Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Anytime anyone posts a thread to say "all of the people in city / country / social group / race X are all the same way", I immediately have to question the validity of anything they have to say after that. And if you're smart, you should, too. These kinds of statements invariably say a lot more about the poster than they do about anything that really has to do the subjects of their stereotypes. Me personally, I learned that applying broad, blunt stereotypes to entire large segments of people is unrealistic and unfair back when I was still in high school...shame that some people apparently never learn this.
And, just by the way, buying into broad, blunt stereotypes is the first enabling step toward discrimination and racism of any and all kinds throughout history. Not much good comes from it.
Written like true, hypersensitive latter day Bay Area person. Everything uncomfortable is labeled "an affront to human rights."
Bring in the Human Rights Campaign! Let's have a protest!
I've noticed that SF has changed quite a bit between the 90s and now (even late 90s and now). I've lived in Bay area for 9 years (3 diff locations) , when I used to go out we had no shortage of after-hour clubs or places you could grab food after partying. The streets lines with bars and restaurants also tended to feel a bit busier.. We had plenty of opportunities in our 20s to go out, entertain ourselves and get in trouble. I still visit SF and can't help but feel that it's gotten simply more dead even in areas that used to be pretty vibrant and happening like Union St, Pacific heights, for example. Now these areas are lined with boutiques as opposed to bars. Granted, my age and family status precludes me from being interested in nightlife anyway, I still notice such things. I came to visit during Christmas season and while Union Sq was definitely bustling, the area around Market st was pretty dead... I was used to Market area being much busier. Some of it could be attributed to the recession with people willing to go out less and less, but overall the streets just seem more deserted. Does anyone else have a similar impression if you have lived here for a while or have lived here before?
I usually avoid having to generalize what type of people live in whatever area having lived all over the place myself and having experience with all sorts of people in all sorts of places. It's silly to say that 'all' people in Bay Area or vast majority are soft and pc because that would be great generalization. But overall, it's true that one place may have just higher concentration of certain types of people than the other place. West Coast has higher concentration of 'granola' types in highly urban setting in major cities than on the East Coast. Granola types are in general those you would consider more soft and more PC and not too oriented towards appearances and clothing like traditional yuppies. Yuppies here tend to get a 'granola cast' to them. They may be ambitious but may not necessarily show it or consider it a virtue. There are definitely more vegetarians, anti-fur activists, families using cloth diapers and buying exclusively organic, recreational tri-athletes and aggressive bicyclists in the major cities of the West coast. East coast has its share of such folks too but not as much in urban centers of core cities. On the other hand it's equally funny when I read DC forums to see people complain about the overly ambitious self-centered career oriented suit wearing types...
I have to say SF does have it's fair share of people that are rough around the edges too, I wouldn't go as far as to say vast majority of SF, Bay Area inhabitants are soft and pc. Probably the OP must be hanging out with more than his fair share of 'granola' types or granola-yuppie hybrids… Bay Area has its ghettos and it has a large population of immigrants, who tend to bring their somewhat rougher culture with them. There is definitely a rougher side to Bay Area and if you don't live too sheltered of a lifestyle you'll feel it.
As far as comparison with NYC, I live there now and Bay Area is definitely slower but so is everything else. Also, my cousin who is a recent college grad came to visit NYC and went out here, he claims the girls in NYC are much friendlier and easier to talk to than in Bay Area.. go figure.
I know where you are coming from. When i moved there from Philly I was coming from a place where finger gestures and cursing at the car in front of you were on the drivers test. In California they will sit behind the moron who is eating lunch at the stop sign and not say a thing. All I can say is that it is worse in LA
LOL this is true. I can't stand when I'm sitting behind several cars at a light or waiting to make a right turn and the person in front is asleep at the wheel. People (sometimes) will just sit there and not even honk! And half the time when I used to I'd find out there was an old lady crossing the street slowly or something and everyone would look at me like I was the jerk lol. So now I make sure I can see what's going on before I start honking.
It also can lead to trouble out here b/c honking at folks here is taken as a sign of disrespect by some people. I used to be ready to get into it on the road all the time and have had some pretty wild incidents that began with a simple honk. Nowadays I'm pretty cautious about it b/c I'm not trying to go down that road, and with all the crazy road rage that happens around here (like the tri-monthly freeway shootings in Richmond ), its not worth it half the time.
