Southern V Northern California (San Diego, Oakland: transplants, limousine, home)

[Raggy dee Ann]

I was catchimg up on my favorite music industry blog and came across an entry that got me thinking. It's obviously a big generalization, but do you think it holds any truth today?


"After landing in Oakland, we drove through Petaluma. In case you don’t know it, that was the name of a Norman Greenbaum album. Northern California is littered with locations we read about in "Rolling Stone", where some of our favorite musicians lived and made music. It wasn’t about hits, hits were accidental. In Northern California it was about expanding your mind and becoming your fully realized self. Southern California was for posers.
And it still is.

SoCal is where you migrate to make it. You shine up your looks and your personality and try to become a star. And when you fail, you either return home or resign yourself to a day job in the San Fernando Valley. Those with a modicum of success in the industry eventually retire up north. To Sonoma or Napa".

[Collideascope]

Originally Posted by Raggy dee Ann

I was catchimg up on my favorite music industry blog and came across an entry that got me thinking. It's obviously a big generalization, but do you think it holds any truth today?


"After landing in Oakland, we drove through Petaluma. In case you don’t know it, that was the name of a Norman Greenbaum album. Northern California is littered with locations we read about in "Rolling Stone", where some of our favorite musicians lived and made music. It wasn’t about hits, hits were accidental. In Northern California it was about expanding your mind and becoming your fully realized self. Southern California was for posers.
And it still is.

SoCal is where you migrate to make it. You shine up your looks and your personality and try to become a star. And when you fail, you either return home or resign yourself to a day job in the San Fernando Valley. Those with a modicum of success in the industry eventually retire up north. To Sonoma or Napa".

Whoever wrote that could've just wrote:
I LIKE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. I DON'T LIKE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

Because that's all he really said.

But like so many people, he's convinced that his likes are not mere preferences but assessments of what is 'good' and has 'worth' in contrast to what has no value and no worth. It is a very common self-delusion (and it's hardly limited to Northern Californians).

[sav858]

That is the biggest load of BS and pretty typical Northern California mentality and thinking. I was born and raised in the Bay Area and it's where all my family is from. For the last 7 years I have been in San Diego and love it.

I seriously don't get why Northern Californians are so damn judgmental about Southern CA and it's residents. It's like if they aren't exactly like them then their is something wrong with them. Northern CA has plenty of posers themselves, all the little white upper middle class kids who think their Mac Dre or E-40, all the fake wannabe hippies who try so hard not to conform they just end up conforming anyways, all the hypocritical limousine liberals that claim to be liberal but deep down are conservative, etc... It's the same damn difference. I think some people in NorCal just don't get that some of those flashy, appearance conscious Southern Californians are not being fake it's just who they are and that bugs them.

Most times it is Northern California who put Southern California down and the only time SoCal ever talks trash on NorCal is to defend themselves. Most people in SoCal either like NorCal or are indifferent while most Northern Californians have such strong, judgmental feelings towards SoCal.

It's pretty stupid and in most people's heads. I don't get why people in NorCal are bothered by the fact that SoCal is different. It's different b/c it's suppose to be, it's Southern Ca. And I appreciate the diversity this state offers.

[City Boy]

I agree that blog is BS. I like southern California and have alot of family down there and who ever wrote that is full of stereotypes. It's really not that much different down south than up here other than size and some scenery.

[Tony from Europe]

I like something in NC and something in SC

[Cyanna]

Originally Posted by Raggy dee Ann

I was catchimg up on my favorite music industry blog and came across an entry that got me thinking. It's obviously a big generalization, but do you think it holds any truth today?


"After landing in Oakland, we drove through Petaluma. In case you don’t know it, that was the name of a Norman Greenbaum album. Northern California is littered with locations we read about in "Rolling Stone", where some of our favorite musicians lived and made music. It wasn’t about hits, hits were accidental. In Northern California it was about expanding your mind and becoming your fully realized self. Southern California was for posers.
And it still is.

SoCal is where you migrate to make it. You shine up your looks and your personality and try to become a star. And when you fail, you either return home or resign yourself to a day job in the San Fernando Valley. Those with a modicum of success in the industry eventually retire up north. To Sonoma or Napa".

Raggy dee ann, this is where you'll find that California is very much like England...there is the great North and South Divide

[californialove24]

Let's not start a war within the states we all love each other in a song called " Californialove" and were both the real california.

[youngmoney]

Southern Cal is about living your dreams and thinking BIG.

NorCal is a tye die shirt and hatchback VW and mary jane.

[bellalunatic]

I think the blog posting is fairly standard. I think there are alot of people who feel that way. True or not, I see the point they're trying to make.
California is a huge state and I think a good amount of folks in NorCal get annoyed by the stereotypical representation of California as a Beach Boys & palm trees kinda thing.
SoCal gets all the "glam" and apparently some people care, but others, such as myself, do not.

I do think it's unfair to lump all of SoCal into that negative description in the OP, because that really sounds more like the LA/San Fernando/OC ....south of there SDiego etc...it just doesn't apply much.

And there are plenty of fantastic-plastic-orange-colored-bleach-blond MILF types in NorCal (if that's something to aspire to?!?!)....they're just fewer of them



ok yeah and it's always cool to see Petaluma getting good press!

[skywalker400]

lulz, its the transplants to the bay area that are the worst. I was born in Petaluma and the town is now chock full of yuppies priced out of Marin with their overpriced organic crap. If you like cheese and wine parties with other snobs on ur vineyard ranch, then yeah you'll probably like it here, but thats no different than someone who prefers to have a poolside soiree in Newport or Laguna. Ohh wait, I forgot these people in Marin are moving there for diversity, which doesn't exist in SoCal.