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Whats up California? I always wanted to know do you residents think your home is portrayed in the right sense from Movies and TV? I want to go out there one day but I don't know what I'm in for. A few things I really want to know are as follows: how is the social interaction?, is life there like the movie Crash, ? When I say that I mean is there a strong prejudice between races? Also, Is it the gang culture prevalent to the point where you cant go into a 'hood without having problems or does that only apply to other gangstas and races that don't belong in that neighborhood which kind of coincides with the first question. And what about that hollywood- lifestyle that everyone seems to want to live. I'm not down with all that fake glitzy stuff, and I don't want to get in the entertainment industry. But I can't front, the allure of California's offerings have me strongly considering going to college there vs. Heading out to NYC which is always been a dream. So c'mon and give me the rundown.
You sound like a NYC hipster transpant in the making. Definitely stick with your choice to go to NY, within a year you'll be calling yourself a "real New Yorker", looking down on "B&T trash", complaining about tourists, and playing bicycle polo or hipster kickball. You'll be much happier there.
L.A. is very much like the movies and TV shows that depict it. Of course, the drama and stories in movies and TV are always drawn out to make an interesting story, the people aren't really represented well. Stereotypes are overdone to make a story.
But the places look the same, except they are maybe even nicer in person.
L.A. is better than NYC, but for you, NYC is better. You can buy a fedora, ironic T-shirt, skinny jeans, and grow a scruffy beard and be a "real New Yorker" overnight, and the other unique individuals who are just like you will be more than happy to talk with you about how much L.A. sucks with all the gitzy, fake people. You can all talk about this in January and February when you're freezing your asses off while L.A. is sunny and beautiful.
there is gang tension, but most people in LA are immune to it. altho its the gang capitol of the world, they only number about 45K i think. there is a big gang presecence in select neighborhoods but most of LA is not gang territory like people think. if you stay out the hood chances are you wont interact with thugs. people dont interact like they do in that garbage movie crash. silly representation of what LA is.
hollywood is hollywood. lots of "beutiful people" (by midwest, east coast or southern standards) move here then realize that not only are they competing with CA beauties(which are in abundance) but they are also competing with all these other second rate beauties from around the country. they soon realize that they arent that pretty. how do they make up for it? being seen on the scene. being fake, being orange(tanned), being obnoxious. hititng up the pretentious clubs on the strip. trying to meet people and make it. the industry is sleazy.
hollywood might be alluring to other folks, but ive seen it come and go, and its still as shallow as it was 20 years ago. a bit cleaner of course.
anyhow, dont beleive the hype. LA is a great place to be. plenty to do in this city. but it aint for everyone. having lived in other cities i can say that its a good fit for me and many many other people.
most folks around town are hard working, non-industry type of people.
this isnt "the hills"
Quote:
Originally Posted by ninob1213
Whats up California? I always wanted to know do you residents think your home is portrayed in the right sense from Movies and TV? I want to go out there one day but I don't know what I'm in for. A few things I really want to know are as follows: how is the social interaction?, is life there like the movie Crash, ? When I say that I mean is there a strong prejudice between races? Also, Is it the gang culture prevalent to the point where you cant go into a 'hood without having problems or does that only apply to other gangstas and races that don't belong in that neighborhood which kind of coincides with the first question. And what about that hollywood- lifestyle that everyone seems to want to live. I'm not down with all that fake glitzy stuff, and I don't want to get in the entertainment industry. But I can't front, the allure of California's offerings have me strongly considering going to college there vs. Heading out to NYC which is always been a dream. So c'mon and give me the rundown.
Hard to say, does Law & Order show New York(and surrounding areas) realistically? I guess you could say it shows a few parts, but it's not anywhere near the whole of things. LA is the same way essentially, movies like Crash, Heat, and Collateral show parts, and may show those parts accurately, but LA is so huge that they all miss big chunks of the big picture.
