Is there a unique California culture? If so, how would you describe it? (San Diego: apartment, hotel)

[Davecali]

Originally Posted by Electrician4you

Well the portrayed California lifestyle is a laid back not a care in the world surfs up light up a blunt lifestyle. Which truthfully is bs.

Wanna know the California lifestyle for the average Californian

Expensive.
Stressful
Chaotic

I’m going to have to agree with you. Even as a homeowner here, which most people are not anymore, my life is very stressful. It’s busy and crowded. Everything is expensive. When I go to NYC I no longer think it’s that expensive now. Probably about half the real native Californians like myself are gone out of state at this point. The last generation of Californians is a generation of almost entirely Latino immigrants and mostly poor, but they are creating their first middle class in the USA through hard work and determination.

[Mr5150]

Originally Posted by matzoman

Flip-flops and shorts in winter. Fish taco's. Bleach blond hair and vocal fry even on the latinos, asians and some suburban blacks. In-N-Out Burgers. Poor people driving new BMW's and Lexuses in OC. Balmy, sweet, salubrious weather that lulls you into a belief that everything will be okay.

How about more snow than any other part of North America? CA is not about the SoCal coastal area. There is no one CA culture. I live in CA and we have four seasons, more than half the vehicles are pickup trucks with gun racks. And the nearest in and out burger is 60 miles away. You can tell a tourist from LA up here because he is wearing shorts and flip flops in winter and trying to find a place to buy a warm jacket. Just after he slipped on the ice.

As to the culture of the state, there are many. You have Coastal SoCal. Then the Bay Area. Then the North Coast. Moving East, you are looking at the coastal mountains hippie culture. Then further East the Central Valley conservative farmers/ranchers. Further east the foothill culture and finally the Sierra, where the outdoor and athletic types live along with retirees. I’m sure I missed a few other regions like the wine country, but I am tired of typing

[matzoman]

Originally Posted by Mr5150

How about more snow than any other part of North America? CA is not about the SoCal coastal area. There is no one CA culture. I live in CA and we have four seasons, more than half the vehicles are pickup trucks with gun racks. And the nearest in and out burger is 60 miles away. You can tell a tourist from LA up here because he is wearing shorts and flip flops in winter and trying to find a place to buy a warm jacket. Just after he slipped on the ice.

As to the culture of the state, there are many. You have Coastal SoCal. Then the Bay Area. Then the North Coast. Moving East, you are looking at the coastal mountains hippie culture. Then further East the Central Valley conservative farmers/ranchers. Further east the foothill culture and finally the Sierra, where the outdoor and athletic types live along with retirees. I’m sure I missed a few other regions like the wine country, but I am tired of typing

I was referring to the Socal coastal areas. The parts coveted by the realtor/Hollywood/reality show/suburban normie/carculture/fast food burger paradises..

[Mr5150]

Originally Posted by Davecali

I’m going to have to agree with you. Even as a homeowner here, which most people are not anymore, my life is very stressful. It’s busy and crowded. Everything is expensive. When I go to NYC I no longer think it’s that expensive now. Probably about half the real native Californians like myself are gone out of state at this point. The last generation of Californians is a generation of almost entirely Latino immigrants and mostly poor, but they are creating their first middle class in the USA through hard work and determination.

Another person from The LA or Bay Area perspective. Non urban CA is affordable. I was born in CA as were most of my friends and no one I know has plans to leave..but granted, we don’t live in LA

[Mr5150]

Originally Posted by matzoman

I was referring to the Socal coastal areas. The parts coveted by the realtor/Hollywood/reality show/suburban normie/carculture/fast food burger paradises..

I agree. Unfortunately for most out of state people, that is the perception.

[Davecali]

There are fewer and fewer true Native Californians. I meet natives but more when you are outside the cities. I see people from high school every once in awhile. I grew up in Northern California and I loved it, but it’s very different now. It was cheap even just 20 years ago and the crime was practically non existent where I lived. Now we are plagued with gangs from Mexico and drug dealers in surrounding neighborhoods that were not here 30 years ago.

[Davecali]

But I do admit, even though the crime here since the 70s is something new, the gangs are almost entirely Mexican and it rarely affects White people, although a friend of mine was attacked by a Vietnamese gang and robbed in San Francisco about 20 years ago.

[Winston Smith]

Originally Posted by Escondudo

How can someone identify California culture, if there is one?

California is mostly misunderstood by outsiders and newcomers. First, there is more variety of nature than any other state, from the highest peak to the lowest elevation in the contiguous 48. Equally, there are huge differences geographically and economically throughout the state, which lead to cultural enclaves unto themselves. Though "visions" of California may be something like endless summers on a Malibu beach at the end of the Golden Gate with picturesque backdrops of snowcapped Sierras above a layer of smog, this might equate to little more than a sardonic travel brochure's representation.

One of the biggest agricultural states in the US is, nope, not Kansas or Nebraska, but the good ol' Golden State. Los Angeles is, well ok, studios, celebs and plenty of aspirations, but also a major seaport and manufacturing town. People live normal lives of working to make ends meet. Sure, the weather is mild in some parts of the state, but don't mention that to Californians who live with months on end of triple-digit heat or find themselves snowed in for a week in a remote Cascadian village.

But for people who venture here and end up staying, California offers surprises. For me, it's nature. When the madness of trying to learn to live with the fact that California can never fully be understood, I find myself at a trailhead with hours of solitude ahead, or on a rocky shore watching time stand still in one-after-the-other breaking wave, or in my car, miles from anywhere, musing at the Martian landscape that is Interstate 40.

In short: no, there is no unified, static or monolithic California culture, but that's what makes the state what it is.

[msgsing]

Originally Posted by V8 Vega

Everyones face buried in a phone. Police helicopters circling overhead, noisy leaf blowers.

Or in other words just like any other high population state in the country.

[Csonka]

there is a whiff of cowboy in California culture

no matter where you go, it's there, at least among the people / their families who have lived here a while