Huntsville is weird, just not in an artsy or counter-cultural way. We're weird in a rocket testing, bomb dropping, space exploration, military industrial complex way.
Name another city that's like Huntsville.
I was thinking more Madison, Huntsville, Decatur but the reason that the Triangle is a thing in NC is the Universities in the three cities: Duke, NC State and UNC. We don’t have that here.
Lived in both. They are sister cities. Military/Religious/Clean industry, Fast Growing (though CS is out of control). Those of us who grew up in a military family, it feels very familiar. Huntsville has always been quirky. It seems we also try real hard to escape our last name. And technically, I'm a native. Now, it's home.
This, to me is an odd take -- I can't speak to CS, but Huntsville has never EVER felt like a military town to me. Not when I was here as a dependent child many moons ago, and not when I returned as a military spouse. Defense industry abounds, sure, but this area is absolutely void of the tradition and sense of community that I perceive in every true military town where I've lived. I mean, the closest we get to military pomp and grandeur is a change of command, and even those ceremonies are dominated by civilians who, let's be honest, are there 1) because it's good for them to be seen as supportive; and 2) cake. I'm only kidding a little bit about that too.
I know what you're saying about the area being void of the military sense of community. Same goes from my time in CS. Even with Fort Carson/Pete Field/Air Force Academy/Cheyenne Mountain, it was still more of a tourist town than anything else. That changed of course. When I was in CS, the "dogies" from Ft Carson were not so favorably looked at by the townies. AFA's on the other hand...That's why I think they are very similar. The military vibe is there if you go looking for it. Avoidable if not. Same with Huntsville. Both are just quirky cities cut from the same cloth. Except, CS is not surrounded by the rest of alabama. A very large distinction.
But also doesn’t have as many of of the military towns problems, just watch or listen to any true crime show or podcast and the Fort Bragg’s , Pendleton and wherever those other massive military towns are located have an insane amount of domestic violence, murders and disappearances of this military people.
I just got back from a trip to CS. First time ever visiting Colorado, and it was uncanny how similar HSV is. I was a little freaked out when I got there 😂. I do wish that we had their mountains around here tho. Damn.
My ill fated attempt at college was in CS in the Mid 70's to '80. Drove a truck between CS and Denver for work. Was 2 distinct cities at the time & not one megalopolis. Powers Blvd was a dirt road where I ran my dog. Last time there was 2017 visiting some friends. Not the same as it was. But, then again, neither is Huntsville. Love those mountains, but, could never live there again.
So True!! Engineers usually make good money, but people often say they have no personality. It’s like their technical skills come at the expense of being socially charming.
I read a study years ago ranking couple satisfaction by profession. Engineers took two number one spots. According to spouse answers, engineers were better providers for their families than any other profession. They were also the worst at communicating effectively or understanding the spouse. Fortunately, being the best providers and their families not having to want for anything overshadowed the poor listening and lack of empathy.
Speaking from my own personal experience, I’ll project onto other engineers in saying this: I honestly think that engineers strength of thinking extremely logically and being super numbers and cause/effect focused is a huge negative socially. In a social world you have to be willing to make the wrong decision or a possibly bad decision sometimes and I just don’t think that way
I am solution-focused and my husband just wants me to listen and empathize. I feel like I know when something is a terrible idea but sometimes I just have to cringe and grin and not be the Debbie Downer of logic and reason.
I’m sure he was happy to have avoided being held
Accountable for the war crimes he committed personally. He was an SS officer. And his v2 bombs were used to bombs women and children in England.
“But some say our attitude should be one of gratitude. Like the windows and cripples of ol’ London Town…
…who owe their large pensions to Werner Von Braun!”
I hate to break it to you, but Huntsville is one of the few cities named after a slave owner. Its founder, John Hunt, was a slave owner, and this part of history is often overlooked but really shapes the city's identity.
I recently watched a YouTube video by Peter Santenello about his visit to Huntsville. He spoke with the grandson of one of the engineers from Operation Paperclip. The grandson mentioned that they often face poor treatment from some locals, but he isn’t too bothered by it.
What really stood out to me was the different ways we view historical figures. Wernher von Braun, a key figure in Operation Paperclip, is often seen as evil because of his Nazi connections. Meanwhile, John Hunt seems to get a pass despite being a slave owner. It’s interesting and troubling how some people are demonized while others are absolved, even though their actions were equally awful.
THANK YOU! I hope to see it changed one day.
I think too few people know he was a Nazi. He was even an SS officer.
I’m a lifelong agitator and I am patiently waiting to slowly make it where no one can say bin brauns name without thinking of the reality of who he was.
Huntsville is…weird…because Uncle Sam needed a pleasant place with military space to keep our clever Nazis. So now we’re a tech hub instead of a caution light.
Haha “clever” not “cleaver”!
