Why are people in Miami so superficial? (Tampa, Hialeah: best city, sales)

[tallrick]

Most people in Miami are poor or lower middle class, and the vast majority are not any different than any other city. The parts of Miami I am often in are no different than the people in Broward or PBC. Now here in Labelle-Clewiston you find a ton of refugees and rednecks which a lot of people like to make fun of. Jacksonville does have a better vibe in my opinion and is not infested with toll roads either.

[StreetSmarts]

except more of Miami is middle to low class than it is flashy/wealthy. not sure why its such a necessity to act like you've got it when you dont. in fact, i bet i make more money than 75% of the men my age in Miami, but i dont buy stupid ish to look like i got a good job or whatever, in fact, i wear shorts and a tee shirt all the time.

[Sugah Ray]

Originally Posted by wanderer25

I don't mean it in a bad way. I am just curious because I went out of town a few weeks ago and I could tell the difference. Girls where I work are always talking about what they are wearing, designer handbags, their hair, and how white their teeth are lol! So why do you think in Miami we are like this?

Of course not, hallo! you just like sign up to this site to ask this really cool question. Sorry but I don't have an answer. Unless you wanna talk about shopping or fashion I don't have much to contribute.

Originally Posted by wanderer25

I agree I think its just part of the culture and that stereotype of beauty that Miami has to live up to. I hope not to open a can of worms lol But I just want to know! I really don't see anything wrong with Miami being superficial. Every city has its "stereotype" and Miami just happens to be superficiality for some reason.

like yeah, totally.

[Felix C]

Originally Posted by wanderer25

I don't mean it in a bad way. I am just curious because I went out of town a few weeks ago and I could tell the difference. Girls where I work are always talking about what they are wearing, designer handbags, their hair, and how white their teeth are lol! So why do you think in Miami we are like this?

Girls have always been this way. They are girls/women/females etc. Nothing unique to Miami.

Just like we guys love guy things-cars, boats, firearms, etc.etc.

Whatever is the unique attraction we all have to something. Superficial and self-absorbed is part of life especially when young-late teens through 20s. Although with the adult bar being lowered, even into the 40s can one still act so.

[Pancrace Mortimerius]

Miami was always a place packed with plastic people, gente plástica. There was even one song about plastic girls, plastic city.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rrA963uZDc

[wanderer25]

Originally Posted by Felix C

Girls have always been this way. They are girls/women/females etc. Nothing unique to Miami.

Just like we guys love guy things-cars, boats, firearms, etc.etc.

Whatever is the unique attraction we all have to something. Superficial and self-absorbed is part of life especially when young-late teens through 20s. Although with the adult bar being lowered, even into the 40s can one still act so.

I agree this is everywhere I just feel it more so in Miami. I'm guilty of it myself.

[xS☺B☺s]

Miami Beach is packed with models and the modeling industry. They often aren't rocket scientists. Also MTV Latino, and several Spanish language TV Networks are there - so a lot of posing and silly superficial stuff revolves around that. Sorta a Spanish language Hollywood. And aspiring Telenovela stars also are not know for great intellect.

[wanderer25]

Originally Posted by xS☺B☺s

Miami Beach is packed with models and the modeling industry. They often aren't rocket scientists. Also MTV Latino, and several Spanish language TV Networks are there - so a lot of posing and silly superficial stuff revolves around that. Sorta a Spanish language Hollywood. And aspiring Telenovela stars also are not know for great intellect.

I agree I think the culture influences the superficially

[angelscorpio]

Flashy people try to compensate for their miserable life filling up the void with material stuffs.

[StarfishKey]

Originally Posted by Crusteau

But even considering the vacuity of people in Miami, their obsession with kinky clothes and kitsch fashion...I don't think that people living in other cities are more "intellectual" at all.

Obviously you've never lived in NYC, Paris, San Francisco, Amherst MA, etc. A ton of cities are WAY more intellectual than Miami. Really any cities in areas filled with top-level universities tend to be full of intellectual people, who talk about intellectual things in their daily life and don't feel weird about it - it's the standard way of being social in those places, because a majority of local people have the same experience of focusing their life around formal learning.

Miami is not exactly known for its universities, and people don't move here to think hard or to further their careers. People move here for the beach, and to get drunk at clubs and dance in skimpy clothes. It is known as a party city, and people move and visit here specifically to suspend their thinking entirely. People here are conditioned to be selfish and to obsess about what they look like - Miami has more TV and radio air-time devoted to cosmetic surgery ads than probably any other city in the US except Hollywood. That is really not normal at all. In other cities the culture is for virtually all young people to volunteer as a way to build resumes and meet new people, and to feel good about themselves. Miami on the other hand has one of the lowest volunteer rates of any city in the nation. Kids grow up in Miami trained to worry about what they look like on the beach, what car they drive, what phone they have... and also the economic discrepancies in Miami are extreme so it makes perfect sense for kids to want to ally themselves with the wealthy - if you're poor you have none of the same opportunities at all. Other cities with big public transportation systems and tons of free cultural activities, and way better public education than Miami has, make economic differences slightly less extreme, because kids from any economic class can hop aboard the local transit and see a great museum (and even plays give free performances for schools) - and it is common to do so, and actually enjoy it. A kid in Miami has to really go out of their way, plus have a reliable car and someone who has time to get them there, to see a museum - and we just don't have the number of top caliber museums some other cities have to go to anyway.

So there is no mystery to this at all, and I'm not sure if the question is really seriously being asked. But for someone who's never lived outside of Miami, maybe they don't know these things, so it's worth pointing out that these are just a handful of the endless reasons Miami is a completely self-obsessed and superficial place.

(Also, did you happen to notice that Miami residents go out of their way to landscape the land totally superficially? In most other cities, especially outside of superficial Florida, people let their yards and parks grow naturally, with plants native to the area. Miami by contrast is full of almost entirely exotic and foreign plant species, and is fertilized and insecticided and pruned within an inch of its life, making it look like some kind of tropical model train set instead of like Nature. Miamians also kill every bug and natural thing in the vicinity more than any other place I have ever lived - many apartments and homes even spray MONTHLY for bugs, rather than wait for them to show up and stop only an actual infestation. All this has to have an impact on people's brains, because even the plants aren't allowed to look like their natural swampy selves - so how could we ever expect the people to be allowed to just be who they naturally are?)

Miami has many great qualities, but this is one of its worst. It's also a really racist place, and sexist, which are value systems based completely on superficial external characteristics. So there you go.