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Monday, February 27, 2012

Why Does San Francisco Hate L.A.?

(Photo by Pretty Stems)
It's one of the great one-sided California battles: San Francisco can't stand L.A., while L.A. could care less. Josh Heller is an Angeleno who also admits a love for San Francisco; he writes about his attempt to finally unite "both So- and NorCals under the ideology of "PanCalifornianism." An excerpt:

I’d never call it San Fran or crowd the streetcars on my way to eat Ghiradelli chocolate and Boudin bread bowls of clam chowder at Fisherman’s Wharf. We’re Californian too! We respect your vibe man!

But many San Franciscans see it differently. You can be brutally attacked (read: coyly judged) for merely mentioning that you’re from Los Angeles.

Last summer my girlfriend and I went to a cafe on Warschauer Straße in Berlin. An American employee was excited to meet us because we could be audience to her joke about how her boss looks like Screech from Saved By The Bell. She was friendly when we told her we were from California, but when we explained we were from the south, she spent six minutes talking shit. All we wanted was our certified organic blueberry muffin and maybe to make another friend who spoke our language, so we could tell them about how our landlord looks like the German Mr. Belding. But no, she decided to stand by her NorCal values (NorCalVals) from 5,657 miles away.

Yet still, I hold no grudge.


Josh goes on to recount a wild stay in San Francisco. We're proud Angelenos who also enjoy time in SF, silly rivalries be damned.

5 comments:

Benovite said...

L.A. hates L.A.!

Militant Angeleno said...

Benovite: Speak for yourself, foo!

Frisco hates Los Angeles for one primary reason: Once upon a time, on a globe of the world, there was one big dot on the west coast of the United States, and that dot was SF. But some time between the 1950s and 1980s, that big dot turned into a small dot and the big dot appeared some 360 miles south of the former big dot.

In the national spectrum SF vs Los Angeles is the west coast equivalent of Boston vs NYC. Lots of parallels there.

Anonymous said...

For people that live in such a beautiful city, I have never been able to understand their bitterness. It is not just L.A. that they hate - I lived in Oakland for several years and had to endure endless rants from San Franciscans about what a dump or armpit it was. My favorite rant is how So Cal is stealing all of their water. Nevermind that SF gets its water from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir that is 180 miles away from San Franchisco and was created by destroying a beautful valley near Yosemite. Hypocrites!

Anonymous said...

San Francisco just has an inferiority complex toward their superiors down south. In terms of global reputation, SF is virtually unheard of compared to LA, which is why you'll often hear San Franciscans comparing their tiny, average pseudo-city to The Big Apple.

Unknown said...

I am from L.A. who now lives in the bay and I visit SF from time to time. Yesterday, I wore my USC cap. I couldn't believe how many negative stares I got. Even at work, I get cold shoulder looks. I think this dislike exists all over the bay area. And as someone here mentioned, I think it's mostly jealousy/inferiority complex. Growing up in L.A., I never heard any negative talk about San Francisco/Bay area. The hate/dislike is coming from one direction.