re: New Orleans accents are disappearing

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I have a theory that these stupid social media influencer videos are making girls and women all sound alike. It makes me want to live in a cave

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It was happening long before then

In the '80s I knew girls who who tried to lose Southern or LA accents and sound like Valley girls. Many (stupid) people think anything Cali is cool.

And of course, all bitches love uptalk or the vocal fry -- watch some videos defending them

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New Orleans accents are disappearing

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You obv haven’t met the bartender guy at English Turn. Holy cow his accent is strong

Yat accents are the worst of all time

My theory is with cable and the internet we’re now raised hearing tons and tons of accents instead of only the area around us. Therefore many accents get softened. It’s sad. I’m a huge fan of regional identity and uniqueness.

My nola east accent is pretty thick when I’m drinking. Getting away from derelicts has really made it weaker.

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uptalk or the vocal fry -

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Terrible death to die. Uptalk was funny when it was mall-going Valley Girls. But fry is pathetic because so-called intellectuals adopt the affectation to make themselves seem intelligent. Same with ending at least half their sentences with, "right?" (with or without uptalk, and men do that a lot too, esp in academic and TEDTalk settings).

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I’ve never really studied accents but in the south, as a general rule, of an r is not the first or second letter in a word but occurs on the back side of the word, it is generally softened or completely dropped.

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That's completely false, especially today. Most of us in the mid-south speak with that twangy arse Appalachian accent. We stress our R's, even the ones after vowels.

If you live in VA, SC, or parts of GA where the old gentry accent still survives (very rare today), then some of them do not pronounce R's as you suggest. There's a linguistic name for this: non-rhotic. There's a couple of different southern accents that implement this, but the main one most people think of is called the "Piedmont" accent which originated in the Tidewater area of VA.

Where yat Harry?

Down at da yat club.

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Why do people think it started recently? It was happening 80+ years ago w/radio and talking films, then even more w/TV

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Of course. But there's something new about the Instagram version.

More than just fry, like, you know, and uptalk. Those are integrated and amplified in the social media era, to be sure. But the pervasiveness and uniformity of the dumb is now unprecedented.

One fairly new one is the way these travel ball moms say, "Thank you." i literally can't even mimic or describe it, but i know it when i hear it, and I want to grab a Louisville Slugger and go to town on the nearest 30A Tahoe.

I guess so, if the poorer natives have mostly moved away and carpetbaggers have taken their place