The term “Midwest nice” is a stereotype often used to describe the friendly nature of the people native to the region. It’s the kind of politeness where someone says “Ope, sorry!” when nothing is their fault, insists you take the last slice of pie or makes cheerful small talk in an elevator.
Midwest nice has become a familiar punchline in popular media, from the 1996 comedy “Fargo,” where characters ironically speak in warm and friendly Midwestern accents as the plot descends into violence and chaos, to TikTok comedian Charlie Berens, who went viral for his skits satirizing Midwestern mannerisms.
In 2024, the saying took off after Kamala Harris picked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate for the November presidential election, with people online quick to point out his agreeable, polite demeanor.
Yet Midwesterners themselves might not notice “Midwest nice” until they leave the region.
“I grew up in Ohio, but I did grad school in Colorado, and it definitely felt different; people are much less likely to hold a door for you, whereas here, they’ll hold the door for you, even if you’re like a mile back,” Becca Wait, a recreation program manager at the University of Toledo, said.
But are Midwesterners actually as “nice” as they seem?
In 2013, Cambridge professor Jason Rentfrow and his colleagues conducted a personality study that roughly clustered the U.S. into three personality profiles. West Coast states were identified as relaxed and creative; East Coast states were temperamental and inhibited; and the Midwestern states were predominantly agreeable, extroverted and conscientious.
While their research did not study niceness directly, it suggests that “Midwest nice” stems from regional cultural differences.
“I believe that what we were probably capturing is a combination of people who have personality characteristics linked to being sociable, warm, kind, considerate, uncritical, more cooperative,” Rentfrow said. “So I think it’s a combination of these types of personality characteristics that probably contribute to someone’s level of niceness.”
Colloquially, saying someone is ‘nice’ can be different from saying someone is ‘kind.’ According to Rentfrow, niceness is a sort of pleasantry, like telling a classmate “feel better soon” when they’re sick — it doesn’t always stem from sincerity. Kindness, on the other hand, often stems from a more genuine concern and involves an act of service, such as offering to take notes for your sick classmate.
“Kindness may be more authentic, whereas being maybe more agreeable or nice is maybe just being polite, but not necessarily meaning it,” he said. “You’re just kind of not rocking the boat, whereas, if you’re kind, you are genuinely, authentically, at heart, a good, kind, nice person.”
In other words, being nice can often be more about managing how you’re seen rather than expressing how you actually feel.
Toledo resident Scott Flowers said that in his experience living in multiple states across the country, he has observed significant differences in regional attitudes.
“When we lived up in New York, they come across to a Midwesterner as more rude, but they don’t really view it [as rude],” Flowers said. “It’s just the way they talk and their mannerisms.”
The moniker Midwest nice likely stems from the more local “Minnesota nice.” From the 1850s–1930s, a large number of Scandinavian immigrants settled in Minnesota, bringing with them their polite and community-minded culture.
Their community-focused mindset is known as the Law of Jante, or Janteloven, a fictional rule from the 1933 book “A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks” by Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose. The law of Jante dictates that individuals should not think they are better or more special than the community, creating a culture of understatement, emotional restraint and conflict avoidance.
Still, some researchers argue that the roots of Midwest nice run deeper than Scandinavian influence and into the social history of the Midwest as a whole.
According to Aaron Pomerantz, assistant director of research and evaluation at Rice University, the Midwest has historically been disenfranchised and widely viewed as inferior. He theorizes that Midwest nice could stem from a desire to combat these negative views.
“In the Midwest it’s: ‘If I’m not nice, I’m a bad person, and people are going to think I am a bad person and I will lose reputation,’” Pomerantz said.
Pomerantz said that the high value placed on niceness leads people to avoid conflict, even when they’re upset. When direct disagreement feels impolite or socially risky, Midwesterners often lean on gentle‑sounding phrases like “good luck with that” or “interesting” to express frustration without breaking the expectation of friendliness.
“You can’t just be nasty or rude,” Pomerantz said. “You want to communicate that you’re upset in a way that makes other people adjust their behavior, but doesn’t mean that there’s going to be a fight.”
For Midwesterners like Wait, the pressure to fall into the stereotype becomes a performance rather than a true personality trait.
“Sometimes I will read an email more than once to check, ‘Am I being nice enough?’ but I also have a rule for myself that I’m only allowed to do two exclamation points per email, because then it’s too nice,” Wait said. “I try to not feed the stereotype.”
