It's definitely a Boro/Teesside thing. I only live 40 miles north but the difference is massive.
I do a variety of creative stuff for a living, one of which is being a poet. I'm in my late 50s and spent my life on Teesside hiding the writing. If you liked (or even worse, wrote) poetry where I was from, you were soft, a poof, and so fair game for ridicule. I still have that voice in my head. "What d'yer wanna do that for, are ye daft or summat?!"
Came to live on Tyneside 15 years ago and suddenly people seem to think that making a living by doing what I love is great.
Geordies, bless them, are the opposite of us. It's their blind optimism that leads them to still believe that they're a massive clurb and are on the verge of the Champions League every year. But it also creates a 'can do' culture where something new/different isn't always mocked. On the contrary they say "Aye, why not", whereas we'd just ask "Why?!" with a shake of our heads.