NorCal vs SoCal

Anyone who's lived in the Bay Area for a significant amount of time has come across the huge (one-sided) NorCal-SoCal rivalry.

From the San Francisco Bay Area perspective, Los Angeles is the ground zero of shallow consumerism - fake fake fake. People. Boobs. Personality. And the traffic?!?! We all know how horribly polluting cars are, those horrible horrible Los Angeles people - don't they know what they are doing to the earth? (This was before the Prius.) NorCal would expound on how much more aware they were, more evolved, aware, of the earth, good food, real sustainable businesses. There was no fakeness here in NorCal! We reveled in our "coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" foggy summers. Fuck the tourists expecting typical California (SoCal) sunny beaches. Bwahahah - go buy those sweatshirts to stay warm! Oozing with self-importance. Oozing with I am better than you.

From the SoCal side, the rivalry is .... *poof* what rivalry? Yeah, some people up there have a chip on their shoulder, but that's their issue. It's great down here. Great weather, lots of space and so much going on! Yeah, people think Hollywood's the big industry here, but there's so much more.

The NorCal SoCal rivalry was one-sided. I stopped caring about the haters up north and instead set about to make my dreams come true.

Regardless of where you live that's good advice. Stop caring about the haters and make your dreams come true.

Comments

[bradtem.myopenid.com]

You SoCals are so jealous that you don't have a good sense of rivalry.

[Greg White]

I'm thinking that either the NorCal attitude is changing or that it varies with the people you talk to. I seem to have been talking to a number of people lately who like L.A.

[heathervescent]

OK, guys, I should come clean. This post is about a past SF. The SF I left. I don't actually know if it is still like that. But I am experiencing a situation that reminds me a lot of my past SF/NorCal vs SoCalness. It doesn't have anything to do with California. It's kind of me using my blog as a secret conversation with myself in public view.

But thanks for your comments!!! And Greg, it's great to hear that people are thinking positively about LA these days. :) I think it's a pretty amazing place. :)