Even for someone popular like Mr. Greek from the other, slightly less refined Carolina. 
You must be mistaken. I am from the most refined city in the Carolinas and that makes its state more refined as a whole.
That, or you're forgetting I am from South Carolina....
But it's hard not to have a much different view of the state from the stories my step-dad tells me (he lived in rural central South Carolina for 6 years).
His ex-mother-in-law, a proper "well trailered" drunk asked him to help her remove a tooth by getting smashed on cheap whiskey and then tying the tooth with a string to a door.
It was a shocking experience for him, having grown up in an upper middle class home in suburban San Francisco (whose dad worked in Silicon Valley). And it undoubtedly gave him a sour view of the state.
I hate the rest of South Carolina, but Greenville is improving every year. Columbia is still a sh**hole, and Myrtle Beach represents everything wrong with touristy beach areas.
Regardless, there isn't much about NC that draws me in, and I've been to all the major cities from Durham to Raleigh to Charlotte and I go to school in Winston-Salem. I guess if I had to combine all the cities from the Carolinas, NC would be better, but not by much.