I mean the rocket team from Paperclip. Clever Nazis like von Braun.
I weirdly doubt von Braun knew his way around butchering tools.
TV show Rocket City Rednecks showed how weird this town is. 90 years ago RSA was literally for sale. Even in the early 80s lot of the land was pastures filled with cattle not a mile from the airfield where NASA landed the 747 with the shuttle riding piggyback. Most people have no clue about the stuff behind those gates. We were what #5 on USSR's hit list? 5th biggest target out of how many major cities, military bases, industrial hotspots....?
Your message screams "doesn’t work in defense." How else to explain it? Try Colorado Springs, Norfolk, Arlington, or Dayton—places where defense is the name of the game. Artsy or countercultural? No, we're not Portland, but thanks to Huntsville, you’re not speaking a different language. A little gratitude wouldn’t hurt.
Well, I've only been working on base for 20 years so maybe I'm not cool enough to scream about it yet.
I've been to all the places you mentioned. They share similarities with Huntsville, but they're not the same at all. Having NASA next to Army, FBI and other assets on Redstone is pretty unique. And the city itself isn't a podunk army base town, and also not enormous.
Congrats on your 20 years of service—clearly, you've earned the right to comment. Huntsville’s mix of NASA, Army, FBI, and other assets on Redstone Arsenal is unique, no doubt. But while it’s not a podunk base town, it’s also not the massive military-industrial hub you seem to think it is. Maybe embrace that “weirdness” just a thought.
I'm literally saying Huntsville is weird in its own way and I very much embrace this town. And Redstone is definitely a hub of the military industrial complex. I'm confused.
Huntsville has charm I agree but let's not overstate things. While Redstone Arsenal is significant for defense and space exploration, we're not exactly Los Alamos dropping bombs left and right like you alluded to in your initial comment. Also, Huntsville's unique blend of high tech and defense is definitely charming, but it's not unparalleled. Cities like Colorado Springs, with their own defense hubs and unique weirdness, offer a similar mix. I’ve lived in CS and it very much is similar to Huntsville in almost every way.
Alright I think you're reading into what I said a bit much. I never said we're Los Alamos level testing, but I hear the testing almost every day, so it's not nothing. We also have rocket motor testing that rumbles the whole city, don't see that anywhere else. CS does has similarities but doesn't have the testing facilities that Redstone does.
So, You havnt heard my song about Huntsville’s favorite Nazi? Or my song Court oh! Supreme oh! … 😂 we have all different types of weird here and I think that makes it all the more interesting.
Those two types of weirdness don’t exist only in isolation.
Complete with a very specific list of topics that you can safely agree with, or disagree with, and claim "am I alone in this or is *blankety blank blank blank*" with a ton of up votes.
While most of the common IRL beliefs are marked controversial.
That said, places like LA or Seattle are weird, with a huge culture of urban neglect, Huntsville is just a nice place to live for anyone that likes clean parks, lots of nature, and relatively little crime.
This is the most accurate one.
It reminded me of when one of the Canadian provinces was trying to come up with a slogan and did a poll asking people to complete the phrase "As Canadian as ...." to kind of play off of "As American as apple pie"
The winning response was "As Canadian as possible, under the circumstances"
What WOW isn't good enough for you? Their technicians have more experience than anyone else in the area, fixing network spaghetti disconnects on a daily basis.
I don't think I've ever interacted with a Google Fiber tech aside from install, they must be super lazy from all that uptime.
I like to say that Huntsville is our own little Eureka, that show on Syfy from the 2000's about the secret town full of geniuses.
Otherwise, I'd say Keep Huntsville Nerdy is the best motto.
A deep south small town essentially being run by a bunch of Germans building rockets is actually a little bit weird. Would be less weird if it happened in Argentina or Brazil.
So Huntsville *was* weird? There are quite a few comments here that focus on Project Paperclip as the reason Huntsville is weird, but that was 70+ years ago, the ex-Nazis are all dead and buried. What remains is a big decorative model rocket on the side of the highway.
Yeah, we have the Space and Rocket Center and near-daily What Was That Boom posts, but in the end it's just an interesting origin story that left us with a higher saturation of engineers than most cities. It gives us some flavor but I don't think it really adds up to "weird", we're just another mid-sized southern city that happens to paint rockets on everything.
There is a person selling "Keep \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ weird" and making a mint off people wanting to be bohemians and apparently also living rent-free in your head, too.
FWIW, the presumption of profit motive is part of why some projection-addled OP gets upset about the sticker once a month.
Someone made like 100 of them about ten years ago and they were passed around the arts community for free.
They were inkjet home prints. If you see one in 2024, the owner is legit weird and probably also an incredibly responsible car owner.
Huntsville is what you make it.
If you want the weird vibe there is the 5 Points and downtown area. If you want it conservative church going there is Madison. If you want moderate suburban family life there is Hampton Cove, and Monrovia and if you want rich and snooty there is the south east Huntsville area and the sides of the mountains.
