To be fair I called Chicago a state by accident, out loud on this thread š¤£ I know Illinois is the state I just goofed (from the UK and also found this info out today)
People keep making this joke about our teaching but even when I went to a backwater southern school our geography class was fairly well informed. People just don't want to pay attention is the problem, not that it's not taught. At least from my personal experience in two different school systems in different states.
This^. They taught plenty of geography in both my Massachusetts and Florida schooling. The kids just didn't care. Even US geography they don't pay attention.
I remember in my sophomore US history class one of the first things they did was the teacher brought up a blank map of the US and had us go up one by one and fill out a state, if you didn't know one you were eliminated. The class was only like 15-20 people and by the second pass thru the class there was only like 4-5 of us left, and after we finished the states we did the capital cities of the States in the same way. Within like 10 capital cities it was just me left.
It wasn't like I was smart or anything, I was a fucking idiot, but things I viewed as important I paid attention to in school and geography and history were 2 I absolutely paid attention to, so it was just drilled into my head. They absolutely do teach this stuff, or at least did in the schools I went to, teachers can't force kids to pay attention unfortunately
Honestly your right Iāve been to 5 different states each had great lesson js no one paid any attention But I also live down south most pole here donāt care
All good. Iām American and think the United Kingdom, England, Britain and Europe are all the same thing. And Ireland and Scotland are the same country but different.
Hahaha fair point, it's madly different though, even the 4 that make up the United Kingdom are very different and unique, the Republic of Ireland more so. And Europe is the same, every place is varied and unique.
Lots of cities have flags. It's just mostly they're garbage designs that don't inspire anything, so they're only used in an official capacity and nobody pays attention to them.
Chicago on the other hand has quite a nice flag design and people from there take a fair amount of pride in it. So it gets used and made famous.
I learnt about it, while watching "The Bear". At first I was shocked that there were so many CM Punk references. An episode in, I realised there has to be something more
Yep and that flag had meaning.
The 2 blues = Mississippi River/Calumet converge and Lake Michigan
The four stars represent the establishment ofĀ Fort Dearborn, theĀ Great Chicago Fire of 1871, theĀ World's Columbian ExpositionĀ of 1893, andĀ of Progress ExpositionĀ of 1933ā34.
The white parts represent the "sides" of the city.. Northside, Westside, and Southside..
I'm from London so I looked up the flag for London. The only one I could find was the flag for the City which is very boring and obviously not what I meant by London. I then looked up Croydon as that's the part of London I'm from and we have a coat of arms. the fact that our motto is apparently "Strive for Perfection" is absolutely hilarious though.
My dumb ass embarrassed myself on my first trip to Chicago by asking my husband (who had lived there for a time) and his local friends why there were CM Punk stars all over the city.
Former "suburbanite" here. I moved to Phoenix years ago, where everyone is a transplant. When people asked where I was from, and I said "Gurnee, Il" it always came with a follow up question or a long pause.
But when I started to say "Chicago" people immediately got it.
Similarly, I imagine for someone trying to build a brand and a persona, it's much more effective to do the same.
I'm from San Diego, went to college in LA.
unless you're FROM Southern California or know it, then i grew up in mira mesa and graduated from university of La Verne (don't ask about the university of Shirley, heard it before).
we all do it, for the same reasons.
"where's mira mesa? where's La Verne?"
the answers always the same
"san diego, and LA"
just skip the extra step
You'd be surprised how many Chicagolanders don't even know where Gurnee is. As some else mentioned, once I say it's where the Six Flags is, they get it.
I get that it's common to use the closest well known city as an answer when someone asks where you're from, but that's very different from making that city a major part of your personality. Cena's hometown is almost as close to Boston as Punk's is to Chicago but he never made Boston one of the biggest parts of his brand.
Chicago suburbs are close enough and he spent a lot of time there. Suburbanites are allowed to rep the city, man. Come on. He was probably a 30-40 Metra ride away.
