
The Myth and Magic of California Style - pmcpinto
http://www.racked.com/2017/2/28/14752056/california-style-myth
======
alphonsegaston
Why does every article on Racked read like a Patrick Bateman monologue,
stripped of any sense of irony? It's as if aliens were writing about human
society from the perspective of a banner ad.

~~~
nether
I imagine every article about style/fashion/clothes sounds that way to HN
readers. Consider pg's article on "submarines,” which to me was just a blithe
lack of understanding of cyclical fashion, and his noble defense of wearing
sneakers in professional settings. A fashion editor trying to write about
trends in software frameworks would probably fare no better.

~~~
alphonsegaston
I actually find a lot of style and fashion stuff interesting. But there's
something about the unsanitized corporate speech of Racked that is just
unnerving. I know we live in an era where subtext is text, but this is more
like parody as sincerity.

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roflchoppa
SoCal does have a feeling of superficiality, you can pick up on it a little
after people move back to the Bay from LA.... but then again the Bay so many
people that have this feeling of entitlement that came outta no where.. just
something I've noticed within the past 15 years....

On the flip side, there are also a handful of people that I met around from
both areas that are down to earth. Maybe it's just high concentration.... or
monkey see, monkey do.

~~~
phamilton
As a SoCal transplant to the bay area, my biggest observation is that it's
basically mandatory to "have a cause" in the bay area. It doesn't really
matter what it is. It could be cycling over driving. It could be how you eat.
It could be political activism. But it has to be something, or people look at
you funny.

Aside from the Venice Beach / Santa Monica scene (which is absolutely
superficial), I find SoCal to be much more laid back. Live and let live, if
you will.

~~~
thinkmassive
Somewhat ironically you must have an _approved_ cause, or you may be judged as
much as not having one. To be fair I've found this is far more prevalent in SF
than the South Bay, so I think that's where it comes from.

~~~
gydfi
I'd say it matters a great deal what it is -- for instance if your cause is
the pro-life movement or the expulsion of illegal aliens then you might have
difficulties getting social approval in San Francisco.

I find it a hilarious instance of California insularity that the grandparent
post thinks it "doesn't matter what it is" \-- I'm guessing that he'd failed
to consider the fact that non-left causes even exist.

~~~
mattlevan
You can't blame him. SF is a giant leftist bubble.

~~~
specialist
For us proud members of the reality-based community: Giant leftist
_stronghold_.

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thinkmassive
_“It’s a common language,” says Buchman. “You have images of the ocean, sand,
and pretty people smiling and laughing, and that’s universal.”_

Yep, as everyone knows, California invented beaches. There were no "beach
kids" before California, and everyone who grows up elsewhere on any coast is
emulating southern California.

~~~
setr
The particular form of beach kid immortalized (to the extent of maybe a few
decades more) on californian beaches

Which _is_ a style replicated, distinctly with the californian beach in mind,
in other locales

Obviously not because californian beaches were the pinnacle of beaches, but
because the media treated it as such, and entered a positive feedback loop to
entrench its (current) position there

In the same way, the East Coast has beaches are associated with yuppies and
yatchs, and the hawaiins with hawaiins and tourists

Its an image ingrained within the American conciousness; regardless of
whatever "true" merit it might have, the descriptive language _is_ universal
(to all who consume american media, and media deriving from it).

~~~
asveikau
> In the same way, the East Coast has beaches are associated with yuppies and
> yatchs,

I am going to guess you haven't spent a lot of time in New Jersey.

~~~
mkane848
Seaside "beach kid" here, our beach culture is most definitely NOT any of that
shit. Sure, it exists as an outlier (some of the families have owned property
down here forever, super wealthy, etc), but the main things that come to mind
for beach culture are just the simple things like the boardwalk, beach, and
the local shops.

The yuppies and yachts mostly come from NY and elsewhere ;)

~~~
asveikau
Yeah, in childhood my family used to go to New Jersey beaches in the summer. A
solidly middle class experience. And nothing like a certain reality TV series
either, which unfairly gave it a bad name.

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aorth
> _Mine starts at birth, in San Diego. [...]. I realized that California
> didn’t belong to me soon after moving out East._

I was also born and raised in San Diego, but left ten years ago, and it feels
weirder and weirder every time I go back. Meanwhile, everywhere I am in the
world—Thailand, Kenya, Bulgaria, England, etc—I see California t-shirts or
hear Tupac rapping about California on the radio. So I've also felt and
wondered about the myth (legend?) of "California" over this time. :)

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santaclaus
I'm not really sure where this idea of a laid back California comes from... in
my general experience people seem way more agro on BART and Muni and around
the bay than in NYC. Hell, even in LA when going out for drinks bouncers and
such seem way more keyed up than on the east coast (or the north west).

~~~
deaddodo
Californian here. Completely opposite experience, especially SoCal vs the
Northeast. NYC, Boston, northern Virginia, etc...always seemed like people
were much more uptight and kept to themselves. Boston especially, you seem to
have to get through like 4 layers of rudeness/offputedness before people open
up to you...which doesn't always seem worth it.

Meanwhile, going to a friends' party in San Diego or Los Angeles and I can
walk out with 4 new friends/acquaintances, which lead to more invites and
potential connections.

And the differences only get further expounded professionally. I regularly go
to work in a T and jeans. Sometimes even board shorts, when summer gets toasty
enough. I would never dream of doing any of that working for any companies
I've interacted with on the East Coast. In fact, it's regularly something
they'll bring up in conversation.

There's a plethora of reasons behind those differences and neither is
necessarily bad, but that's where my opinion of "laid back" versus not stems
from.

~~~
aninhumer
>>in my general experience people seem way more agro on BART and Muni

>NYC, Boston, northern Virginia, etc... always seemed like people were much
more uptight and kept to themselves.

It kind of sounds like you're talking about different things.

A more outgoing person might seem agro, if that's not what you're used to. Or
similarly, a more reserved person might seem rude.

~~~
dkarl
> A more outgoing person might seem agro, if that's not what you're used to.

That was my experience coming from a large town/small city to bigger places.
Random dude I don't know started talking to me, that put me on alert. It was
stressful. Why is this guy talking to strangers? Is he crazy? Is he sizing me
up to attack me? It did not feel laid back.

There's a stereotype of small towns as being places where everybody talks to
everybody, but my hometown was big enough that you didn't know everybody, and
people only talked to who they knew. Maybe in really small towns people talk
to everybody because they know everybody, and in cities people talk to
strangers because they're always surrounded by strangers, but what was
familiar (and hence "laid back") to me in my upbringing was to ignore people
you didn't know. If you were curious about someone you didn't know, you'd wait
until they were gone and then ask your friend, "Do you know who that was?" Any
interaction with a stranger would be preceded by a sincere apology and a
REALLY good excuse.

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killjoywashere
While I see the merit to this article, keeping the 'whitewashing' theme alive
in the public sphere, I have to say, with a twinge of regret, stuff like this
helped put Trump in the White House.