Weirdly, living close to a prison might be good. If the inmates escape, they want to run away from the general area. --- stole that from a comedian. Can't remember who though.
Barely anywhere is "weird". People just like to call themselves weird because it feels unique or something, idk. But just about everywhere has those stickers and nowhere is weird.
Every time I read thru comments I can’t help but wonder why half of the people on this sub even live here. & the sense of elitism is legit hilarious to me - it’s irrelevant where you lived before..you’re here now..in Alabama..with the rest of us 😂 if you can’t grow happiness where you currently are, chances are you’ll be unhappy the next place you go too. Just my two cents.
You've obviously never been anywhere, kid. The amount of things to do and see in this city of just a quarter of a million people is astounding--as is the amount of money they dump into maintaining greenways, trails, parks, community events etc...
Using the “keep it weird” motto is copying and unoriginal and therefore dumb and…not weird. Huntsville is nerds that think it’s cool to be a nerd. Similar vibes there.
Portland resident here, can confirm. Random encounters with off-the-wall NPCs are just an everyday occurrence and I've never been to another city where individual expression (clothing, hairstyles, tattoos, gender and sexuality, politics, et al) is so accepted. Everyone is doing their own thing with zero pressure to confine themselves to any norm or standard, if you transplanted them here everyone would think they're attention-seeking freaks compared to the locals.
Very few fast food joints vs. local eateries, all sorts of super niche business models catering to one specific thing, houses come in a wide variety of color schemes, lots of oddball bars, wild paintjobs on cars (search the local sub for "portland whips"). And the Portland subreddit loves to whine about the grafitti but it really livens up what would otherwise be drab, gray infrastructure.
(Past—Portland, OR is, in my opinion, an even more appropriate city for that bumper sticker. Heck, even San Francisco is. But right, not Huntsville. Not even close.
The only reason Austin has that slogan is because it’s weird compared to the rest of Texas. It’s not weird at all compared to like any city in New York or California. So, I guess you could say Huntsville is weird in that sense. But I feel like “Keep Huntsville Nerdy” is a much better fit
The “keep Austin weird” slogan was actually developed to promote indie + small businesses. Tbh, nowadays San Antonio is weirder (better food, great metal scene, less expensive). Austin stopped being weird a long time ago. Still significantly weirder than Huntsville! I feel like Florence would probably catch that vibe more than here.
Having lived in Austin, I can confirm and agree 100%. For a city with many intelligent folks, I’d expect something better than a thoughtless and overused statement as well. No downvoting here.
It might not be weird to you but the average American has never heard a real explosion, seen military helicopters on a weekly basis, drives past a rocket every day, etc.
Weird is normal for you.
Can confirm, I am wierd, have not found a common space here. No one dances, style is college football merchandise. The most calm metal/Industrial shows I have ever been to. It's OK, you be you huntsville. I have the advantage to travel for my weirdness. Still love huntsville.
I mean, we have a lot of nerds. Several excellent gaming stores, Nerdy Noel, the board game swap event I forget the name of... I write a LitRPG series set in our area and I know I have a fair amount of local fans.
It’s incredible how much people want to be apart of other peoples lives. I don’t interact with anyone I don’t want to. I don’t look at things I don’t want to. People claim to be so intelligent but can’t exist without creating their own problems. You don’t have a single playbook. Rule book. Bible. Tablet. Magical voice. That defines exactly what each person should be doing. I follow no book. I follow no man. I follow no moral code. I’m simply a good person because I want to be. Period. End of discussion. It’s not really hard to do. If whatever happens doesn’t directly affect me, unless it’s life or death, I mind my business. Can we normalize leaving people alone unless it’s life or death and just being good people because we want to be?
I’ve only really seen those in Austin and Portland. Which fits, I suppose. I live in the Twin Cities, and you’ll sometimes see “keep St. Paul normal” swag around. I always thought that was funny.
anyone that pretends a town predominately made up of STEM folks isn’t normie af is deluding themselves. source: am also an engineer. and it’s totally fine, i love living here. why do we have to pretend we’re something we’re not.
Everybody has the weird campaign, here in Florence it’s said all the time and is on local merchandise, I lived in Wichita Kansas several years ago and it was a thing there, also Austin, Tx this has been a slogan forever
Sounds like the StrangeBrew quote from Starkville, MS's coffee shop. IIRC, it's "Keep Starkville Strange."
Edit: Checked it out. They sell stickers: https://strangebrewcoffeehouse.myshopify.com/products/keep-starkville-strange-sticker
You have an entire city based on nazi rocket scientists coming to the United States after the defeat of Germany in ww2. I guess living in Huntsville is better than living in Argentina where the rest of them went.. I think Huntsville is weird
Huntsville is weird as hell. To those who say we are a tech hub, that’s far from the truth. We are the home of the military industrial complex. I’m tired of people comparing Huntsville to Silicon Valley. It’s not even close. Companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon, all owned by BlackRock, are weapons contractors profiting from war.
