How easy is it to make fun of the city that you live in or have lived in?
I live in Seattle, which is most likely the most mockable city in the world. Coffee jokes and rain jokes, mainly, but jokes about “arty” music, intellectualism, and goth-hood are pretty common too.
My own personal invention is the rule that if your coffee drink contains more than ten syllables, you need to be shot. The rule is scarcely broken, as even the more wordy drinks rarely break the limit (“Venti Macchiato With Cream”, etc), but the other day I actually heard someone break it: “Double Tall Americano With Steamed Soy.” I didn’t have it in me to enforce the rule.
So, once again, how mock-able are the cities that you have lived in, or live in right now?
Well, I live in Seattle now, and I didn’t realise how many people made jokes about it until I moved here. Family and friends back home send me jokes about Seattle rain or Starbucks coffee weekly. Weekly. I’ve been here for two and a half years, and I still get emails with the ever-witty “Got yer floodpants on?” or “How’s the coffee?”, “Have you seen Frasier at the coffeehouse lately?”, or my personal favourite: “How’s Kurt?” Still dead. I’ll keep checking and get back to you if there’s any change, though.
It’s not that rainy, and Tully’s coffee is better. But they hate to be deprived of their jokes, so I just learned to let it slide.
I live in the Boston area and it is easy to mock. The accent is subject for endless amusement (and disgust). The driving really does suck and the good folks in Cambridge really are visibly “off” in ways that are particular to the area. The housing prices are out of control and the politics are just plain odd.
I lived in New Orleans to go to college. I am not sure you can actually mock New Orleans directly because the city is so over-the-top and a mockery itself in many ways. The debauchery and hedonism year round really are true, it really is that corrupt, it is hotter than hell, and there are all kinds of cultures to make fun of there.
So much to make fun of and so little time. And if we run out of jokes about Anchorage, Wasilla is only 40 minutes away and the jokes will NEVER run out in that little burg.
I am from Buffalo, and I think that has got to be one of the easiest targets in the US – Cleveland gives us a run for our money, but few other places can. The weather, the Bills, the weather, the rust belt economy, the weather, the goofy name, the weather … it never ends.
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard this:
Me: I’m from Buffalo.
Some other person: Oh, I’m sorry … ha ha ha.
Me: :mad:
I hear some jokes about Seattle, but I think most of them have a little underlying envy.
Here in St. Louis we have The World’s Largest McDonald’s Arch, the most stop signs per capita in the civilized world (which led to the birth of the famous “St. Louis stop”) and an intractable curiosity about where everyone attended high school.
Throw in a little Budweiser, frozen custard, “highway farty” and the like, and it’s a comedy gold mine.
Across the state, Kansas Citians deal with the stockyards, the Royals and Chiefs, Hallmark, that the largest city in Kansas is located in Missouri, that restaurants now call the “Kansas City strip steak” a “New York strip steak” and that their biggest claim to fame is a song from a 60 year old Rogers and Hammerstein musical.
Over here Scottsdale is one of the richest cities in the Phoenix area, locals call it Snotsdale, Snobsdale or Smutsdale (The more conservative the region is, the more strip clubs and bars it has, nice ones though )
Best Snobsdale moment: finding that 5th Avenue is very small, but it has very expensive shops and art galleries just because of the name.
Brisbane is jokingly referred to as “Brizvegas” by the locals, in ironic reference to the fact it’s really an overgrown country town with over a million people living in it.
Brisbane does have a halfway decent Casino in it, though. And legalised prostitution, which means it can claim to have Blackjack, and Hookers…
Similarly, in NZ, the town of Ashburton (about 45mins south of Christchurch) was referred to as “Ashvegas”, because the most interesting thing in town were the traffic lights.
Remember the guy trying to ban sex toys? Yeah, that was us.
Remember the debate about the flag on the state house? Yep, us again.
Remember the Harry Potter book burnings? Yeah, still us.
And the list goes on and on and on and on…
When people ask where I’m from, I always respond with “Originally? Pennsylvania” even though I only lived there till I was three.
What would people make fun of New York City for? Okay, there’s the local accent, the taxi drivers, the immigrants, Broadway and theatre, the gay subculture, the Knicks, the subways, the crime of decades past (since a lot of people don’t know how safe the city has become), the semi-mythical rudeness…
In all seriousness, the family’s planning a trip to CA and NV in November… how much hassle is it to get to Roswell from Las Vegas, assuming a rental car is available?
I come from the city (Hi DiosaBellissima!) built smack in the middle of everywhere (two hours to LA, two hours to Fresno, which is at least honest about being a farm town, four hours to San Diego, five hours to the Bay Area, five-ish hours to Vegas), which happened to put it smack in the middle of nowhere, where the three big industries are farms, oil, and country music, and where they make more baby carrots than the entire rest of the world put together. The air is like smoking a cigarette or two a day, and the making fun of your hometown can be a spectator sport.
In other words, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. With a Howitzer.
About eight minutes away from a local pocket of gays, and hippies. (And gay hippies.) A scenic, charming small town with at least two gay bars and a gay nightclub on main street. (Right next to the antique shops.)
But they hate to be deprived of their jokes, so I just learned to let it slide.