A long time ago I made the mistake of honking at two cars that were blocking me in Hunters Point before, and I won't be making that mistake again. I got my car ran up on by a bunch of dudes and I'm lucky they didn't pull out guns b/c they looked like they were on the verge of it. Even in San Mateo a few years back two white dudes were trying to drive down Grant St and honked b/c a car was blocking their way. A house full of Tongan gangsters ran out and pulled them from there car and beat the hell out of them. One dude had his cheekbone broken by a wooden tent stake in that incident. People get crazy.
I think you should be able to honk if someone makes a mistake and not have it turn into something too serious. You need to be able to communicate on the road, and people shouldn't get butthurt by it. I think people get way too sensitive about it, and I think they should shrug it off more when someone honks at them. But I would advise anyone who is ever traveling through the hood to lay off their horn as much as possible.
I definitely know that feeling. Most people I'm around now either can't stand my sarcasm or don't get it at all. When I was in the Bay Area for just 6 days not long ago, I could talk to strangers and be myself and they actually got it and returned it. It was refreshing to say the least. I always thought a lot of east coast people fit in the Bay Area better but perhaps that's little more than an impression I had.
I hear ya!
I think there are plenty of East Coast people that do fit in here just fine, but at the same time there are many who don't, and they tend to have the same type of complaints. I've noticed people from New England generally tend to fit in pretty well here. And for whatever reason South Jersey too. It seems the ones who don't are usually buying into stereotypes of this area, at least from my experience. Their complaints always sound so cliche; kind of like how the OP sounded, except he sounded to me like he had approached this with an open mind and it just turned out this way.
I've known East Coasters who have moved here from Philly to the Marina District and from Brooklyn to Hillsborough and their complaints were that the people in the East Coast were so much more "real" and life on the West Coast was too soft (lol). My response was always that I could go to Maine or Stamford, CT and compare them to the downtown SF and Oakland but I'm not going to do that b/c that would just be retarded.
My one friend from Brooklyn was so clueless she actually would talk about how the news in CA would be about a cat being stuck in a tree and stuff like that, but "on the East Coast people get killed!" Lol we used to have such ridiculous conversations. And she repeated this one time when she came back here to visit and I was driving down near O'Farrell and Leavenworth around 1AM. We saw a cop pulled over dealing with someone and she was like, "oh a cat's probably just stuck in a tree or something." Lol. I was like, "this isn't Hillsborough, and do you see any trees right here??
The impression I've always gotten from the ones that never fit in was that they had a sort of a complex. Not so much like they felt they were in the presence of greatness and needed to show it up, but that they were out of their element and since CA (or the tiny sections of it they had experienced) wasn't bending to fit their specifications it somehow was wrong and they needed to get back to what was familiar. That one friend of mine would selectively have a Brooklyn accent back in high school when she'd be in front of the Latina girls trying to act hard, but around us she talked exactly the same as us. Clearly she was insecure, and we used to tell her that. I got to witness her actually closing herself off from the realness that actually existed here outside of her rich aunt's home in a completely residential and highly affluent community. But she was determined to see things the way she saw them. I love her, but she is super closed-minded, particularly when it came to CA.
or what about Andre Ward? Born in SF, lives in Oakland, and he was the 2004 Olympics gold medal boxing champion. He was undefeated as an amateur fighter (90 wins), he won the US under 19 championship in 2002, and won the US National Championship in 2001 and 2003. He is now a pro boxer and is still undefeated, with a record of 21 wins(13 by KO), and zero losses. Yeah, he's just another one of us Bay Area softies. I met him at the 2006 SF Golden gloves in fact (Golden Gloves you say? Wow, must be another convention of soft SF residents!), he's a cool dude.
And what about Bruce Lee? born and raised in SF too. My friend's father actually trained at the same dojo as him in the 80's...small world huh? Clint Eastwood was also born in SF
Wow that's awesome! But are you sure it was the 80's? B/c I could swear he died in the 70's.
But either way, good examples. I think people would be hard pressed to call Bruce Lee and Clint Eastwood soft lol.
