Unboxing Oklahoma: What It's Like Living in Oklahoma

is oklahoma okay does everyone in oklahoma go to church and does brahms have the best ice cream ever we're gonna answer those questions and more partner so grab yourself an onion burger we're fixing an unboxing state of oklahoma oh oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain uh-oh looks like a twisters are coming we better get mom and paw and get down into the cellar the basement or the in-ground storm and tornado survivor bunker shelter thing this looks like a biggen well it's may so that means every single afternoon we have to be on the lookout for monsters like these every year about 56 tornadoes hit the sooner state and based on square miles more strong tornadoes hit oklahoma than any other state in 2019 there were 149 tornadoes in this state alone that's a lot that's because oklahoma is in tornado alley an area where air masses tend to converge and it's relatively flat but oklahoma isn't all flat and it isn't all tornadoes cattle ranchers fishing oil sports churches meth guns and republicans okay it is that but in order to really figure out which part of the state's best for you you got to get to know oklahoma the most proper way you can that's by looking at a big old map and then zone into each region one at a time this is oklahoma as you can see it has sort of a lot going on in most of the actions in one big area of the state but in terms of ecological diversity oklahoma is the most diverse of any other state you may not know it but oklahoma has more varied terrain and sub climates than any other place in the country and it's not even close that is everything from high plains to mountains in sub-tropical forests and even a mini desert it's kind of like the south of the midwest it's sort of midwest geographically but southern in culture here's a good guide on the types of people you'll see in oklahoma's three main regions the west central and east let's begin over here in the far western side of the state first this is the oklahoma panhandle now over here in the panhandle is where the really rich people live no it's pretty isolated only about one percent of the state's total population lives up here it's mostly farming and ranching way out here in this three county region so i guess maybe it is rich people a bunch of tall skinny white men with big old adam's apples small towns with country living here's the biggest city here a place called gaiman population 11 000. cattle ranching's a big deal in this state especially way out west oklahoma ranks fifth in the country for beef production and ranching is a big part of the state's culture too if you looked at the map of oklahoma's terrain you'd see that just about everything west of oklahoma city is arid plains that's where a lot of the farming goes on oklahoma produces the fourth most wheat of all states you can imagine lots of people around these parts have guns i mean this is the birthplace to chuck norris but guns aren't everywhere and most people don't use them for intimidation as we'll discover oklahomans are a friendly folk walk onto somebody's property and you're a threat but once they get to know you you're like family enid is the biggest city in western oklahoma it's kind of a boring beat-up place with some drugs and crime there's about 50 000 people here but it's more of a hub for all the farms out this way more than anything else if you lead an alternative lifestyle though you will not fit in here sadly but it's like that in most of the outskirts of the state of course route 66 passes through this state and enters oklahoma over here but a lot of it's lost its charm and has now been replaced by i-40 but if you're into big blue whale water slides on the world's biggest peanuts it's worth driving along i guess most of this area in southwest oklahoma is just small towns with nothing really going on lots of double wides rednecks guns and mullets no that's mean but it's true that's why a lot of people are leaving this part of the state oklahoma had been growing population wise in the early 80s it was a big population boom because of all the oil jobs then there was an oil bust and lots of people left that's how it works currently oklahoma's losing more people than the national average and most of that decline is from the western side of the state a lot of people are apparently going to arizona and virginia for some reason you'll also notice this map has a lot of yee references there's yees all over this damp state every nook and corner you'll find a yi yi what is a yi yi a damn redneck with a lifted truck and a mullet it's an endearing term okies use to describe their redneck brethren southern oklahoma along the texas border is a mix of more planes and forests again it's mostly poor small towns lots of places where people are close-minded conservative and poorly educated but it's like that out in the sticks in most of america there's an army base over here called fort sill right next to lawton lawton is currently a bad place to live because there's a lot of crime they break the law a lot in lawton ardmore a