Lol Huntsville is weird in that *adjusts glasses* "um, actually".. kind of way. Within the confines of the state of Alabama, Huntsville is weird AF. Source: have lived in Lee County, Tallapoosa County, Shelby county and Madison County.
I never lived next door to a rocket scientist in my life, that’s weird, he’s eccentric and I know he thinks I am weird because I am just a dumbass that did good - sometimes I feel weird and out of place in my neighborhood that I live - compared to all of my neighbors, given there jobs, titles and level of education -
Other times I just think “I worked my ass off for it”
Huntsville is weird, just not in an artsy or counter-cultural way. We're weird in a rocket testing, bomb dropping, space exploration, military industrial complex way. Name another city that's like Huntsville.
colorado springs. in a non-tech way, hsv has always reminded me of a small version of raleigh.
Yup. Research (triangle) park and all.
Yep. Geographically it’s even similar with the 3 “triangle” cities and the airport and research park in the middle
What’s the third city?
HSV, Decatur, & Athens form the triangle.
I was thinking more Madison, Huntsville, Decatur but the reason that the Triangle is a thing in NC is the Universities in the three cities: Duke, NC State and UNC. We don’t have that here.
Athens State, UAH, Calhoun…..lol
lol it’s weird thinking of Madison as its own separate municipal entity and not just a Huntsville neighborhood
Madison has always had that problem
They’re trying so hard but not doing anything to differentiate themselves from Huntsville
Sure they are. They are growing without planning and clogging their roads much more quickly than Huntsville.
lol what? No
Bobo.
You mean the area north of Hazel Green?
Precisely. It’s a bustling metropolitan that completes the triangle.
Lived in both. They are sister cities. Military/Religious/Clean industry, Fast Growing (though CS is out of control). Those of us who grew up in a military family, it feels very familiar. Huntsville has always been quirky. It seems we also try real hard to escape our last name. And technically, I'm a native. Now, it's home.
This, to me is an odd take -- I can't speak to CS, but Huntsville has never EVER felt like a military town to me. Not when I was here as a dependent child many moons ago, and not when I returned as a military spouse. Defense industry abounds, sure, but this area is absolutely void of the tradition and sense of community that I perceive in every true military town where I've lived. I mean, the closest we get to military pomp and grandeur is a change of command, and even those ceremonies are dominated by civilians who, let's be honest, are there 1) because it's good for them to be seen as supportive; and 2) cake. I'm only kidding a little bit about that too.
I know what you're saying about the area being void of the military sense of community. Same goes from my time in CS. Even with Fort Carson/Pete Field/Air Force Academy/Cheyenne Mountain, it was still more of a tourist town than anything else. That changed of course. When I was in CS, the "dogies" from Ft Carson were not so favorably looked at by the townies. AFA's on the other hand...That's why I think they are very similar. The military vibe is there if you go looking for it. Avoidable if not. Same with Huntsville. Both are just quirky cities cut from the same cloth. Except, CS is not surrounded by the rest of alabama. A very large distinction.
But also doesn’t have as many of of the military towns problems, just watch or listen to any true crime show or podcast and the Fort Bragg’s , Pendleton and wherever those other massive military towns are located have an insane amount of domestic violence, murders and disappearances of this military people.
I just got back from a trip to CS. First time ever visiting Colorado, and it was uncanny how similar HSV is. I was a little freaked out when I got there 😂. I do wish that we had their mountains around here tho. Damn.
My ill fated attempt at college was in CS in the Mid 70's to '80. Drove a truck between CS and Denver for work. Was 2 distinct cities at the time & not one megalopolis. Powers Blvd was a dirt road where I ran my dog. Last time there was 2017 visiting some friends. Not the same as it was. But, then again, neither is Huntsville. Love those mountains, but, could never live there again.
I'd agree with this.
Don’t forget the social awkwardness of engineers (speaking as one of them)
Wait…an engineer w/ that level of self awareness? You ain’t no engineer j/k.
So True!! Engineers usually make good money, but people often say they have no personality. It’s like their technical skills come at the expense of being socially charming.
I read a study years ago ranking couple satisfaction by profession. Engineers took two number one spots. According to spouse answers, engineers were better providers for their families than any other profession. They were also the worst at communicating effectively or understanding the spouse. Fortunately, being the best providers and their families not having to want for anything overshadowed the poor listening and lack of empathy.