I agree, nice last couple of posts. People in the Bay Area aren't soft, they're just less obnoxious than most other people else where. Get into someones face and they'll show you softness LOL
Yeah I think calling people here soft is a misnomer. There is more of an effort to employ tact and there is a greater consideration for how the next person might react to what is said. Clarification tends to be better out here too.
But at the same time I could see why people from the East would interpret these aspects as being soft, since its so different from what many of them do. Its just a different way of communicating, although things the OP mentioned can be pretty sissy-ish where they do exist. People here can be way too sensitive to criticism at times. I think if you ask someone's opinion on something be ready for any type of answer. And people should be able to take advice from friends, even if they don't like what that advice may be. I have some friends that I feel have paper-thin skin when it comes to things like this.
Of course I've found many NYers to have paper-thin skin too - and not thicker paper like construction paper; I'm talking rice paper lol. The ones with the huge-but-oh-so-frail egos will practically have a stroke if you refer to NYC or the NE as anything less than the center of the universe. They can't take any kind of criticism and they think yelling their way through a conversation makes them tough. So it works both ways. But the OP definitely did not strike me as one of these types.
LOL yeah and the Black Panthers and Mexican Mafia were born in Northern CA, so....
I'm guessing a little visit to any of the Hells Angels clubhouses in the Bay would probably not have too many people walking away saying, "boy, those guys are soft!" Lol.
^ I get what you guys are saying about the drivers. I want to honk way more than I do but I don't b/c it's considered such an egregious offense here. The random freeway shootings don't help either. But some people in CA just let idiots and jerks get away too much w/o saying anything.
One time I was sitting at a light to go straight, a car in the left turn lane had a line of cars at least 5-6 deep behind them and sat through the entire light and not one car honked and they all missed that light. The even crazier thing is I saw the same EXACT thing at that same light occur on the same day. I dunno if people were really stoned that day or what but if I was in that line I would have laid on the horn.
Or today I see some a-hole bypass this line of cars waiting to turn left at a stop sign in the empty parking lane , I figured he might be going straight but nope, he just turned left at the intersection and cut in front of at least 6 cars and not one person honked or did anything. If I was at the front of the line I def would have pulled up, blocked him, and honked b/c I did that in a similar situation.
I just can't believe the crap I see people get away with all over CA. But at the same time people here are more relaxed, less aggro, and easier to deal with. So there is a good and bad to all of this. A lot of people appreciate that about Californians. I wouldn't call it being "soft" but it's just different, both in good and bad ways.
Quote:
My one friend from Brooklyn was so clueless she actually would talk about how the news in CA would be about a cat being stuck in a tree and stuff like that, but "on the East Coast people get killed!" Lol we used to have such ridiculous conversations.
ha, that's funny b/c I've seen some of east coast transplants say that about SD too, that the news here is fluff and nothing ever happens. Well they were from Philly and Miami so maybe comapred to there it was somewhat true but still...we have a fair amount of crime that gets reported on the news. Plus the stories about what goes on in TJ are just horrific sometimes.
some people in CA just let idiots and jerks get away too much w/o saying anything.
I totally agree!
Quote:
Originally Posted by sav858
One time I was sitting at a light to go straight, a car in the left turn lane had a line of cars at least 5-6 deep behind them and sat through the entire light and not one car honked and they all missed that light. The even crazier thing is I saw the same EXACT thing at that same light occur on the same day. I dunno if people were really stoned that day or what but if I was in that line I would have laid on the horn.
That s**t drives me f**kin crazy!! There are way too many people with their heads up their a$$ here on the road! And I tend to agree with most of the criticism people have about drivers in CA, but when I hear people from out of state make their comments it p*sses me off too b/c out of state drivers are no better here! I've seen NY plates in Burlingame (a town I feel has some of the worst and most passive drivers I've ever seen) at a 4-way stop with the driver too scared to go when it was their turn - to the point of all three other directions and behind them people were honking at them. If you can't navigate a 4-way stop sign you just plain shouldn't be driving.
I've also noticed a tendency for Texans to drive slow in the fast lane. Actually I've seen mistakes from just about any out of state plates I've ever come across (I can't think of any states plates showing up here where there wasn't a tendency for the drivers to suck). So I don't think the bad driving is unique to CA; I think most people in general have their heads up their a$$es on the road. I do think 880 is significantly worse though for whatever reason.[/quote]
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
), its not worth it half the time. 