city of 25 000 people is actually the fifth most violent place in this whole state if you can believe that nearby durant is similarly bad for crime good fishing down there near lake texoma though durant has the choctaw casino which is massive but that's nothing compared to the one down here in thackerville the windstar casino has more than a half million feet of casino space making it the second biggest casino in the whole world can you believe that way down here in no man's land oklahoma this is wynnewood where he used to be able to see live tigers but no longer the food is great down here in southern oklahoma just like it is in most of oklahoma now okies love their deep fryers they deep fry everything here their chicken okra rattlesnake butter even coca-cola they don't have the best diets in this state in fact one report said okies eat the least amount of fruits and veggies of all americans it's a lot of chicken fried steak barbecue onion burgers dr pepper ranch dressing steak and calf fries those are bull testicles it's southern hospitality with western cooking in these parts when they get out of the house oklahomans love to go to bobos for chicken grandes for the all you can eat liver and gizzards which is just gross or a brahms which many people in oklahoma say has the best ice cream in the world of course religion is going to be a big deal in oklahoma especially way down here in the south oklahoma is the eighth most religious state of all where two thirds of residents say they are highly religious this is the bible belt here pal a lot of folks are southern baptists but they're not going to get all preachy at you if you move here they are conservative but a lot of people here are religious on sundays and that's it many of them get home from church and crack a beer odds are if you move to oklahoma there's going to be two groups you're going to have to associate with either the church crowd or the bar crowd sometimes they're the same crowd and it's also worth noting that oklahoma has some real deep country music roots this is home to toby garth carey blake and reba oh my god reba everyone and hanson what hansen's from oklahoma moving out east you're going to find a lot more forest and actual mountains while a lot of the western side of the state's flat and red this part of the state's rolling hills and green the watchita mountains are here as are parts of the ozarks there's a lot of fishing you may not know it but oklahoma has more man-made lakes than any other state mcallister is here along route 69 it's also a bad place to live with drugs and crime here you'll find the third highest number of thefts and robberies in the whole state there's a prison here and some oil jobs in the area and it's a speed trap muskogee oklahoma is also a small very dangerous community it's an old manufacturing slash port town along the arkansas river don't move there way down here in the bottom part of the state is you guessed it more small poor towns ida bell and broken bow aren't doing very well these days sadly down on the far reaches of oklahoma you'll find isolation poverty and meth you probably wouldn't want to move there either unless well you like meth which is terrible and you should stop doing that right now mister this part of the state is probably the most red part in a really red state try to hang a biden flag out this way and it won't go very well oklahoma as a whole ranks number six out of 50 states for highest percentage of residents who vote republican but for the most part in the major urban areas we're going to talk about soon it's more of a conservative libertarian-ish group kind of a leave us alone type crowd this would be a good time to talk about the huge native american thing going on in oklahoma you may not know it but two-thirds of oklahoma land is technically a reservation and oklahoma is home to 39 different tribes the most of all states in fact about 8 percent of all oklahoma residents are native american making it the fourth highest such population in the country you likely wouldn't want to live on native american land i don't know if you even could we're going to now move over to central oklahoma now this is where all the people are in fact 7 in ten residents of the state live in this part of oklahoma alone there's all sorts of various places to live here in central oklahoma and we're going to go over each of them briefly before we get into the two main population centers stillwater is here it's a college town home to oklahoma state university go pokes a lot of the people who graduate from osu never leave stillwater for some reason it's a decent place you can't blame them there's a saying in oklahoma that osu fans wear osu shirts because they lived in stillwater and oh you fans wear ou shirts because they went to walmart seems to make sense i guess the big rivalry between oklahoma state and oklahoma is a big deal if you moved here you'd have to pick your team before you even picked out your drapes i went to osu you did mappy i didn't know that wow you learned something every day nor do you carry that gun around all the