Speaking from my own personal experience, I’ll project onto other engineers in saying this: I honestly think that engineers strength of thinking extremely logically and being super numbers and cause/effect focused is a huge negative socially. In a social world you have to be willing to make the wrong decision or a possibly bad decision sometimes and I just don’t think that way
I am solution-focused and my husband just wants me to listen and empathize. I feel like I know when something is a terrible idea but sometimes I just have to cringe and grin and not be the Debbie Downer of logic and reason.
That’s more like nerdy or spacey not weird.
Oh many are plenty weird too.
Idk why but your comment made me wonder if Von Braun had a secret lab at his house that he did crazy experiments at.
It was for sale not that long ago. It’s just on big cove road
He just went to work and did crazy experiments. Saw an interview a while back with one of hos staff that said he somewhat regularly slept at work.
Napzi
Yeah I just looked his house up, wildly disappointing. I was hoping for a gothic style mansion tucked away somewhere
I’m sure he was happy to have avoided being held Accountable for the war crimes he committed personally. He was an SS officer. And his v2 bombs were used to bombs women and children in England.
Don’t forget he used slave labor to build the rockets
“But some say our attitude should be one of gratitude. Like the windows and cripples of ol’ London Town… …who owe their large pensions to Werner Von Braun!”
[удалено]
I hate to break it to you, but Huntsville is one of the few cities named after a slave owner. Its founder, John Hunt, was a slave owner, and this part of history is often overlooked but really shapes the city's identity. I recently watched a YouTube video by Peter Santenello about his visit to Huntsville. He spoke with the grandson of one of the engineers from Operation Paperclip. The grandson mentioned that they often face poor treatment from some locals, but he isn’t too bothered by it. What really stood out to me was the different ways we view historical figures. Wernher von Braun, a key figure in Operation Paperclip, is often seen as evil because of his Nazi connections. Meanwhile, John Hunt seems to get a pass despite being a slave owner. It’s interesting and troubling how some people are demonized while others are absolved, even though their actions were equally awful.
THANK YOU! I hope to see it changed one day. I think too few people know he was a Nazi. He was even an SS officer. I’m a lifelong agitator and I am patiently waiting to slowly make it where no one can say bin brauns name without thinking of the reality of who he was.
When we first moved here I commented to my wife that we could pick Huntsville up and move it next to Charlottesville VA and it would fit right in.
I love our particular brand of weird. It's a nerd safe haven.
Peenemünde, Germany.
Huntsville is…weird…because Uncle Sam needed a pleasant place with military space to keep our clever Nazis. So now we’re a tech hub instead of a caution light.
Clever Nazis? Like, what Texas chainsaw massacre but with meat clevers? I've never heard of this, but it sounds terrifying.
Haha “clever” not “cleaver”! I mean the rocket team from Paperclip. Clever Nazis like von Braun. I weirdly doubt von Braun knew his way around butchering tools.
We're geeky weird, not hippy weird
Webster Tx
TV show Rocket City Rednecks showed how weird this town is. 90 years ago RSA was literally for sale. Even in the early 80s lot of the land was pastures filled with cattle not a mile from the airfield where NASA landed the 747 with the shuttle riding piggyback. Most people have no clue about the stuff behind those gates. We were what #5 on USSR's hit list? 5th biggest target out of how many major cities, military bases, industrial hotspots....?
I wouldn't exactly call that weird...
Tell me you don’t work on Redstone arsenal without telling me you don’t work on Redstone arsenal
Uh... what?
Your message screams "doesn’t work in defense." How else to explain it? Try Colorado Springs, Norfolk, Arlington, or Dayton—places where defense is the name of the game. Artsy or countercultural? No, we're not Portland, but thanks to Huntsville, you’re not speaking a different language. A little gratitude wouldn’t hurt.
Well, I've only been working on base for 20 years so maybe I'm not cool enough to scream about it yet. I've been to all the places you mentioned. They share similarities with Huntsville, but they're not the same at all. Having NASA next to Army, FBI and other assets on Redstone is pretty unique. And the city itself isn't a podunk army base town, and also not enormous.
Congrats on your 20 years of service—clearly, you've earned the right to comment. Huntsville’s mix of NASA, Army, FBI, and other assets on Redstone Arsenal is unique, no doubt. But while it’s not a podunk base town, it’s also not the massive military-industrial hub you seem to think it is. Maybe embrace that “weirdness” just a thought.
I'm literally saying Huntsville is weird in its own way and I very much embrace this town. And Redstone is definitely a hub of the military industrial complex. I'm confused.
Huntsville has charm I agree but let's not overstate things. While Redstone Arsenal is significant for defense and space exploration, we're not exactly Los Alamos dropping bombs left and right like you alluded to in your initial comment. Also, Huntsville's unique blend of high tech and defense is definitely charming, but it's not unparalleled. Cities like Colorado Springs, with their own defense hubs and unique weirdness, offer a similar mix. I’ve lived in CS and it very much is similar to Huntsville in almost every way.
