(Note: This week was subpar on account of finals, and I will be making it up next week. Promise.)
What's the quickest way to meet 500,000 Missourians?
Visit Brooklyn.
If you have a lot of friends between 21-30, tell me with a straight face that you do not know the person I am about to describe (or possibly a few dozen of them). It never fails to amaze me how many people consider moving to the latest 21-30 mecca (after they hung a "Sorry hipsters, we're full" sign on Brooklyn in 2003, there was a brief infatuation with San Diego.
It's currently Portland.) to be a complete plan virtually guaranteeing unending happiness. I can't say I blame anyone who wants to get the hell out of Indiana or whatever, but the illogic of moving wherever happens to be trendy escapes me. What could possibly work out better than moving somewhere "hot" (read: ass-breakingly expensive, as in $900/month for a closet sized apartment with three roommates) and sitting back to enjoy unadulterated happiness?
Some places are better to live than others.
But your life is your life, and you can't use a U-Haul to make yourself happy.
The "I'm so unhappy, but when I get to Brooklyn everything will be awesome" theory makes very little sense. No, when you get to Brooklyn your life is not going to be like Sarah Jessica Parker on that show I refuse to name. It's going to be expensive as shit, there will be three times as many identically-aged and -skilled people as there are jobs, and your neighbors will be a bunch of dipshits who just moved in from Dayton.
New York is cool. I like visiting. Portland, while wildly overrated, is nice too.
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But please, shut the fuck up about how great they are and how you're just about to move there and how great everything will be when you do.
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It does nothing but give me greater pleasure when you end up homeless, living under a tarp on someone's roof, and stealing wireless so you can blog about how great Brooklyn is (true story. seriously.) It ensures that I get a bigger kick out of it when you slink back into town because the best job you could find in Portland involved migrant farm labor (true story. seriously.)
When Chicago was "the" city in the late 19th Century, Mark Twain said "Chicagoans think they are the finest people on Earth when they are merely the most numerous." It applies broadly to any geography-based superiority complex. My life is imperfect and I'll probably be happy to leave southern Indiana, but not so I can become one of the sheep prattling on about how cool it is to live above a bodega that offers the privilege of paying $2.99 for an apple.
Michael says:
There's a lot to be said for living in a B-list or C-list city. Or in my case, Birmingham, Alabama. :-)
Ike says:
I've had the "pleasure" of living in two less-than-desirable urban areas due to work; Oakland California and Newport News Virginia. While I did, in both cases, pay more for housing than I would have liked, I was able to live comfortably. Hardly ever went to San Francisco or Virginia Beach, the respective "hot spots." Never felt much need. Oakland and Newport News turned out to be alright places to live.
j says:
Let me assure you, I plan to move from the Bay Area back to my native Wisconsin as soon as school is done.
Rick says:
I just moved from Central Maine to the New Hampshire seacoast. Same shit, richer people, and I don't even like the beach.
Mike says:
I didn't move to New York for any reason other than I wanted out of the United States after the 2004 election. Unfortunately, I only made it this far. After three years, I've had enough. Now I get to come back to Illinois. Culture shock is already setting in, but at least I won't smell urine and shit and exhaust constantly. Actually, there are plenty of jobs here. It's like a gray, greasy film of bubble in the face of the hollow economy that parasitizes us. Parasitizes, bitches.
New York City offers much. It also takes much. In the end, I suppose it matters what we do, no matter where we are, moreso than where we are determining what we do.
And stuff.
Kreggg says:
I lived in Hollywood for 3 years before moving to Studio City. I grew up here in SoCal. None of my neighbors did. I can hear them thru the bathroom window when I take a crap. Chatting on their cellphones about how they are networking and creating synergy and its so creative out here. It only takes a few months to hear how this place is so fake and everything is so expensive and the weather never changes. They pack up on the last day of the month and leave half of their belongings on the curb as they leave town and on the first someone from Georgia, or Maine, or Maryland, or Arizona, or Kentucky, or West Virginia moves in for a few months.
Here in Studio City the people from out of state are richer, but their stays are shorter, and they also leave half of their belongings on the curb. They didn't move up, just out.
Things I got for free from outlanders:
2 bookcases
1 armchair
1 couch
1 acoustic guitar
set of knifes
2 lamps
rolltop desk
tv stand/entertainment center
china hutch
BBQ (they were moving back to brooklyn, ha ha!)
Yes Los Angeles is fake you fuckers. But its all the wanks to come here who want to be rockstars and actors that make it fake. So stay the fuck out!
Your parasitizing us bitches!
Sam says:
This gawker story from a while back seems relevant:
http://gawker.com/news/hipsters/hipster-of-the-year-lives-in-bread-truck-in-williamsburg-241654.php
Don't miss the winning comment:
http://gawker.com/news/hipsters/hipster-of-the-year-lives-in-bread-truck-in-williamsburg-241654.php#c1052761