time now it makes sense i went to ou no you did not karen i have friends at winter though no you do not get out of here besides football the nba is a big deal in oklahoma too the thunder bring together just about every sports fanatic in the state and the teeny town of chakota claims to be the steer wrestling capital of the world so rodeos are a big deal in this state too way up here are bartlesville and ponca city which are small but nice places to raise kids if you're into that broken arrows at tulsa suburb it's also a very nice place to live and jinx is also a very nice place to live but becoming very expensive it's one of the fastest growing cities in the state sand springs on tulsa's west side is not a good place to live then we come to tulsa t-town now tulsa is quite a mixed bag on paper this is the most dangerous place in the whole state to live in this is where you'll find the second most violent crimes per capita in the state however the high crime elements are contained in certain areas of town now i had recently visited an area on the city's north side which historically has been really bad for crime but now those criminal pockets are moved this area is more of a ghost town now one area that's bad is near the intersection of 64th and peoria on the city's south side near all the new section 8 housing there's also an area across the river south of the holly refinery where you'll find a lot of drugs and crime tulsa's economy has been traditionally dominated by quick trip cashier jobs in the oil industry but it's diversifying into finance aerospace and technology in fact tulsa's paying remote workers ten thousand dollars to move there for a year so get in on that i mean like the rest of the state the cost of living here is super low like 43 below the national average low tulsa is a college town too they have oral roberts an interdenominational christian liberal arts school so basically you don't learn anything tulsa's becoming more liberal over time as people move in from other states and tulsa has improved dramatically in terms of its city's appearance and its drug use new governor kinstead has used medical marijuana taxes as a new revenue to mow the greenways fix the states roads and help prop up the notoriously poorly funded school system and clean up the litter littering has always been a big problem in oklahoma it seems like a lot of people here don't know where the trash can is and sounds like they don't enforce littering laws i guess you can throw trash out the car window but go one mile over the speed limit and you're done odds are you're going to see a dispensary on every corner in oklahoma these days but these medical marijuana taxes have not only helped clean the place up they've helped the drug addicted population move over from meth to pot look at this back in 2013 oklahoma was in the top 10 for meth use now it is not good for you oklahoma over here between tulsa and oklahoma city is cushing which is nothing but oil jobs then we move into the oklahoma city metro area everyone now this whole area is really spread out it's an area that's growing fairly quickly and there's an area for just about everyone most of the people who live in the oklahoma city suburbs are middle class middle-aged white people who commute there's cheap land all over the place here you can still buy an acre of land with a home on it on a 38 000 a year income over here is el reno which is a dump it's sad some would refer to el reno as a ghetto yukon and mustang are smaller communities that are actually pretty decent way down here is norman which is home to the university of oklahoma it's a lot bigger and more congested than stillwater is norman's one of the better places to live in this state if you pick the right neighborhood the oklahoma sooners the reason they call this state the sooner state is because during the land rush in 1889 they nicknamed the people who arrived into the oklahoma territory first sooners because they got there sooner lots of people have heard them more mostly because it's unfortunately a magnet for violent long-track tornadoes more is also booming population-wise and there's a lot of new homes here mostly because tornadoes have wiped out the old ones it too has a lot of beat up areas and rednecks now this part of the metro area is bad pal they call this middle it's made up of del city and midwest city it's bad for gangs and drugs you would not want to live in mid-del but you might want to live in north okc a good rule of thumb is the further north you get from downtown the safer it gets there's an area called nichols hills here near lake hefner which might be the richest part of this whole state with all their million dollar homes yes there are million dollar homes in oklahoma you'd likely find a lot of in-shaped yoga moms jogging along lake hefner they might be one of the few people in this state that jogs up here is edmond oklahoma which has crazy cairns soccer prodigies doctor dads and uppity helicopter parents if you want to live in a wealthy area edmond is where you want to be and then we have the oklahoma city