A SWOT Analysis of Midwestern Folks
There are two types of people in the United States. People who love Midwesterners. And people who were born elsewhere. I am the former. So much so that I have carefully outlined a SWOT Analysis for my fellow middlemen and middlewomen to consider.
SWOT is a business acronym—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. S and W are to be evaluated internally. O and T are to be evaluated externally. In theory, these analyses are used to look at the current state of one’s business (internal) and relevant marketplace (external). In practice, these analyses are used by large corporations that have enough money to support the luxury of unproductive meetings in Q4.
Which one is this? I’ll let the reader decide.
Strengths
Midwesterners knew the secret to happiness well before Wellness became an industry.
Ashton Kutcher and Warren Buffett.
When we talk about seasons, we are talking about the weather. Not a metaphoric chapter in our lives.
The desired answer to the question, “Where did you go to school?” is a University. Not a private high school.
Weaknesses
If a story begins with, “I was at a friend’s house the other night…” we simply cannot resist the temptation to ask whose house it was. Even if we are certain we won’t know the person. Especially if we are certain it has absolutely no effect on the story’s whole.
Function always beats fashion. While this keeps most of us debt free, side effects include the perpetuation of unfortunate outcomes such as: tuxedo t-shirts, home decor in the style of what one sees on HGTV, plastic flowers and fruits, Internet Explorer, and reusable cups for fountain soda at gas stations.
Country music.
Opportunities
Outsiders perceive us as nice. This insight is so powerful that it is currently being used in a handful of Midwestern states’ tourism campaigns. I propose we narrow our niceness to one state and double down on that state. The nicest state will be awarded by winning the following competition: We’ll build a shopping mall and populate it with actors who seem like real people milling about. Then, each state will send one person to compete. Said person will not know the rules but will be judged on how far away someone is from the door as the competitor continues to hold it open. Longest distance wins. This event will be held in a neutral location. Perhaps Canada, as event-goers there are the most likely to understand this competition and therefore get excited about it.
Mullets are back.
Ashton Kutcher and Warren Buffett.
Threats
There is a spike of young folks on the coasts moving inward to cheaper places due to the popularization of remote working. Though this puts us at risk of housing the next Austin or Portland, I have little fear. Hipsters hate outgoing kindness and eating meat, so my prediction is the trend will last as long as the average apartment lease, which in the Midwest can be broken for free any time with the proper sweet talk about needing to move back closer to family.
Despite a natural aversion to trends, the average Midwesterner is more susceptible to in-home pyramid schemes. And with the Internet just catching fire in our neck of the woods, our youth are at a high risk of becoming beauty influencers who call themselves entrepreneurs or worse yet, bloggers who call themselves writers.