A stand-up comedian from Alabama has people cracking up with his honest take on how gardening went from something people did to survive to a full-blown social media flex.
We live in a world where people post everything. Every meal every workout every little thing has to go on social media for the world to see. And now gardening is part of that too. Someone buys a pot of basil from the store and suddenly they’re a plant mom with a whole brand. But nobody talks about the real farmers.
The ones waking up before the sun with dirt caked on their hands and aching backs who do it not for likes but because that’s how their family eats. Those people don’t get the followers. They don’t get the trending hashtags. They just get the work.
Derrick Stroup knows exactly what that life looks like. He grew up in Alabama with a family garden that wasn’t cute or trendy. It was ten acres of hard labor because that’s how they survived.
“Did you know that growing your own plants, watering your own vegetables is now a hobby?” Stroup asked. “I’m telling y’all, you get two ferns, three cactuses, get on Instagram. Look at the followers.”
And then he gets real about it.
“That hurts my feelings,” he said. “In Alabama, I grew up with a 10-acre garden, and everybody I would tell about it would donate to my family. There was nothing cool about growing your own tomato.”
He even joked about his mom never celebrating the struggle. “I never saw my mom snapping beans like, ‘Oh, what a blessing that it takes us an hour to get to Kroger. This is incredible. We should make our own jam again, Bill. I love this life.'”
WATCH: Comedian’s Honest Take on Trendy Gardening Has Everyone Cracking Up
Is this man unaware of “victory gardens” during WWII?
And of neighborhood gardens in low income areas? There is a whole lot more to home gardening than being “cool.”