Actually, Law & Order is pretty much dead on in its depiction of NY. I was walking down Eldridge St. on Sunday night, in Chinatown, after just having a delicious dinner of 5-for-a-dollar dumplings (which are not only cheap but awesome!), and I was walking behind a Chinese guy, mid-30's-ish, carrying a small pastic bag of some kind of take out. Halfway down the block, a guy in a suit who was leaning on a parked car said something to the guy, and another guy in a suit walked in from the store to our left, and both men introduced themselves as "homicide" and were calling the guy "chen" or "chang". They walked along on either side of him, saying things like, "Come on, cheng, we're homicide, we know you have something to tell us...what, you were right there and didn't see nothin'??? You serious? C'mon, you can do better den dat...." Just then a third detective who must have been behind me the whole time said, "No, Brian, he don't know nothin'...he was right there, but he don't know nothin'..." I looked at this guy with a look on my face like "wow, I think I stepped onto a scene right out of Law & Order..." and the guy smirked at me, probably because he saw the look on my face as I was seeing all this. Then the two cops grabbed the guy by his arms and pulled him over by the building and I kept walking, looking back the whole time, lol.
But honestly, of all the shows, Law & Order does a good job depicting real-life street scenes in NYC, whenever they're investigating.
Shows like Friends are less realistic.
Then there's Sex in the City, which was completely 100% unrealistic but acted as a self-fulfilling prophecy, inducing transplant jerks from all over the US to move to NYC and try to live out their fantasies of being one of the whores on that stupid show. So, now that show is realistic in that we have tons of transplant morons who believe stupid nonsense like that NY women don't wear scrunchies or that Suffern, NY is a wilderness with a few isolated cabins instead of being the highly populated, semi-urban suburb that it really is.
Whats up California? I always wanted to know do you residents think your home is portrayed in the right sense from Movies and TV? I want to go out there one day but I don't know what I'm in for. A few things I really want to know are as follows: how is the social interaction?, is life there like the movie Crash, ? When I say that I mean is there a strong prejudice between races? Also, Is it the gang culture prevalent to the point where you cant go into a 'hood without having problems or does that only apply to other gangstas and races that don't belong in that neighborhood which kind of coincides with the first question. And what about that hollywood- lifestyle that everyone seems to want to live. I'm not down with all that fake glitzy stuff, and I don't want to get in the entertainment industry. But I can't front, the allure of California's offerings have me strongly considering going to college there vs. Heading out to NYC which is always been a dream. So c'mon and give me the rundown.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BergenCountyJohnny
You sound like a NYC hipster transpant in the making. Definitely stick with your choice to go to NY, within a year you'll be calling yourself a "real New Yorker", looking down on "B&T trash", complaining about tourists, and playing bicycle polo or hipster kickball. You'll be much happier there.
You can buy a fedora, ironic T-shirt, skinny jeans, and grow a scruffy beard and be a "real New Yorker" overnight, and the other unique individuals who are just like you will be more than happy to talk with you about how much L.A. sucks with all the gitzy, fake people.
as someone who's all too familiar with nyc's hipster transplants (unfortunately a good number of my acquaintances and friends of friends are exactly that), this is a very accurate statement about their pretentiousness, viewpoints, tendencies, and fashion sense. "bicycle polo or hipster kickball", LOL. so true, man.
one reason why i started to get burned out on the nyc area, despite being born and raised there, was specifically because of the unabashed elitism that bcjohnny refers to. i got sick of the social-climbing, classist mentality that pervades yuppie and hipster areas of manhattan and brooklyn in particular. i still love the nyc region as a whole, especially the down-to-earth areas of the city (i.e. the non-hipster, non-yuppified areas of the outer boroughs) and suburbs. but it's the areas which get all of the hype - i.e. the neighborhods that all the transplants flock to - that get on my nerves. the infamous new york elitism that transplants seem to absorb within days of arriving increasingly wore me down as i got older.
put simply, there are way too many folks who have descended upon the city in recent years to "do the ny thing" because it's trendy and whose main goal is to recreate the "sex and the city" lifestyle.