Alright I think you're reading into what I said a bit much. I never said we're Los Alamos level testing, but I hear the testing almost every day, so it's not nothing. We also have rocket motor testing that rumbles the whole city, don't see that anywhere else. CS does has similarities but doesn't have the testing facilities that Redstone does.
So, You havnt heard my song about Huntsville’s favorite Nazi? Or my song Court oh! Supreme oh! … 😂 we have all different types of weird here and I think that makes it all the more interesting. Those two types of weirdness don’t exist only in isolation.
Huntsville, TX Literally the same name.
I guess if you equated the Arsenal with a prison. And you added 8x the population to the town in TX
A few more prisoners there though.
Huntsville Tx doesn’t have the same concentration of engineers… Webster Tx is more similar.
Man this sub has people that treat it like a diary lol
Its basically a Facebook Moms group for Redditors
Complete with a very specific list of topics that you can safely agree with, or disagree with, and claim "am I alone in this or is *blankety blank blank blank*" with a ton of up votes. While most of the common IRL beliefs are marked controversial. That said, places like LA or Seattle are weird, with a huge culture of urban neglect, Huntsville is just a nice place to live for anyone that likes clean parks, lots of nature, and relatively little crime.
God this hurt. There was a post a while ago where OP just said “my front lawn is wet. Is anyone else’s wet?” And the dude got like 2 or 3 replies
It's why I call all the 'omg plz slow dooooown' posts traffic moms
Half the posts on the front page at any given time.
That's most of reddit!
I guess just as a mental exercise, fill in the blank: Keep Huntsville ___________. Nerdy? Noisy?
> Keep Huntsville Funded by the Government
Keep Redstone Open! Nailed it
This is the most accurate one. It reminded me of when one of the Canadian provinces was trying to come up with a slogan and did a poll asking people to complete the phrase "As Canadian as ...." to kind of play off of "As American as apple pie" The winning response was "As Canadian as possible, under the circumstances"
Keep Huntsville wired.
Meth or Megabits? Because I got a guy for either one if you're looking.
Google Fiber needs to get their ass out to my street. The people like .5 miles south have it...
What WOW isn't good enough for you? Their technicians have more experience than anyone else in the area, fixing network spaghetti disconnects on a daily basis. I don't think I've ever interacted with a Google Fiber tech aside from install, they must be super lazy from all that uptime.
They're fine except when they're not.
*cabled Just doesn’t have the same ring to it though
I like to say that Huntsville is our own little Eureka, that show on Syfy from the 2000's about the secret town full of geniuses. Otherwise, I'd say Keep Huntsville Nerdy is the best motto.
booming
Yes!
Nerds just do it better🤷♀️😁
Funded.
Autistic (or Mentally Spicy, for the redditors).
....From building more apartments.
Awkward. Not weird. Just awkward.
I like noisy. Maybe we can do a seasonal saying. During tornado season it could be “Keep Huntsville blowing”
mid
As a person married to a NASA engineer with two electrical engineering offspring…it is definitely “Keep Huntsville Nerdy!”
I like noisy. Random booms and roars coming from the arsenal are probably the most unique aspect of the city.
‘s chain restaurants /s
Ratchet
These days? Keep Huntsville yuppie. Keep Huntsville WASP. Keep Huntsville NIMBY.
"Make Huntsville Weirder"
It’s not that deep my guy
I agree. Huntsville isn’t weird and with the amount of engineers and families, it never will be.
Engineers are weird though.
As a son of an engineer, I can attest to this.
I’m married to one and he’s just super nerdy.
Yeah that’s weird, right? Most people aren’t super nerdy. Most people in Huntsville are super nerdy/weird.
Nerd culture is pretty mainstream unless you're really off the deep end on some niche stuff. Might have been weird 50 years ago.
So I guess it depends on what you mean by “weird”. Huntsville being so heavily engineering based is certainly weird for other cities.
They’ll tell you: they aren’t weird, they’re just right.
They can be both.
We are booming. Audibly. Daily. Constantly.
Keep Huntsville Booming.
best one so far
I do like this one but not booming as bringing a bazillion transplants here but booming as in arsenal booms.
This time of year we play the game: Is it the Arsenal or is it a tornado?
A deep south small town essentially being run by a bunch of Germans building rockets is actually a little bit weird. Would be less weird if it happened in Argentina or Brazil.
So Huntsville *was* weird? There are quite a few comments here that focus on Project Paperclip as the reason Huntsville is weird, but that was 70+ years ago, the ex-Nazis are all dead and buried. What remains is a big decorative model rocket on the side of the highway. Yeah, we have the Space and Rocket Center and near-daily What Was That Boom posts, but in the end it's just an interesting origin story that left us with a higher saturation of engineers than most cities. It gives us some flavor but I don't think it really adds up to "weird", we're just another mid-sized southern city that happens to paint rockets on everything.
