A Masshole’s Guide to Town Loyalty

Somewhere else in the country, you're from a "greater metro area." You're from "just outside" a bigger city nobody's heard of either. In Massachusetts, you're from a town — a specific one, with a name, a rivalry, and a set of rules you didn't choose but will absolutely enforce.

The town is the unit

Ask someone from here where they're from and they won't say "Boston" unless they're actually from Boston. They'll name the town. Then they'll wait to see if you know it. If you do, you're in. If you don't, they'll tell you which exit it's off of and move on with their life.

The rivalries are sacred

Neighboring towns are not friends. They are opponents in a game that started before you were born and will continue after you're gone. Thanksgiving football, who has the better beach, whose downtown is "actually nice" — the stakes are nothing and everything at the same time. This is normal. This is healthy. This is Massachusetts.

Why it matters

Because loyalty to a small place is one of the last honest things left. You didn't pick your town to look cool. You're loyal to it because it's yours — the streets you know in the dark, the people who'd still recognize you, the version of you that started there. That's not nostalgia. That's identity.

So yeah — we make hats that say the town. Loud. Because the people who get it don't need it explained, and the people who don't were never going to anyway. Rep your roots.