(yes, living in the nyc can really make one cynical.)
by contrast, people in LA are generally a LOT more laid back. while the city definitely has its share of social climbing fools whose lives revolve around the hollywood scene/sunset strip/trying to get into "the industry", the average angeleno is a lot less uppity from my experience - a lot more "live and let live" and far more friendly and laid-back. i realize that the LA haters here would scoff at that sentiment, but remember, i'm speaking from an nyc perspective, so it's all relative.
to the OP:
it sounds like you've already made up your mind about LA based on stereotypes. come on, man - are you really going to judge a city and region from watching a few dumb movies or tv shows? and are you really using that overrated film "crash" as your template for how race relations are in LA?
one of the great things about LA is that it's so big that you can inevitably find your niche somewhere in the region. IMO you can avoid the pretentious parts of LA a lot easier than in the nyc region - because if you move to nyc, especially manhattan/northwest brooklyn, you're going to be smack dab in the middle of all that stuff i was talking about earlier. the nyc metro is very much centered around manhattan in particular. so if you want to partake in the culture, nightlife, and everything else that's hyped up about nyc, you pretty much can't help but go to manhattan or gentrified areas in the outer boroughs.
OTOH, LA has multiple concentrations of culture, entertainment, employment, and recreation. one of its much-maligned traits - sprawl - is actually a good thing in a sense because it's easier to avoid the things you hate and cocoon yourself into the things you love and prioritize. of course the flip side to this is that without doing much research, you might have a difficult time finding your niche in LA. i think that's a key reason why so many people love to hate on LA - as someone else on these boards has stated (apologies for stealing your quote), LA is very much an "insider's city" that's far more complex and diverse than the average outsider or newcomer realizes. people go to see the "typical" touristy stuff, are unimpressed because they expected everything to look like the movies, and then go home and badmouth LA to their friends. or perhaps they move to the city with similar preconceptions but never bother to venture out beyond their little area of the city. so if their neighborhood/social scene doesn't match their expectations, chances are they're going to hate LA. but if they find the neighborhood/niche/social scene that interests them, then things might be very different.
i think there's something for everyone in LA, which is a major reason why i love the city. but not everyone is patient enough or willing to suss out exactly where they'd be happiest in the region. it's a challenging area to really "get".
as an example, a friend of mine moved to LA for one year. after that year, he returned to nyc, bashing LA at every chance. now, he's certainly entitled to his opinion, but the thing that left me shaking my head was how little of the city/region he'd experienced during his one-year stay. for example, he'd say ridiculous things like, "the japanese food isn't all that in LA. i think the food on st. marks place is just as good". and i'd respond, "did you ever go to gardena or torrance?"
of course he didn't, which he sheepishly admitted when i took him to those places on his return visit to LA.
finally, you have to realize that nyc has been riding a possibly unprecedented tidal wave of popularity since the mid-1990s. the nyc of my youth was a scary, rough, dangerous place (the period from 1985-1991 was especially bad for many reasons), but thanks to some effective (fascist?) police work, a surging economy following the early '90s recession, a few popular tv shows that glamorized life in the city (friends, sex and the city, etc), and better PR in general, the city became incredibly hyped up over the past 15 years. while nyc was and always will be a destination city, it went from being one of the top destinations for young, ambitious folks to THE city of choice for many people who might not have considered it in a different era.
in other words, nyc has become an incredibly trendy place to live. "doing the ny thing" for a few years has become the fashionable thing to do, and people have actually told me that they "had to do it once, just to see what it's like". and that's fine.
on the flip side of the coin, LA has experienced a ton of negative publicity in recent years. people always focus on the traffic (legitimately), smog (overrated if you live near the coast), gangbangers (not always an issue, depending where you live), minorities/immigrants (only an issue for some people), and so forth.