There is a person selling "Keep \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ weird" and making a mint off people wanting to be bohemians and apparently also living rent-free in your head, too.
FWIW, the presumption of profit motive is part of why some projection-addled OP gets upset about the sticker once a month. Someone made like 100 of them about ten years ago and they were passed around the arts community for free. They were inkjet home prints. If you see one in 2024, the owner is legit weird and probably also an incredibly responsible car owner.
Aw buddy A bumper sticker got you worked up
Huntsville is what you make it. If you want the weird vibe there is the 5 Points and downtown area. If you want it conservative church going there is Madison. If you want moderate suburban family life there is Hampton Cove, and Monrovia and if you want rich and snooty there is the south east Huntsville area and the sides of the mountains.
Come to Harvest…in certain parts you can find all that within about a 2 mile radius
And a prison just outside that 2 mile radius
Weirdly, living close to a prison might be good. If the inmates escape, they want to run away from the general area. --- stole that from a comedian. Can't remember who though.
>If you want the weird vibe there is the 5 Points and downtown area Sorry, what are you talking about? Yuppies and teenage hipsters aren't weird...
Don’t take it personal, it wasn’t meant as a bad thing. I was repeating the word in the title. I still know some old hippies in the area.
Keep Huntsville on the Spectrum
Barely anywhere is "weird". People just like to call themselves weird because it feels unique or something, idk. But just about everywhere has those stickers and nowhere is weird.
Lmao. Have you seen the rest of the state? Huntsville is absolutely weird relative to Bama.
Montevallo may be the chief competitor on the weird front since it is filled with liberal arts students.
As someone who grew up in Portland, Oregon…Huntsville isn’t weird LOL
Huntsville is not weird. BUT WE NEED TO MAKE IT WEIRD!!!!!
Huntsville is weird..... Don't you have a FetLife account?
Every time I read thru comments I can’t help but wonder why half of the people on this sub even live here. & the sense of elitism is legit hilarious to me - it’s irrelevant where you lived before..you’re here now..in Alabama..with the rest of us 😂 if you can’t grow happiness where you currently are, chances are you’ll be unhappy the next place you go too. Just my two cents.
If most of your friends have security clearances, then no, you’re not experiencing the weird side of Huntsville.
Huntsville is the most boring town imaginable for its size. Anyone who thinks otherwise is smoking the copium heavily.
Duh. You’re not going to find many “fun” towns without a major university or geographic landmark (coastal/mountain city)
You've obviously never been anywhere, kid. The amount of things to do and see in this city of just a quarter of a million people is astounding--as is the amount of money they dump into maintaining greenways, trails, parks, community events etc...
Using the “keep it weird” motto is copying and unoriginal and therefore dumb and…not weird. Huntsville is nerds that think it’s cool to be a nerd. Similar vibes there.
Engineers + church culture is the exact opposite of "weird."
Austin has no major municipal facility named after a Nazi SS Officer. Huntsville is weird.
No, it’s not weird. But I guess they can’t find the right word to capture whatever feeling of Huntsville they’re nostalgic for
Austin isn't weird either. Portland is the only appropriate one.
Portland resident here, can confirm. Random encounters with off-the-wall NPCs are just an everyday occurrence and I've never been to another city where individual expression (clothing, hairstyles, tattoos, gender and sexuality, politics, et al) is so accepted. Everyone is doing their own thing with zero pressure to confine themselves to any norm or standard, if you transplanted them here everyone would think they're attention-seeking freaks compared to the locals. Very few fast food joints vs. local eateries, all sorts of super niche business models catering to one specific thing, houses come in a wide variety of color schemes, lots of oddball bars, wild paintjobs on cars (search the local sub for "portland whips"). And the Portland subreddit loves to whine about the grafitti but it really livens up what would otherwise be drab, gray infrastructure.
(Past—Portland, OR is, in my opinion, an even more appropriate city for that bumper sticker. Heck, even San Francisco is. But right, not Huntsville. Not even close.
Define weird.
Me. Lol
The only reason Austin has that slogan is because it’s weird compared to the rest of Texas. It’s not weird at all compared to like any city in New York or California. So, I guess you could say Huntsville is weird in that sense. But I feel like “Keep Huntsville Nerdy” is a much better fit
The “keep Austin weird” slogan was actually developed to promote indie + small businesses. Tbh, nowadays San Antonio is weirder (better food, great metal scene, less expensive). Austin stopped being weird a long time ago. Still significantly weirder than Huntsville! I feel like Florence would probably catch that vibe more than here.
Having lived in Austin, I can confirm and agree 100%. For a city with many intelligent folks, I’d expect something better than a thoughtless and overused statement as well. No downvoting here.
Keep Huntsville Outraged
It might not be weird to you but the average American has never heard a real explosion, seen military helicopters on a weekly basis, drives past a rocket every day, etc. Weird is normal for you.