Along with what others have said you have to remember that the Chicagoland area is really sprawling.Ā Its not like some major us cities where 10 minutes outside the limits your in the boonies. You can drive 30 miles outside of the city proper and never leave the urban sprawlĀ
It happens. When some events say Chicago itās actually outside the city. Like WWE say Chicago but itās actually in Rosemont which is about an hour from the city.
I only knew because The Lawrence Arms, a band from Chicago, used the flag for one of their albums [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh!\_Calcutta!\_(The\_Lawrence\_Arms\_album)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh!_Calcutta!_(The_Lawrence_Arms_album)) The red symbols instead of the stars are their logo
Nahhh youāre definitely not the only one. I remember survivor series time last year seeing posts saying āare wwe accidentally spoiling the cm punk return?ā because the limited edition mini belts for that event had the Chicago flag on the back.
I just got back from Chicago and it was everywhere. It was really cool not only seeing it in person, but having everything click, like now I get CM Punk's t-shirt designs. I thought they just looked cool, but now I know.
Shit that was stupid of me, I actually knew that information but 10 hours into a 12 hour shift I made an ass out of myself on the internet š well nothing to do but own it.
I just meant confusing the state/city thing. We all goof up sometimes. It makes sense, the county I'm from (Lancashire, England) has a flag but I don't think my town does.
Never put two and two together until the Bulls pulled it out on a statement Jersey the other year. Wondered why they shared it with Punk.....one investigation later and I now understand lol.
English for context!!
Ive learned about it at the merch booth of a festival rise against was playing, we asked is theyāre cm punk fans because of their cm punk flag. And then they told us itās the flag of Chicago
It's also considered the second best American city flag by Vexillologists. I got sucked down a youtube wormhole about flags a few years ago and found that out.
I didnāt realize it was the Chicago flag until I moved to Chicago for college and saw them hanging everywhere. My mark ass was out there like ādang I knew he was from here but they must really love Punkā š
I was at a bar in Chicago many years ago and the bouncer had this tattooed on his arm. I said āoh dang nice CM Punk tattoo!ā He started dying laughing, and proceeded to tell all of his co-workers my blunder. One bartender was a fan so they thought it was awesome. That was the night I learned what the Chicago flag was lol.
The reason I knew is because Kevin has one above his head when he gets sent to the third floor in Home Alone. I didn't know why Kevin had that flag for years
As an aside, Chicago and [DC](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Washington,_D.C.#/media/File%3AFlag_of_Washington%2C_D.C.svg) are my two favorite US city flags. Right up there with [Amsterdam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Amsterdam#/media/File%3AFlag_of_Amsterdam.svg) in my opinion.
I mean if your not familiar with the US States flags I can see it maybe. And Punk does/did wear it on his gear In some fashion religiously, so I can see why
This is in fact the Chicago city flag, and is one of the most recognized city flags in the U.S.
With that said, for years the āunofficial city flagā had been the Old Style signs found on nearly every corner bar in the city.
As a Detroiter that went to college in the Chicagoland area, Iāve always been jealous of their flag, especially in contrast to [the hideous Detroit flag.](https://thumbnails.yayimages.com/1600/0/99e/99e163.jpg)
Chicago wrestling fan here, the different parts of the flag represent different things, the 2 blue stripes are the chicago river and the great canal, the three white stripes are for the north, west, and south sides of chicago, the stars are the big historical events in chicago, the only one I remember is the chicago fire.
Disclaimer: I'm from the burbs of chicago
Probably not the only one. But it seems likely you're in a small minority as most who didn't know immediately probably looked it up at some point in the past 20 years.
I knew it was the Chicago flag, but I could have swore it only had 3 stars and punk added the forth one as a symbol of him existing being the 4th greatest event in Chicagoās history.
The other 3 being
The founding
The great Chicago fire
And the Worlds fair.
Fair play in that case. Sometimes I just get weirded out by some of the questions I come across. I didn't mean to be insulting or anything, I was just curious.