basically, it's become cool to hate on LA. LA and nyc are the two leading cities/regions in the country, so they're always going to be compared against one another, fairly or not. so while one is perceived to be down, the other is viewed as being on the up and up. but great cities always rebound from tough times, as LA and nyc both have, and the relative trendiness of each will fluctuate depending on the economy, popular tastes, and so forth.
so, getting back to the OP:
don't believe the hype, if what you "know" is based on tv and movies. come visit both cities, try to do some non-touristy things, and hang out with the locals if possible. i think you'll like nyc a lot more based on your personal biases, but the only way to know for sure is to see for yourself.
and bcjohnny:
two great posts there, but the system won't let me give you any more rep points. and i know which dumpling place you're talking about, LOL.
exactly!!! there is so much to do in LA, but people do tend to stay on the westside, or the valley, wherever they transplant themselves. they confine themselve and never explore LA.
where else in the world do you have a city that hosts a little armenia, little ethiopia, koreatown, thai town, 2 chinatowns (historical downtown one and the san gabriel valley one), little tokyo. filipino town. we have high concentrations of persians, jews, latinos, etc etc. they bring their culture and their FOOD! no one can complain about culinary options in LA.
i agree, sometimes people just want to diss LA for the sake of dissin.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pbergen
as someone who's all too familiar with nyc's hipster transplants (unfortunately a good number of my acquaintances and friends of friends are exactly that), this is a very accurate statement about their pretentiousness, viewpoints, tendencies, and fashion sense. "bicycle polo or hipster kickball", LOL. so true, man.
one reason why i started to get burned out on the nyc area, despite being born and raised there, was specifically because of the unabashed elitism that bcjohnny refers to. i got sick of the social-climbing, classist mentality that pervades yuppie and hipster areas of manhattan and brooklyn in particular. i still love the nyc region as a whole, especially the down-to-earth areas of the city (i.e. the non-hipster, non-yuppified areas of the outer boroughs) and suburbs. but it's the areas which get all of the hype - i.e. the neighborhods that all the transplants flock to - that get on my nerves. the infamous new york elitism that transplants seem to absorb within days of arriving increasingly wore me down as i got older.
put simply, there are way too many folks who have descended upon the city in recent years to "do the ny thing" because it's trendy and whose main goal is to recreate the "sex and the city" lifestyle.
(yes, living in the nyc can really make one cynical.)
by contrast, people in LA are generally a LOT more laid back. while the city definitely has its share of social climbing fools whose lives revolve around the hollywood scene/sunset strip/trying to get into "the industry", the average angeleno is a lot less uppity from my experience - a lot more "live and let live" and far more friendly and laid-back. i realize that the LA haters here would scoff at that sentiment, but remember, i'm speaking from an nyc perspective, so it's all relative.
to the OP:
it sounds like you've already made up your mind about LA based on stereotypes. come on, man - are you really going to judge a city and region from watching a few dumb movies or tv shows? and are you really using that overrated film "crash" as your template for how race relations are in LA?
one of the great things about LA is that it's so big that you can inevitably find your niche somewhere in the region. IMO you can avoid the pretentious parts of LA a lot easier than in the nyc region - because if you move to nyc, especially manhattan/northwest brooklyn, you're going to be smack dab in the middle of all that stuff i was talking about earlier. the nyc metro is very much centered around manhattan in particular. so if you want to partake in the culture, nightlife, and everything else that's hyped up about nyc, you pretty much can't help but go to manhattan or gentrified areas in the outer boroughs.
