the billions and billions of dollars that have been poured into the hinterland of Norrland because Stockholm needs fast trains and new roads.

Or how my village still doesn't have broadband after 7 years of struggle... takes 1.5 days to fix in Stockholm....

You talk about how you can't defend yourself, you can only receive, or should you protest?

Yes, ask any Norwegian how much shit we have had to "receive" throughout history! Ask any Sami. Ask any hillbilly. We have protested and protested, but inevitably...

All in favour of the big city.

Too bad, but now you got the other side of the explanation 🧡.