Points Of Contention: Californians
Things we can all agree on. Or not.
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Like all cities catering to the well-educated and conscientious, Austin brews self-entitlement the way Seattle brews lattes. While it’s all too easy to tout the city’s advantages—from a live-and-let-live philosophy that borders on hegemony to the vibrant music scene and so on—that civic pride can oh-so-easily slide into vanity. As such, Austinites can be brutal about slamming anything they see as threatening their cherished way of life. Here Decider examines some of the city’s most common Points Of Contention and debates whether they deserve their bad rap. This edition: those supposed lifestyle-destroying villains known as "Californians."
Point Of Contention: Californians
Why you hate it: Live in Austin for a few weeks, and you’ll inevitably hear talk of the city’s “good old days,” i.e. around two decades ago when Austin was slightly more hedonistic. When the city’s technology sector began to boom in the ‘90s, it caused an influx of businesses from California to start moving to town, which some Austinites saw as a harbinger of doom. Californians, according to somewhat popular opinion, are career-driven, SUV-driving, tasteless numbskulls whose thirst for fine wines, outdoor shopping, homes in the suburbs, and grilled mahi-mahi make a mockery of everything Austin supposedly stands for—which is to say: cheap beer, loud music, and dead-end jobs.
Why you're right: Spend 10 minutes in I-35 traffic and it’s hard not to feel like Austin is getting abnormally crowded, and it’s all too easy to point the finger at Westlake-inhabiting Sacramento expats bringing a little taste of the 405 to Texas with their unnecessarily long commutes. But even more irritating is that some of these refugees act as though they’re "slumming it" here, as if our fair city doesn’t offer quite the same class of culture or refinement they were used to in their home state. You'll pick up on this through a negative comment overheard at a nice restaurant, say, and coupled with a quick appraisal of the speaker’s bleached smile and probable nose job, it's hard not to walk away with the impression that these people are both superficial and a little stuck-up.
Why you're wrong: Not unlike Austin, California is prone to mythos, much of which involves our supposedly being dominated by hippies and freaks "keepin' it weird”—which, let's face it, has always been more of a subculture at best, mixed in with a larger population that's also made up of good ol' boys, engineering students, and frat dudes (both in school and out). The current fixation on California is just the latest scapegoat distracting from the fact that things inevitably change and everybody gets older. And you, Austin transplant, didn’t you once dream of escaping to a town where tattoos and dyed hair wouldn’t be synonymous with a propensity for STDs and petty theft, and where a person could start hitting mimosas before noon with nary an eyebrow raised? Guess what: Austin is still that town, and thanks to the Californian invasion (and the money it's pumped into the city), there are way more tattoo parlors, salons, and restaurants with patios where you can enjoy that mimosa, or any damn thing you want. (Like mahi-mahi, which is actually pretty delicious.) When Utah starts taking over, then let's talk.