metro area this city can be divided by north and south you kind of have to stick to your side of town since this city is so spread out and there is no public transportation worth a lick here oklahoma city is the second largest city in the country in terms of square miles so there's all sorts of areas to live in and despite the fact there's some animosity between oklahomans and texans a lot of people in oklahoma city have to admit their city is very similar to dallas culturally except dallas is bigger and has a lot more money areas worth discovering in oklahoma city are the paseo arts district the plaza district and bricktown parts of town that are artsy and safer and being improved an area that you would not want to live in would be this area here on the northeast side of town just east of the capitol building anything along lotte avenue is bad news fella they can't gentrify that area to save their lives literally oklahoma is a pretty cool state and one that you might not have really correctly understood it's a state of casual dress cheap living and wide open spaces they've got some downright friendly people the kind who'll help you out in a fix of course but they're polite here in the most subtle ways folks will hold the door open for you or let you get over in traffic the kind of people when they ask how you're doing they genuinely mean it they're a perseverant people oklahomans are they get knocked down and get back up they're a hard lick never quit type group a pull up your britches and press on and if that doesn't work use duct tape kind of crowd it's kind of state where they ain't outsmarted their common sense you'd be lucky to meet and know a bunch of old okies and if big city life isn't your thing there's lots of room here sure the lack of culture and diversity and jobs and entertainment might make for some long days but in many parts of the state it's the silence that'll pull you in it's a big state it's a state of big sunsets and pretty stars today in this country that's hard to find and appreciate all right we did a pretty good job of unboxing the state of oklahoma didn't we i reckon we did there's probably a lot about oklahoma that you didn't know about did you no we could have gone on and talked about a lot of other stuff too like this state's strict liquor laws or the fact that there's a speed trap around every damn corner there's a lot of stuff about oklahoma we could have talked about but we gotta go some yee's invited me over for a barbecue and a bonfire and i'm in charge of bringing the firewood so i can't be late here's a good song [Music] oklahoma has a lot of years drive out of the cities they're the ones you'll see [Music] oklahoma they're so rednecky so many trucks and guns oh my it's a land of cowboys it's a land of oil it's a land of space oklahoma if you move here you'll be among great you'll be in some great you'll be among great friends yeah thanks to nick cameron molina and lacy for all their help with oklahoma there's some really friendly oakies i'm pleased to have met thanks guys how would you describe the people of oklahoma i think people are very uh friendly more laid-back than the the west coast uh very friendly um stranger-wise uh more i guess southern banners i don't know if they're really considered southern but southern manor's um people open the door they'll say hi they'll wave whereas you don't really get that that i've seen in the east and west coast as much they're willing to help out um i think a little bit more um i'm a lot more friendlier with my neighbors here than i've ever been with any other place that i've ever lived so i hear oklahoma girls are really pretty is that true um from my uh experience yes they are what makes an oklahoma girl so pretty nick um is it their attitude their looks are they friendly cute are they like what they're just i did not expect this question i gotta think about this okay hey guys if you learned something new about america or what it's like to live in america great you should think about subscribing and turning on your notifications you can also click one of these videos or playlists for more you can also now buy my songs on itunes and other formats click the link in the description thanks for watching and remember while we all might have different views we should all be nice to each other and try to make the us a better place in a positive way this is sage nyx manager this has been a corner house entertainment production

Channel: Nick Johnson

Views: 267,427

Keywords: living in oklahoma, oklahoma, what is oklahoma like, oklahoma research, i live in oklahoma, oklahoma travel, oklahoma food, what is oklahoma, oklahoma trivia, why do people live in oklahoma, oklahoma map, oklahoma residents, oklahoma culture, oklahoma cost of living, moving to oklahoma, oklahoma realtor, oklahoma mortgage loan, oil, oklahoma city, tulsa, edmond, norman, oklahoma sooners, oklahoma state, cowboys, ranching, tornadoes, moore, el reno, guymon, tulsa realtor, whats tulsa

Id: KXac199gv4Y

Length: 19min 24sec (1164 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 16 2021