Dip Vs. Snus: Cultural Diifferences?

[brendo20]

I remember a stand up comedian on the Stand Up Australia program once made a joke about an american who "put tobacco shit in his lip and got cancer and they had to remove his jaw." This guy apparently was interviewed in a news story with half his jaw gone and trying to say "I did not expect it to happen."
The comic likened this guy to someone who would have trouble folding his bed sheets (with half his jaw off.)
But the comedian made a point of stating that "it's only real rednecks who do it... I don't know what kind of sensation it gives 'em, maybe it makes them hate minorities more!"
I found this amusing but is it true that only country people and those who we aussies would call "Bogans" use it?
But the snus image seems to be more commonly accepted (throughout sweden anyway) although perhaps that is just the marketing depts of the snus companies trying to attract more users? Hard to say. Any thoughts guys?

[BlackDog]

Yeah, maybe more or less. Most people that dip/use snuff tend to be southerners or western types. I think most people associate it with cowboy/rednecks/outdoorsy types, but I have seen all types with snuff. I have known highly educated people that used and abused snuff, as well as hayseeds. Probably more geography than any one "class" of people.
This is coming somebody that used it for years...........

[Gurn Blandston]

I would agree that it's more geographical than anything. Most of America is not the Northeast, California, or Florida. The Northeast, California, Florida, and the rest of the world seem continually shocked by this.

[Zero]

I think in the US the stereotype is that dip is a "hick" thing. I showed some snus to a Californian and she said "ugh, like, that stuff is for hillbillies!" :lol: Definitely the image in Sweden is different. Certainly bushwackers are still a subset of the Swedish users, but they're hardly typecast. Northerner has kindly outlined the snus users we may encounter

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8)

[chainsnuser]

Snus, in Sweden, also once was connected with workers, sailors and farmers. Now, there are more snusers than cigarette smokers in Sweden, so it's no wonder, that snus becomes more and more socially accepted. If it's right, what Swedish Match claims, then the situation even is changing totally. Now, cigarettes are getting more and more connected with the working class, while snus is the drug of the higher educated.

I've never been in Sweden, but from what others tell, you still can get angry looks, when snusing in public, exspecially in big cities and exspecially from older people, who still think, all snusers are rednecks, while in the rural parts of Sweden, snus is and was always accepted.

Price is the key, I guess. Snus, as the cheaper form of tobacco use didn't appeal to the bourgeoisie, until the late sixties, when first studies about the hazardous consequences of smoking were published.

Cheers!

[brendo20]

Yeah. Come to think of it another guy I've worked with went to film school in Vancouver back in the 80's I think, and he said most of his friends dipped Copenhagen.
The other guy who gave me Skoal was telling me it was popular in up-state new york and chewing tobacco particularly popular around indian/american communes.
Also, I was blown out when he told me about the country bars with sawdust on the floor where they all just... spat on the floor.
We had a short lived stakehouse chain down here called The Lone Star which I loved as a kid because they handed out beer nuts and told us to throw the shells on the floor. I thought that was fun.... But spitting on the floor of the pub... what a novelty! lmao.

[theoldsearock]

Re: Dip Vs. Snus: Cultural Diifferences?

Is it true that only country people and those who we aussies would call "Bogans" use it? The guy at work who gave me skoal to try is definitely that type lol.

But the snus image seems to be more commonly accepted (throughout sweden anyway) although perhaps that is just the marketing depts of the snus companies trying to attract more users? Hard to say. Any thoughts guys?

There is a long answer to this - I'll attempt to keep it as brief as possible.

150 years ago in the US, only in large cities would one find "fresh tobacco". The US supplied much of the tobacco that was shipped overseas. Tobacco was a "cash crop". The people who grew the tobacco were poor farmers (for the most part) and these people could not afford the cigars, etc.. So they chewed the tobacco that they grew.

Many of the people who lived in the tobacco growing regions also chewed tobacco as most of the cigar makers lived in the large cities - and cigars were relatively expensive or these people had no access to tobacco products other than the local farmer.

If one of the farmers cured the tobacco and decided to do something other than chew it, he'd smoke it in a cob pipe. Again - it had to do with people being able to afford the "processed" tobacco.

Then there is the whole issue of storing a "finished tobacco product". It's easier to store and keep fresh a pouch of chewing tobacco than it is to keep a cigar fresh. The folks in the small towns didn't have access to much other than chew.

In a nutshell, that's how the "only trashy people chew tobacco" thing got started in the US. It was more of a socio-economic and geographic thing than to say that only "trashy people" chewed tobacco.

Right now in the US the anti-tobacco zealots see anyone that uses tobacco as "less than worthy". I suppose that this is the same in other parts of the world as well - being that people are people wherever you go.