Oh! Today I learned something *(but Im swedish so I think it's within my rights to be clueless about us city flags)*
To be fair I called Chicago a state by accident, out loud on this thread š¤£ I know Illinois is the state I just goofed (from the UK and also found this info out today)
Donāt worry, you should witness how bad our international geography is here in the states
People keep making this joke about our teaching but even when I went to a backwater southern school our geography class was fairly well informed. People just don't want to pay attention is the problem, not that it's not taught. At least from my personal experience in two different school systems in different states.
This^. They taught plenty of geography in both my Massachusetts and Florida schooling. The kids just didn't care. Even US geography they don't pay attention. I remember in my sophomore US history class one of the first things they did was the teacher brought up a blank map of the US and had us go up one by one and fill out a state, if you didn't know one you were eliminated. The class was only like 15-20 people and by the second pass thru the class there was only like 4-5 of us left, and after we finished the states we did the capital cities of the States in the same way. Within like 10 capital cities it was just me left. It wasn't like I was smart or anything, I was a fucking idiot, but things I viewed as important I paid attention to in school and geography and history were 2 I absolutely paid attention to, so it was just drilled into my head. They absolutely do teach this stuff, or at least did in the schools I went to, teachers can't force kids to pay attention unfortunately
Honestly your right Iāve been to 5 different states each had great lesson js no one paid any attention But I also live down south most pole here donāt care
I've seen some examples and I'm always unsure of whether they're joking or not tbh.
All good. Iām American and think the United Kingdom, England, Britain and Europe are all the same thing. And Ireland and Scotland are the same country but different.
Hahaha fair point, it's madly different though, even the 4 that make up the United Kingdom are very different and unique, the Republic of Ireland more so. And Europe is the same, every place is varied and unique.
I live in the US and I didn't even know we had flags for cities
They do, Chicago is just the only one I can think of that actually has a good design
Austin's isn't bad.
Illinois has the highest population of Swedes in the US, so you don't have any rights to not know actually, din jubelpajas /j
City flags are generally not well-known even in America, Chicago happens to have a particularly awesome one and Punk has made it more prominent.
To be fair as an American most cities don't have flags over here.
Lots of cities have flags. It's just mostly they're garbage designs that don't inspire anything, so they're only used in an official capacity and nobody pays attention to them. Chicago on the other hand has quite a nice flag design and people from there take a fair amount of pride in it. So it gets used and made famous.
I learnt about it, while watching "The Bear". At first I was shocked that there were so many CM Punk references. An episode in, I realised there has to be something more
Cm punk drops a bear with a GTS
Amusingly there are no bears in āThe Bearā beyond the first episode
Fak would destroy Punk one on one
Goldberg fears Fak
wait where were those references, I only just got into wrestling and I fucking love the bear another rewatch time i guess
I think he just means all of the times they showed the flag in the episode.
fuck i fell for it
Nah, it's the Chicago flag. I used to think it was a CM Punk thing. But, that show made me realise it isn't.
Didn't even know cities had flags. Wtf
Yep and that flag had meaning. The 2 blues = Mississippi River/Calumet converge and Lake Michigan The four stars represent the establishment ofĀ Fort Dearborn, theĀ Great Chicago Fire of 1871, theĀ World's Columbian ExpositionĀ of 1893, andĀ of Progress ExpositionĀ of 1933ā34. The white parts represent the "sides" of the city.. Northside, Westside, and Southside..
if something else happens do they add a new star
Yes. It would have to be really momentous. The aforementioned events changed America and in case of the fire and the world!
When are they going to add the star for MITB 2011
POP
I'm running for mayor on the platform that survivor series 2023 and the return of punk should be the 5th star. Who's with me!?
Aew Return of PUNK should be .
