in nashville i had to endure when people from new york moved there to tell me which parts were cool, now in LA again i have to endure people from new york telling me which parts are cool. with all due respect, not everyone uses nyc as their metric for cool

cool means “like new york but not quite but i guess it will do but i definitely won’t stop comparing it to how it’s NOT ny”

isn’t the point of moving to get a different experience altogether? imagine me saying LA food culture sucks because there aren’t enough Krystal drive thrus

::high-fives self::

i am duty bound to say that i don’t get that vibe from new york natives at all - it’s almost entirely a “ny media person” who did an 8 year stint. my partner is a ny native and has sat through painless conversations with such ppl explaining to him how cool nyc is

lol painFUL. even after meeting natives they still assume the role of Major Exporter of NYC Cool

in fairness nyc has run the table on cool as a branding identity for a very long time, so props

i won’t even get into The Essays

but let’s at least agree that being a tryhard is the ultimate killer of cool. cool speaks for itself; cool needs no ambassadors

so if we could dial back the concept of nyc being the arbiter of all taste, and it could just be what it is without all these vigilant interloper types, that would, dare i say, actually be cool

(my landlord in nashville moved from new york and let me know cowboy boots were cool because of johnny cash in case i wasn’t aware)

i agree lots of cities in identity crises tend to mimic the coasts rather than lean into their own landlockedness, which doesn’t help matters

but coastal cities pilfer from the rest of the country all day long when they tap out of fresh ideas. LA is selling nashville hot chicken like it invented it

also ever notice how when anyone who lived in new york talks about the city to the rest of the country they act like everyone knows exactly where all the streets are?

like we all were sent a map and memorized it from rural kansas or whatever

just to be a dick, i now do this about nashville. “come on, you know where I-65 and 24 split?”

i love the bewildered response, the scoff

oh i get it, we have to know about you but you don’t have to know about us. shenanigans

anyway new york is very cool, so cool, the coolest, cooler than you, don’t even try