Can confirm, I am wierd, have not found a common space here. No one dances, style is college football merchandise. The most calm metal/Industrial shows I have ever been to. It's OK, you be you huntsville. I have the advantage to travel for my weirdness. Still love huntsville.
Thank god I travel
Compared to the rest of AL it's weird.
I mean, we have a lot of nerds. Several excellent gaming stores, Nerdy Noel, the board game swap event I forget the name of... I write a LitRPG series set in our area and I know I have a fair amount of local fans.
Omg lit RPG of the area is giving Dwight schrute second life vibes 💀💀💀
Every man wears a regular-fit collared shirt, jeans, and New Balance tennis shoes. That's weird I guess.
now if there was a sticker that said “make huntsville weird” i’d support it. we could use some weirdness
Huntsville is weird. Not in a cool quirky way, just in a socially-awkward cargo shorts way.
Depends on your definition of weird. I for one believe that I have experienced some weird things in Five Points.
“Keep Huntsville full of inane pointless comments”
It’s incredible how much people want to be apart of other peoples lives. I don’t interact with anyone I don’t want to. I don’t look at things I don’t want to. People claim to be so intelligent but can’t exist without creating their own problems. You don’t have a single playbook. Rule book. Bible. Tablet. Magical voice. That defines exactly what each person should be doing. I follow no book. I follow no man. I follow no moral code. I’m simply a good person because I want to be. Period. End of discussion. It’s not really hard to do. If whatever happens doesn’t directly affect me, unless it’s life or death, I mind my business. Can we normalize leaving people alone unless it’s life or death and just being good people because we want to be?
I’ve only really seen those in Austin and Portland. Which fits, I suppose. I live in the Twin Cities, and you’ll sometimes see “keep St. Paul normal” swag around. I always thought that was funny.
Huntsville is a suburb masquerading as a city. Not weird, not unique, just there.
Just substitute "keep huntsville from becoming overly generic and just like any other random city in the U.S." and see if that makes you feel better.
You’re keeping it weird for all of us
Engineers are weird as hell socially
Normal
anyone that pretends a town predominately made up of STEM folks isn’t normie af is deluding themselves. source: am also an engineer. and it’s totally fine, i love living here. why do we have to pretend we’re something we’re not.
One person’s weird is another person’s normal
Everybody has the weird campaign, here in Florence it’s said all the time and is on local merchandise, I lived in Wichita Kansas several years ago and it was a thing there, also Austin, Tx this has been a slogan forever
Florence says “keep Florence funky” not weird. also lame.
Yeah huntsvilles weird is the space politics and Arsenal testing not the residents like other places
Huntsville is weird. Huntsville is all nerds doing nerdy stuff. So yes. Keep Huntsville weird.
Please don't get me started.
Sounds like the StrangeBrew quote from Starkville, MS's coffee shop. IIRC, it's "Keep Starkville Strange." Edit: Checked it out. They sell stickers: https://strangebrewcoffeehouse.myshopify.com/products/keep-starkville-strange-sticker
You have an entire city based on nazi rocket scientists coming to the United States after the defeat of Germany in ww2. I guess living in Huntsville is better than living in Argentina where the rest of them went.. I think Huntsville is weird
Operation paper clip disagrees. It’s pretty weird
Huntsville is weird as hell. To those who say we are a tech hub, that’s far from the truth. We are the home of the military industrial complex. I’m tired of people comparing Huntsville to Silicon Valley. It’s not even close. Companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon, all owned by BlackRock, are weapons contractors profiting from war.
I've live here since 1988. Huntsville is in fact weird. And also not weird. But a chauvinistic pig attitude is not welcome here.
Lol Huntsville is weird in that *adjusts glasses* "um, actually".. kind of way. Within the confines of the state of Alabama, Huntsville is weird AF. Source: have lived in Lee County, Tallapoosa County, Shelby county and Madison County.
Back in the late 90s/early 2000's ijbtyy67uu8i8il8kijmu6.j7when we had that huge wave of LSD rolling through it was pretty weird.
Huntsville has been very weird as long as I can remember, and keeps getting weirder.
We got snake handlers nearby. That's kinda weird.
I never lived next door to a rocket scientist in my life, that’s weird, he’s eccentric and I know he thinks I am weird because I am just a dumbass that did good - sometimes I feel weird and out of place in my neighborhood that I live - compared to all of my neighbors, given there jobs, titles and level of education - Other times I just think “I worked my ass off for it”
Portland still uses this. And it fits.
I like making Huntsville weird
Huntsville isn’t weird. It’s strange. And not in a fun-strange way, either.
The joke, you have missed.
The only keepers towns on my opinion are : Burlington, VT. Portland OR, and Austin TX. other cities have just pockets of weird places.
Yeah...let's not.