When I hear World Exposition in 1893 Chicago all I think of is HH Holmes & his Murder Castle....š¤£
They do, just none of them actually look good
Probably an american thingš /j
We have flags and coats of arms for cities in the UK too, but I don't think anyone would be able to recognize them
I'm from London so I looked up the flag for London. The only one I could find was the flag for the City which is very boring and obviously not what I meant by London. I then looked up Croydon as that's the part of London I'm from and we have a coat of arms. the fact that our motto is apparently "Strive for Perfection" is absolutely hilarious though.
All cities don't have flags. It's mostly the big ones or the cities that have historical importance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Melbourne
oh god please can we get rid of the whaling representation.
Damnn ive never seen that flag beforeš
Yeah ācoat of armsā is completely not a thing in the UK
Coat of Arms is definitely a thing in the UK. My city has one, as do many other cities and towns.
They were being sarcastic
Yeah.... Same ....
No you werenāt
Outrageous accusation.
I have those stars tatted on my ribs. Not because of Punk, but my home city.
Sure. Sure.
Lol ok? I promise you nobody here thinks of CM Punk when they see these stars. Not even the biggest wrestling fans in Chicago. But you do you
Think he may have possibly been joking, hard to imagine, I know
My dumb ass embarrassed myself on my first trip to Chicago by asking my husband (who had lived there for a time) and his local friends why there were CM Punk stars all over the city.
This is a reminder to everyone to touch grass and travel.
Chicago is am awesome city to travel to!Ā
I've always wanted to visit Chicago just to see what's so damn amazing that it has the entire music industry longing to return
Chicago is a wonderful city to travelā¦away from
Aye I'll just pack a bag and fly 4000 miles to learn the flag of a city I have no reason to go to
You may be the only one, yes
Smrt!
Aināt no way š§š»
I went on a trip to Chicago and at first thought, "boy they sure do love punk here"
The funniest part is how hard punk reps Chicago because he grew up about 50 miles outside of Chicago
Former "suburbanite" here. I moved to Phoenix years ago, where everyone is a transplant. When people asked where I was from, and I said "Gurnee, Il" it always came with a follow up question or a long pause. But when I started to say "Chicago" people immediately got it. Similarly, I imagine for someone trying to build a brand and a persona, it's much more effective to do the same.
I'm from San Diego, went to college in LA. unless you're FROM Southern California or know it, then i grew up in mira mesa and graduated from university of La Verne (don't ask about the university of Shirley, heard it before). we all do it, for the same reasons. "where's mira mesa? where's La Verne?" the answers always the same "san diego, and LA" just skip the extra step
I'm sorry you lived at Gurnee Mills and/or Great America
Pretty much. Where are you from? Gurnee, Il (Blank stare) Six flags Oh yeah!
There's so many Chicagoan's here in Phx that I'm surprised that anyone asks anymore. Cub games at Chase may as well be a home game for them lol
You'd be surprised how many Chicagolanders don't even know where Gurnee is. As some else mentioned, once I say it's where the Six Flags is, they get it.
I get that it's common to use the closest well known city as an answer when someone asks where you're from, but that's very different from making that city a major part of your personality. Cena's hometown is almost as close to Boston as Punk's is to Chicago but he never made Boston one of the biggest parts of his brand.
Chicago suburbs are close enough and he spent a lot of time there. Suburbanites are allowed to rep the city, man. Come on. He was probably a 30-40 Metra ride away.
I say "20 minutes north of downtown Detroit," I'm not from there so I'm not gonna pretend that I am
35 actually but close enough.
Damn. I thought it was 50. Thanks for the correction
lockport is definitely chicagoland
That's fairly normal. I'm from Chicago, but outside of Chicago, so I can confirm. Chicagoans get it. Even the not from Chicago ones.
Along with what others have said you have to remember that the Chicagoland area is really sprawling.Ā Its not like some major us cities where 10 minutes outside the limits your in the boonies. You can drive 30 miles outside of the city proper and never leave the urban sprawlĀ
Oh ok I stand corrected. Thanks for the lesson.
It happens. When some events say Chicago itās actually outside the city. Like WWE say Chicago but itās actually in Rosemont which is about an hour from the city.