OTOH, LA has multiple concentrations of culture, entertainment, employment, and recreation. one of its much-maligned traits - sprawl - is actually a good thing in a sense because it's easier to avoid the things you hate and cocoon yourself into the things you love and prioritize. of course the flip side to this is that without doing much research, you might have a difficult time finding your niche in LA. i think that's a key reason why so many people love to hate on LA - as someone else on these boards has stated (apologies for stealing your quote), LA is very much an "insider's city" that's far more complex and diverse than the average outsider or newcomer realizes. people go to see the "typical" touristy stuff, are unimpressed because they expected everything to look like the movies, and then go home and badmouth LA to their friends. or perhaps they move to the city with similar preconceptions but never bother to venture out beyond their little area of the city. so if their neighborhood/social scene doesn't match their expectations, chances are they're going to hate LA. but if they find the neighborhood/niche/social scene that interests them, then things might be very different.
i think there's something for everyone in LA, which is a major reason why i love the city. but not everyone is patient enough or willing to suss out exactly where they'd be happiest in the region. it's a challenging area to really "get".
as an example, a friend of mine moved to LA for one year. after that year, he returned to nyc, bashing LA at every chance. now, he's certainly entitled to his opinion, but the thing that left me shaking my head was how little of the city/region he'd experienced during his one-year stay. for example, he'd say ridiculous things like, "the japanese food isn't all that in LA. i think the food on st. marks place is just as good". and i'd respond, "did you ever go to gardena or torrance?"
of course he didn't, which he sheepishly admitted when i took him to those places on his return visit to LA.
finally, you have to realize that nyc has been riding a possibly unprecedented tidal wave of popularity since the mid-1990s. the nyc of my youth was a scary, rough, dangerous place (the period from 1985-1991 was especially bad for many reasons), but thanks to some effective (fascist?) police work, a surging economy following the early '90s recession, a few popular tv shows that glamorized life in the city (friends, sex and the city, etc), and better PR in general, the city became incredibly hyped up over the past 15 years. while nyc was and always will be a destination city, it went from being one of the top destinations for young, ambitious folks to THE city of choice for many people who might not have considered it in a different era.
in other words, nyc has become an incredibly trendy place to live. "doing the ny thing" for a few years has become the fashionable thing to do, and people have actually told me that they "had to do it once, just to see what it's like". and that's fine.
on the flip side of the coin, LA has experienced a ton of negative publicity in recent years. people always focus on the traffic (legitimately), smog (overrated if you live near the coast), gangbangers (not always an issue, depending where you live), minorities/immigrants (only an issue for some people), and so forth.
basically, it's become cool to hate on LA. LA and nyc are the two leading cities/regions in the country, so they're always going to be compared against one another, fairly or not. so while one is perceived to be down, the other is viewed as being on the up and up. but great cities always rebound from tough times, as LA and nyc both have, and the relative trendiness of each will fluctuate depending on the economy, popular tastes, and so forth.
so, getting back to the OP:
don't believe the hype, if what you "know" is based on tv and movies. come visit both cities, try to do some non-touristy things, and hang out with the locals if possible. i think you'll like nyc a lot more based on your personal biases, but the only way to know for sure is to see for yourself.
and bcjohnny:
two great posts there, but the system won't let me give you any more rep points. and i know which dumpling place you're talking about, LOL.
You know, when I moved to San Diego California, many people told me that Los Angeles is dirty and ugly. I didn't want to believe them because I only knew L.A. from the movies and MTV. I just want to say that they were all right and I wouldn't live there for a million bucks. And the high presence of Scientology makes this city even more insane. I don't blame the people, instead I'm really angry about the mayor. He/She doesn't do anything.
You know, when I moved to San Diego California, many people told me that Los Angeles is dirty and ugly. I didn't want to believe them because I only knew L.A. from the movies and MTV. I just want to say that they were all right and I wouldn't live there for a million bucks. And the high presence of Scientology makes this city even more insane. I don't blame the people, instead I'm really angry about the mayor. He/She doesn't do anything.
You hate the Mayor, but don't know whether they are male or female? By the way, it's a he and he is nothing but a media seeking wh***. So you are correct.
Los Angeles is a huge city, I repeat HUGE city. Just like San Diego, there are good and bad areas.
You sound like a NYC hipster transpant in the making. Definitely stick with your choice to go to NY, within a year you'll be calling yourself a "real New Yorker", looking down on "B&T trash", complaining about tourists, and playing bicycle polo or hipster kickball. You'll be much happier there.
