Why do Californians have a tendency of getting mad if you say anything negative about California? (San Diego: apartment, house)

[fluffythewondercat]

Originally Posted by Fiddlehead

I will speak to the Bay Area culture, which I experienced a lot in Oregon. It seems to reek of superiority, and has a notable lack of self-irony and humor. All the charm of a broccoli salad. I assume that much of this comes from the Brahmin class of NE Yankees that helped found the Bay Area, bringing their humorless self-satisfaction along.

I was trying to explain to an acquaintance once why we are moving out of the Bay Area in a couple of years. My husband, as usual, cut to the chase: "Most people who live here are snobs."

I think the main thing Californians need to do is to listen and show curiosity about other folks from other places, and laugh along with them when they fling a little dirt on the Golden State.

I've been here for well over 30 years and I'm telling you that is never going to happen.

If you tell someone from the Bay Area you eat meat, more likely than not you'll be lectured on the evils of animal protein and how selfish you are because raising cattle consumes scarce resources. From North Dakota? You allow fracking which produces radioactive ground water. Idaho? You're all white supremacist skinheads. Arizona? Not just racists but violent racists with massive assault weapon caches in every home.

Bay Area people have zero curiosity about folks from other states because they are certain they know everything there is to know already.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat

I was trying to explain to an acquaintance once why we are moving out of the Bay Area in a couple of years. My husband, as usual, cut to the chase: "Most people who live here are snobs."

I've been here for well over 30 years and I'm telling you that is never going to happen.

If you tell someone from the Bay Area you eat meat, more likely than not you'll be lectured on the evils of animal protein and how selfish you are because raising cattle consumes scarce resources. From North Dakota? You allow fracking which produces radioactive ground water. Idaho? You're all white supremacist skinheads. Arizona? Not just racists but violent racists with massive assault weapon caches in every home.

Bay Area people have zero curiosity about folks from other states because they are certain they know everything there is to know already.

Wow, you are so negative that you might have more of a problem than you anticipate in finding utopia

[fluffythewondercat]

Originally Posted by NoMoreSnowForMe

Whoa Nelly. Maybe the really rich people in SF act like NE Brahmins, but there are a whole lotta us that grew up in blue collar families here. And what you describe is not so among the class I grew up in, in the east Bay Area - San Leandro to be exact. My dad was an Oakland cop of Irish immigrants from New York who moved to Oakland, and my Mom also moved to Oakland at around 10 years old, from middle class French people from Maine. My French grandfather moved to the Bay Area as an engineer to work on building the Nimitz Freeway, which is now Interstate 880.

Neither the French or Irish sides of my family were rich snobby people.

You're absolutely right. The East Bay, especially the lower East Bay, is a different culture. It's practically a different economy. I can say that having lived there first and now for the last several decades lived on the Peninsula.

So many things are less expensive in the East Bay, precisely for the reason you cite: blue collar workers. I'm remodeling our rental home in Fremont and am stunned at the difference in labor costs between the two sides of the Bay. I wish I could bring some of those laborers over here to work on my house. If I pay $1000 in Fremont, it costs me $2500 here.

It's still a region of immigrants. North Fremont is populated largely by Indians, Chinese, Filipinos... For the most part they are decent hard-working folks who don't have effete San Francisco attitudes.

[2sleepy]

Originally Posted by NoMoreSnowForMe

Whoa Nelly. Maybe the really rich people in SF act like NE Brahmins, but there are a whole lotta us that grew up in blue collar families here. And what you describe is not so among the class I grew up in, in the east Bay Area - San Leandro to be exact. My dad was an Oakland cop of Irish immigrants from New York who moved to Oakland, and my Mom also moved to Oakland at around 10 years old, from middle class French people from Maine. My French grandfather moved to the Bay Area as an engineer to work on building the Nimitz Freeway, which is now Interstate 880.

Neither the French or Irish sides of my family were rich snobby people.

Really, does it matter what anyone thinks about how evil California is? None of your opinions will make me want to leave it.

I guess some people need to justify their failure here, as somehow caused by unfriendly people?

Don't know. Don't care.

BTW, I hear people in Paris are also unfriendly. And yet, it continues to be a very desirable destination :-)

EXACTLY! My Dad and my Paternal Grandfather each spent over 30 years working in a dynamite factory in Point Pinole. My maternal Grandfather worked at Standard Oil for 50 years. My mother was a short order cook in a bay area restaurant, my maternal Grandmother a housewife who fed the homeless before most people in the bay area even knew there were homeless. My brother was Deputy Chief of Police in a Bay Area City for 20 years, my uncle was a Fire Captain in the Bay Area, another uncle was a utility worker for EBMUD & another made toilets at American Standard. My ancestors were French Basque, Norwegian & Swedish, all immigrated to the West Coast from their native countries between 1900 and 1910. Hardly "brahmins"

[fluffythewondercat]

Originally Posted by 2sleepy

Wow, you are so negative that you might have more of a problem than you anticipate in finding utopia

Found it already, but thanks for the fake concern.

See what happens when someone tells the truth? A couple of years ago I realized we were keeping our voices low when we talked with friends at dinner. Politically-incorrect opinions are not well-tolerated here.

[AmorphicDN]

Originally Posted by thisplacesucks

Maybe native Californians are just tired of having our state raped, to the point of no longer being able to live there.

And yet somehow 38 million manage to nhabit the place.

Forums are funny.

[joeyg2014]

Originally Posted by njbiodude

There seems to be a serious hatred in many areas of the country of CA. It's like a lot of people went in the 70s and 80s after the summer of love to "find themselves." They showed up on LA or SF and got a job at a local coffee shop and subsequently returned home with their tails between their legs.

This is one of the most asinine things I've ever read here. Nobody returns home with their "tail between their legs" because they moved somewhere and didn't like it.

[seain dublin]

Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat

You're absolutely right. The East Bay, especially the lower East Bay, is a different culture. It's practically a different economy. I can say that having lived there first and now for the last several decades lived on the Peninsula.

So many things are less expensive in the East Bay, precisely for the reason you cite: blue collar workers. I'm remodeling our rental home in Fremont and am stunned at the difference in labor costs between the two sides of the Bay. I wish I could bring some of those laborers over here to work on my house. If I pay $1000 in Fremont, it costs me $2500 here.

It's still a region of immigrants. North Fremont is populated largely by Indians, Chinese, Filipinos... For the most part they are decent hard-working folks who don't have effete San Francisco attitudes.

LOL, you just completely contradicted what you wrote two posts ago.

If you found the East Bay less pretentious than you should have stayed there.

Let's hope you get out of CA soon, before your head explodes.

And you're quite wrong regarding Californians not being critical of CA, I know a few CA natives who are have said many negative things about CA, and yes they all still live here.

[bigboibob]

Yep Californians are brainwashed by the west coast sun to think their economy will grow infinitely and good weather solves everything. The loudest pro Californians tend to have no knowledge of statistics and cite anecdotal evidence as if it represents the entire population.

[AmorphicDN]

Originally Posted by bigboibob

Yep Californians are brainwashed by the west coast sun to think their economy will grow infinitely and good weather solves everything. The loudest pro Californians tend to have no knowledge of statistics and cite anecdotal evidence as if it represents the entire population.

Thanks for the insight on California character, superbly supported by such depth of statistical evidence as you post in lieu of anecdotes.

And speaking of anecdotes, did you hear the one where a New Yorker a Texan and a California walked into a bar ..