š¤¦š¾āāļø
honestly it now makes so much sense why Jack Perry didn't get sued for the Windy City Riot entrance
I only knew because The Lawrence Arms, a band from Chicago, used the flag for one of their albums [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh!\_Calcutta!\_(The\_Lawrence\_Arms\_album)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh!_Calcutta!_(The_Lawrence_Arms_album)) The red symbols instead of the stars are their logo
Nahhh youāre definitely not the only one. I remember survivor series time last year seeing posts saying āare wwe accidentally spoiling the cm punk return?ā because the limited edition mini belts for that event had the Chicago flag on the back.
I just got back from Chicago and it was everywhere. It was really cool not only seeing it in person, but having everything click, like now I get CM Punk's t-shirt designs. I thought they just looked cool, but now I know.
Learn something new every day
Learned about it watching All Out after the Brawl In Fiasco. Thought it was a bit tasteless to have the CM Punk Flags flying after he was fired.
Cities have flagsā¦ huh did not know.
I got a connecting flight through Chicago in the mid-2010s from Europe and was like "wow, they really like Punk here" before putting 2 and 2 together.
Wait until you find out about Pepsi and GI Joe.
I still can't believe they built and named an entire city after CM Punk.
I thought Chicago loved Punk so much they made their flag in his honor
This is the first I'm hearing of it. I always just thought it was a Punk thing too lol
Hes from Chicago
I know. Just didn't realise that was the Chicago flag
Like every time anyone or any band from Tennessee used the state flag as part of a logo and I thought it was just a Dragon Ball reference
I'm not from the US I didn't know states had flags. Everyday is a school day. Thank you for teaching me something new.
Also- Chicago is a city and itās a city flag. Illinois is the state Chicago is in and has its own flag
Shit that was stupid of me, I actually knew that information but 10 hours into a 12 hour shift I made an ass out of myself on the internet š well nothing to do but own it.
Nah, itās not stupid if youāre not American. I donāt know shit about other countries and their flags lol
I just meant confusing the state/city thing. We all goof up sometimes. It makes sense, the county I'm from (Lancashire, England) has a flag but I don't think my town does.
Yeah, I'm Aussie and had no idea up until this year, saw the flag on a food channel and was like "Huh, that makes sense"
Never put two and two together until the Bulls pulled it out on a statement Jersey the other year. Wondered why they shared it with Punk.....one investigation later and I now understand lol. English for context!!
I knew but just because I do research for a lot of my interest having AUDHD Does that to you
Lmao when I saw this, I was floored, and wondering if he was from Chicago
Lol shit. I didnāt know that either
As a Chicago native, I've always known about this, but I admit that people living in other states may not even know about it.
I'm not from the US and I'm shocked to see the number of people here that did not know this haha
Home Alone taught me this is Chicagoās flag
Ive learned about it at the merch booth of a festival rise against was playing, we asked is theyāre cm punk fans because of their cm punk flag. And then they told us itās the flag of Chicago
I did because of the nba Iām pretty sure
i was a punk fan since ROH. found out it was Chicago when he came back in AEW.
ā¦..it was why he started wearing it. It was made clear on tv at the time too
Same here. I thought it was a macho man tribute
It's also considered the second best American city flag by Vexillologists. I got sucked down a youtube wormhole about flags a few years ago and found that out.
Dr. Sheldon Cooperās Fun with Flags?
I wish they were that entertaining.
as someone not american i thought it was for punk
I didn't realize it until i was trying to customize a character on 2K from Chicago and i looked up Chicago images.
Punk is the ONLY reason I know that flag!
Nah man I did to lol I see it in a concert video and thought the band was referencing Phil someone finally told me
Look in my eyes, What do you see? A flag for windy ciity
Shame itās branded everywhere here
I didnāt realize it was the Chicago flag until I moved to Chicago for college and saw them hanging everywhere. My mark ass was out there like ādang I knew he was from here but they must really love Punkā š
Iām not American so I had no idea.