L.A. is very much like the movies and TV shows that depict it. Of course, the drama and stories in movies and TV are always drawn out to make an interesting story, the people aren't really represented well. Stereotypes are overdone to make a story.
But the places look the same, except they are maybe even nicer in person.
L.A. is better than NYC, but for you, NYC is better. You can buy a fedora, ironic T-shirt, skinny jeans, and grow a scruffy beard and be a "real New Yorker" overnight, and the other unique individuals who are just like you will be more than happy to talk with you about how much L.A. sucks with all the gitzy, fake people. You can all talk about this in January and February when you're freezing your asses off while L.A. is sunny and beautiful.
Ah Bergen County, New Jersey has already made my sh*t list before I even moved lol. Naw really though, I like your sarcasm but of course when someone moves they want to fit in but I'm not trying to transform into a hipster. I am what I am which is ninob1213. LOL. By the way, a style of dress doesn't define an individual, it just makes them easy to spot in your case.
LA is a place that rewards producers and looks on in awe when someone makes it. Making it is part of the game and applauded by all. People come to the area because they have this dream or goal that they can also make it. We read within these threads about all the people that have a dream of making it here in the LA area. For the majority it will not happen, but for the select few it will happen. It is very possible to be living in a run down place one year and moving to a spot on the beach the next year. It has happened. Will it for you? No one can answer that. But the possibility is so alluring that everyone comes to see if they are the one. The OP is correct about how the city looks. At least the part that the OP saw. I doubt that the entire city was represented. Many more places look amazing.
as someone who's all too familiar with nyc's hipster transplants (unfortunately a good number of my acquaintances and friends of friends are exactly that), this is a very accurate statement about their pretentiousness, viewpoints, tendencies, and fashion sense. "bicycle polo or hipster kickball", LOL. so true, man.
one reason why i started to get burned out on the nyc area, despite being born and raised there, was specifically because of the unabashed elitism that bcjohnny refers to. i got sick of the social-climbing, classist mentality that pervades yuppie and hipster areas of manhattan and brooklyn in particular. i still love the nyc region as a whole, especially the down-to-earth areas of the city (i.e. the non-hipster, non-yuppified areas of the outer boroughs) and suburbs. but it's the areas which get all of the hype - i.e. the neighborhods that all the transplants flock to - that get on my nerves. the infamous new york elitism that transplants seem to absorb within days of arriving increasingly wore me down as i got older.
put simply, there are way too many folks who have descended upon the city in recent years to "do the ny thing" because it's trendy and whose main goal is to recreate the "sex and the city" lifestyle.
(yes, living in the nyc can really make one cynical.)
by contrast, people in LA are generally a LOT more laid back. while the city definitely has its share of social climbing fools whose lives revolve around the hollywood scene/sunset strip/trying to get into "the industry", the average angeleno is a lot less uppity from my experience - a lot more "live and let live" and far more friendly and laid-back. i realize that the LA haters here would scoff at that sentiment, but remember, i'm speaking from an nyc perspective, so it's all relative.
to the OP:
it sounds like you've already made up your mind about LA based on stereotypes. come on, man - are you really going to judge a city and region from watching a few dumb movies or tv shows? and are you really using that overrated film "crash" as your template for how race relations are in LA?
one of the great things about LA is that it's so big that you can inevitably find your niche somewhere in the region. IMO you can avoid the pretentious parts of LA a lot easier than in the nyc region - because if you move to nyc, especially manhattan/northwest brooklyn, you're going to be smack dab in the middle of all that stuff i was talking about earlier. the nyc metro is very much centered around manhattan in particular. so if you want to partake in the culture, nightlife, and everything else that's hyped up about nyc, you pretty much can't help but go to manhattan or gentrified areas in the outer boroughs.
