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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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It's still weird for an accent to vanish so fast for a country the size of the US. I'm from the country the size of Maine, and while the accents got much closer during the 20th century due to standardized education and mass media, I can usually identify where someone comes from quite easily. (And since in the last 20 years or so there has been more representation of regional accents on TV so I don't think they are going anywhere any time soon).
For a cultural feature to fade fast, there needs to be a conscious effort from people to avoid it.
Why would you use an accent when it actively gets you associated with idiots / racists / conservatives?
There's a lot of people who have been hurt by Southern culture, so naturally they reject that accent. A lot of decent people reject the accent because they don't want people to assume they're one of those Southerners. There's also the aspect that you end up talking to people outside your region a lot more often than in the old days, so you learn to switch it off because people outside your region might not understand you well.