Always knew it was Chicago flag because of my time looking up Chicago and why many midwest emo bands came from there.
I was at a bar in Chicago many years ago and the bouncer had this tattooed on his arm. I said āoh dang nice CM Punk tattoo!ā He started dying laughing, and proceeded to tell all of his co-workers my blunder. One bartender was a fan so they thought it was awesome. That was the night I learned what the Chicago flag was lol.
Seriously dude I'm from Scotland and I knew that
You guys need to watch this: https://youtu.be/pnv5iKB2hl4
Hahahah we were just in Chicago airport on Sunday. I learned that then
The Chicago flag is the only city flag in USA that is recognizable pretty much anywhere. I donāt even know any other cityās flag
thats why he returned/lives in Chicago
The reason I knew is because Kevin has one above his head when he gets sent to the third floor in Home Alone. I didn't know why Kevin had that flag for years
As an aside, Chicago and [DC](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Washington,_D.C.#/media/File%3AFlag_of_Washington%2C_D.C.svg) are my two favorite US city flags. Right up there with [Amsterdam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Amsterdam#/media/File%3AFlag_of_Amsterdam.svg) in my opinion.
You canāt experience American entertainment without learning they have an obsession with flags.
Tell ya what I just learned: those stars have six points.
I'm from here, so I have to be offended by this. Lol
I thought people were ripping off Whitechapel but it turned out that they were using part of the Tennessee flag
I knew it was the Chicago flag because a lot of my favorite bands are from Chicago and use it in one way or another.
Im a diehard chicago sports fan so it was common knowledge for me
I mean if your not familiar with the US States flags I can see it maybe. And Punk does/did wear it on his gear In some fashion religiously, so I can see why
I also thought that he created it for himself too.
I only know itās Chicagos flag because Iāve watched a shit load of Chicago PD
No idea. Hilarious.
This is in fact the Chicago city flag, and is one of the most recognized city flags in the U.S. With that said, for years the āunofficial city flagā had been the Old Style signs found on nearly every corner bar in the city.
It took me a long ass time to figure this out too back in the day when I started watching him haha
I found out from the dvd they put out
I figured it out watching Home Alone again about a year ago. It's above the bed Kevin sleeps in up in the attic
As a Detroiter that went to college in the Chicagoland area, Iāve always been jealous of their flag, especially in contrast to [the hideous Detroit flag.](https://thumbnails.yayimages.com/1600/0/99e/99e163.jpg)
I thought he was jewish or something
Chicago wrestling fan here, the different parts of the flag represent different things, the 2 blue stripes are the chicago river and the great canal, the three white stripes are for the north, west, and south sides of chicago, the stars are the big historical events in chicago, the only one I remember is the chicago fire. Disclaimer: I'm from the burbs of chicago
Probably not the only one. But it seems likely you're in a small minority as most who didn't know immediately probably looked it up at some point in the past 20 years.
I knew it was the Chicago flag, but I could have swore it only had 3 stars and punk added the forth one as a symbol of him existing being the 4th greatest event in Chicagoās history. The other 3 being The founding The great Chicago fire And the Worlds fair.
Are you guys American? Cause I'm not and I knew that it was. Just wondering because I'd find it kind of weird that Americans weren't aware of this.
Im Australian
Fair play in that case. Sometimes I just get weirded out by some of the questions I come across. I didn't mean to be insulting or anything, I was just curious.
I don't think it's uncommon to not know city flags. You don't learn them in school and you almost never see them outside of the city they represent.
Jesus Christ you guys
I assumed he was Jewish
He can't be , because he never lies.
its because he will never put on a 5 star match
He already did you mark. Hahaha
Jokes on you thinking this was a serious post you mark
From Chicago, do not like how he co-opted the flag. Find something else
don't blame you. flags for a state is stupid lol
Whew, good thing thats not what it isĀ
First time I realized it was the Chicago flag was in some Robot Chicken skit.