Blood Pressure Blog

Since the dawn of map making, people have been naming towns and cities after some very interesting phrases. Some of these can be seen as “ahead for their time”, such as Dummer, New Hampshire, while others, such as Hell, Michigan, and Rough and Ready, California, seem to be named only with their respective tourism industries being linked to their ability to become comedic relief. Therefore, today we visit a place where we rediscover America and see how strange and fucked up some places can really be.

Enter Cumming, Georgia. Apart from being the subject of a Big Mouth episode, or something etched into a bathroom stall of a high school, Cumming has had a very tumultuous history since its inception in 1755. Around then, several Cherokee tribes CAME and settled in the area where they battled other tribes and eventually beCAME victorious. Unfortunately for them this story takes a very predictable turn when the white man discovered gold and kicked the shit out of the poor Indian people via Trail of Tears. The land was eventually divided amongst white settlers in a lottery, which is funny because to this day the lottery is helping rich, overachieving kids go to elite schools as if Robinhood suddenly decided to help only the wealthy people. The land is thought to have been named Cumming as the namesake of Colonel William Cumming, who’s probably counting his lucky stars that he didn’t go to high school in the 2000s.

Cumming is known to be a commuter town for Atlanta and the outlying suburbs. How do I know this? Any google search of the place results in some aspect of buying a home and boring suburbia. Cumming is home to Zac Brown, the lead singer for the Zac Brown band and potentially the most egotistical name for a music group ever created. Cumming is known for current Bachelor contestant Rachael Kirkconnell, who recently sparked some controversy of her own. And yeah that’s really it.

Cumming might as well be the Detroit of suburban Atlanta, in the sense that nobody really wants to stay there forever.  The top 3 things to do in Cumming as listed by Google are – 1. Going hiking in the neighboring county. 2. Playing tennis, and 3. Going for a bike ride. Literally none of those are special and two of those I could do by playing Wii sports.

Now you might be thinking, Cumming, Georgia is probably a quaint little town – and you would be right in the modern era. However, its been the site of several racial battles and terrible takes. If you YouTube “Cumming Georgia” one of the videos is titled, “Racial Purity is Forsyth’s Security”. Cumming and outlying Forsyth County is known to be one of the most racist counties in the south. Fortunately, capitalist greed is what CAME to save the day in Cumming.

Cumming now serves as a mecca for cookie cutter neighborhoods – in the sense that all the houses generally look the same. I’m guessing they’re composed of around 50% white and 50% South Asian, but again that number for South Asian might actually be higher lol. It’s pretty crazy how a place known for its racial riots pretty much did a full 180 and is now a very civilized and frankly boring place at surface level. As an example, the most important upcoming social events in the Cumming area are 1. Holi calibration, 2. Local preschool open enrollment, and 3. The Decades Band playing at Buffalo Wild Wings.

Cumming GA seems like a place that probably needs a mile-high club sort of challenge. Having been classified as “backwood jokers” in YouTube comments section, the place retains a certain southern small-town charm for families willing to settle an hour away from Atlanta and drive which equates to 10 hours in Atlanta traffic. As spoken in the wise words of a Cumming resident, “parents come from India and are [cumming] here at least six months, so rather than them walking upstairs, this is a convenient feature.” I think that sums up Cumming the best.