I'm guessing your Tennessee friends live in a city (or not even in TN at all, since you say they're "from" there).
In my experience there is much more conformity in rural areas in the mid-south, especially in middle class spaces. I even notice it if I take a flight from the east coast to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The first flight to a hub like Atlanta has a normal variety of people in a normal variety of dress. Then the second leg you suddenly notice a significant decrease in variety. It's just kind of obvious if you see it, so idk why you haven't noticed it unless you're not very well travelled in the USA.
It sounds like you are making inferences about Tennessee based on what your friends from there are like, but they are your friends (and it sounds like they chose to move from TN to wherever you are) so this is in many ways a biased sample. A more accurate way is to observe random people. I would be more interested in hearing your observations from when you actually visited Tennessee than your inferences you think you can make from knowing someone who is from there.
I happened to fly out of Austin, Texas, on Halloween late in the 1980s. An awful lot of the airport staff were done up for Halloween. I landed in Dallas-Fort Worth for a connecting flight home, and nobody but nobody was done up for Halloween.
In my experience there is much more conformity in rural areas in the mid-south, especially in middle class spaces. I even notice it if I take a flight from the east coast to Tulsa, Oklahoma. The first flight to a hub like Atlanta has a normal variety of people in a normal variety of dress. Then the second leg you suddenly notice a significant decrease in variety. It's just kind of obvious if you see it, so idk why you haven't noticed it unless you're not very well travelled in the USA.
It sounds like you are making inferences about Tennessee based on what your friends from there are like, but they are your friends (and it sounds like they chose to move from TN to wherever you are) so this is in many ways a biased sample. A more accurate way is to observe random people. I would be more interested in hearing your observations from when you actually visited Tennessee than your inferences you think you can make from knowing someone who is from there.