Every now and then you hear some Swedish celebrity or blogger (this probably occurs in other countries to but last time I heard it was from Sweden) go out and issue an apology for writing or saying something with negative connotation about their hometown. Usually it's a very small or middle sized town somewhere in Sweden and the people that live there always trash it and promise to higher powers that as soon as they graduate they will move to Stockholm or London.
Why do Swedish celebrities say they are sorry for trashing the same small town they come from then?
Well the answer is that as soon as someone that moved away from their hometown and writes something negative about it hell breaks loose. The local population still being stuck there goes on some kind of rampage spamming the comment function under the newspaper article where this great insulting quote was published or attacking the person on their blog. I have seriously seen people call celebrities traitors, not being proud of their heritage, sluts and that they are not taking the opportunity to promote their town?!
I really cannot understand this local nationalism that stirs up, I mean, do we all have to love our birth towns? I come from a middle-sized city and Sweden, I don't love it but I don't hate it either so always writing positive about it would just feel weird. What about if you really hate the town you are born in, it happens to be the worse time of your life and you are happy to be out of there? Local nationalism just seems so small minded to me and also proves that people want to move away from there themselves. You never hear somebody go insane if you say Stockholm or Gothenburg sucks, people just don't care because they are happy living there in the first place.
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