OTOH, LA has multiple concentrations of culture, entertainment, employment, and recreation. one of its much-maligned traits - sprawl - is actually a good thing in a sense because it's easier to avoid the things you hate and cocoon yourself into the things you love and prioritize. of course the flip side to this is that without doing much research, you might have a difficult time finding your niche in LA. i think that's a key reason why so many people love to hate on LA - as someone else on these boards has stated (apologies for stealing your quote), LA is very much an "insider's city" that's far more complex and diverse than the average outsider or newcomer realizes. people go to see the "typical" touristy stuff, are unimpressed because they expected everything to look like the movies, and then go home and badmouth LA to their friends. or perhaps they move to the city with similar preconceptions but never bother to venture out beyond their little area of the city. so if their neighborhood/social scene doesn't match their expectations, chances are they're going to hate LA. but if they find the neighborhood/niche/social scene that interests them, then things might be very different.
i think there's something for everyone in LA, which is a major reason why i love the city. but not everyone is patient enough or willing to suss out exactly where they'd be happiest in the region. it's a challenging area to really "get".
as an example, a friend of mine moved to LA for one year. after that year, he returned to nyc, bashing LA at every chance. now, he's certainly entitled to his opinion, but the thing that left me shaking my head was how little of the city/region he'd experienced during his one-year stay. for example, he'd say ridiculous things like, "the japanese food isn't all that in LA. i think the food on st. marks place is just as good". and i'd respond, "did you ever go to gardena or torrance?"
of course he didn't, which he sheepishly admitted when i took him to those places on his return visit to LA.
finally, you have to realize that nyc has been riding a possibly unprecedented tidal wave of popularity since the mid-1990s. the nyc of my youth was a scary, rough, dangerous place (the period from 1985-1991 was especially bad for many reasons), but thanks to some effective (fascist?) police work, a surging economy following the early '90s recession, a few popular tv shows that glamorized life in the city (friends, sex and the city, etc), and better PR in general, the city became incredibly hyped up over the past 15 years. while nyc was and always will be a destination city, it went from being one of the top destinations for young, ambitious folks to THE city of choice for many people who might not have considered it in a different era.
in other words, nyc has become an incredibly trendy place to live. "doing the ny thing" for a few years has become the fashionable thing to do, and people have actually told me that they "had to do it once, just to see what it's like". and that's fine.
on the flip side of the coin, LA has experienced a ton of negative publicity in recent years. people always focus on the traffic (legitimately), smog (overrated if you live near the coast), gangbangers (not always an issue, depending where you live), minorities/immigrants (only an issue for some people), and so forth.
basically, it's become cool to hate on LA. LA and nyc are the two leading cities/regions in the country, so they're always going to be compared against one another, fairly or not. so while one is perceived to be down, the other is viewed as being on the up and up. but great cities always rebound from tough times, as LA and nyc both have, and the relative trendiness of each will fluctuate depending on the economy, popular tastes, and so forth.
so, getting back to the OP:
don't believe the hype, if what you "know" is based on tv and movies. come visit both cities, try to do some non-touristy things, and hang out with the locals if possible. i think you'll like nyc a lot more based on your personal biases, but the only way to know for sure is to see for yourself.
and bcjohnny:
two great posts there, but the system won't let me give you any more rep points. and i know which dumpling place you're talking about, LOL.
Good post, I knew that hipsters are prevalent in williamsburg and in Manhattan but I never thought of their social impact on NYC's current culture. I can understand a natives grief on the changes in their hometown. The real question for that situation is do these kids do anything productive or progressive , if so then you cant hate them for that. I'm not trying to move to NY or LA to screw up the culture and tradition and be a transplanted a-hole. I'm just a young guy ready to take on a bustling city with a plethora of opportunity. The original question was out of curiosity btw. I don't know anything about middle class LA as it is not talked about. That is why I brought up the negative aspect of LA to see if you all think they are really true.
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By the way, it's a he and he is nothing but a media seeking wh***. So you are correct.
