The rest of America thinks they know New Jersey — they really don’t

This week I noticed that my former colleague Toniann Antonelli did something nine years ago I have been thinking about ever since. She asked people from our Townsquare Media sister stations in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Twin Falls, Idaho what they actually thought of New Jersey. The answers came back fast and they came back funny.

According to the folks in Idaho and Iowa, New Jerseyans are angry, pasta-and-pizza-eating pork roll enthusiasts who pronounce words funny and drive with sunglasses on in all types of light and weather. And most of us, they noted, could easily be extras on The Sopranos. I always say on the air that stereotypes exist for good reason.

I laughed. Then I thought about it. Then I laughed again.

Because here is the thing — they are not entirely wrong. We do eat a lot of pasta. The sunglasses thing is accurate. And if you have ever tried to explain to someone from the Midwest what a jughandle is, you already know we have some explaining to do.

But the version of New Jersey that lives in the national imagination has almost nothing to do with the state I have spent my entire life in. Especially in South Jersey. The way New Jersey is depicted on TV never has anything to do with South Jersey. They are all North Jersey traits.

And I want to talk about that — because in nine years, almost nothing about the outside perception has changed.

What the country thinks New Jersey is

Ask someone from outside the Northeast what comes to mind when you say New Jersey and you will get one of a handful of answers every single time. The Sopranos. Jersey Shore — the TV show, not the actual Shore. The Turnpike. The smell near the refineries on the way to the airport. Real Housewives. Mob jokes. The exit number question. "Are you from New Jersey?" "Yeah." "What exit?" I always thought that was stupid.

A 2024 survey of 1,000 Americans ranked New Jersey second in the country for rudest residents — right behind New York. Second rudest. Out of fifty states. That is the reputation we are carrying around out there.

I will not pretend we are a state full of people who linger over pleasantries. We move fast. We talk direct. We do not have a lot of patience for inefficiency, which is ironic given our relationship with the Parkway on a Friday afternoon. But rude is the wrong word. Direct is the right word. There is a difference and most of the country has never bothered to figure it out. "Act like you know" is my personal motto. Or as Mike Damone said in Fast Times at Ridgemont High — "act like wherever you are, is the place to be.

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What they are actually picturing

The national image of New Jersey is essentially a greatest hits reel of every TV show ever set here — and almost none of them were actually filmed here in any way that captures what the state actually looks like. The Sopranos was the most Jersey thing ever put on television precisely because it was shot here and it felt real. But Jersey Shore the TV show was a caricature that had about as much to do with the actual Jersey Shore as a snow globe has to do with a blizzard.

And Real Housewives of New Jersey — I will say this about that show. In 2011 Caroline Manzo had a monthly show right here on NJ 101.5. The station was part of that world. The stereotype and the reality were sitting in the same radio studio at the same time, and it was a genuinely interesting thing to witness up close.

Outsiders consistently think New Jersey is one big highway — not realizing that over 57 percent of the state is farmland and forest, that our Shore means Cape May and Long Beach Island and Asbury Park, not a reality show, and that we gave the world Frank Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito.

When someone from another state hears "New Jersey" and pictures the Meadowlands from an airplane window, they are missing Hacklebarney State Park. They are missing the Delaware Bay at dawn. They are missing the Pine Barrens, which is one of the most extraordinary places in the eastern United States and one of the most misunderstood. They are missing Strathmere on a Tuesday evening when the sun goes down over the bay and there is nowhere else on earth you would rather be.

What we actually argue about — and why it matters

Here is something that might surprise an outsider: New Jersey people argue about New Jersey constantly. Taylor Ham versus pork roll — again, another stereotype I roll my eyes at, but as I always say about stereotypes, they exist for a reason — and if you just cringed at one of those terms, you already know which half of the state you live in. North Jersey versus South Jersey. And then there is the Central Jersey debate, which I will not pretend does not exist because I believe it is real and it is spectacular.

This Mays Landing kid defines Central Jersey as everything between Route 80 and Route 70 — which some people consider extreme. But I grew up below Route 70, I have covered the trails above Route 80, and everything in between feels like its own distinct world to me. Morris County is not Monmouth County is not Mercer County, and none of them are North Jersey or South Jersey. Central Jersey exists. Fight me.

The correct pronunciation of specific towns we will not reveal to outsiders. Which diner is the best diner. Whether the Parkway or the Turnpike is the more authentically Jersey experience.

New Jerseyans will argue the North versus South division to death internally — but if an outsider makes a stupid remark about any part of New Jersey, watch out. Jersey pride crosses every internal boundary and it will get right up in your face about it.

That is the part they never capture on television. The specific loyalty of people who live in a state that gets made fun of constantly and never stops being proud of it anyway. We know what they say about us. We have heard every exit joke. We have watched every Sopranos impression from someone who has never been here. We have seen the Turnpike from thirty thousand feet described as the whole state.

And we are still here.

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The gap between the image and the reality

I have spent this entire year writing about what New Jersey actually is. The hiking trails above Route 80 and below Route 70 and through the Pine Barrens. The clam bars up and down the Shore. The weakfish at Fortescue. The ghost towns in Burlington County. The same Shore house rented by the same family for three generations. The diners that open at 6am and close whenever they feel like it and serve rice pudding that has no business being as good as it is.

None of that is in the national image. None of that shows up when someone in Idaho pictures New Jersey. None of that makes it onto the survey that ranks us second rudest.

Toniann asked the question nine years ago and got the same answer you would get today. Sopranos extras. Angry pasta eaters. Sunglasses at midnight.

That is their New Jersey.

Mine has a sunset over Barnegat Bay, a pork roll egg and cheese from a diner that has been open since before I was born, and a bumper to bumper Parkway full of people who would not live anywhere else even if you paid them. And yes — it includes Central Jersey, whether the rest of the state wants to admit it or not.

That is theirs to miss. And maybe that is exactly how we want it. The fewer people who know about Strathmere, the easier it is to find a parking spot.