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How To Hate On Los Angeles In 5 Easy Steps
Photo by theJASONHARDWICKshow via LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr
Feel like penning a screed against Los Angeles? You're in luck! There's no need to reinvent the wheel.
We found a handy guide put together by Leighton Woodhouse over at the Huffington Post that boils down the tried-and-true cliches about Los Angeles into five easy categories. His impetus for the list is the latest installment in the genre from Vice that calls Los Angeles "the undisputed worst place in the entire world."
It's not hard and you don't need to be a veteran who has spent any amount of appreciable time in the city. In fact, transplants tend to be naturals at it! (If you don't mind the grumbling from locals.) You'll be fine as long as you cover all five of these categories: epic traffic, weird people, actors (wait, didn't he already say weird people?), seasonless weather and disaster (earthquakes, wildfires, etc.).
Also, it helps if you make sweeping generalizations about the entire city without ever bothering to leave the Westside. Woodhouse writes: "It's just one big mob of Jenna Elfmans here, or at least it is from this café on Abbott Kinney all the way to La Cienega, which I don't go past because then it gets dangerous, and then past that it's too far to drive in all the crazy TRAFFIC!"
Bonus points if you spot a woman painting her nails on the 405 freeway, which captures the horrendous nature of traffic and our totally superficial populace in one tidy image.
Woodhouse missed one of our favorites: Los Angeles as a total cultural backwater. This is a favorite of The New York Times, which once quipped that "interest in culture starts and ends with movie grosses and who is on the cover of Vanity Fair." (Of course, the Times also has a habit of belatedly "discovering" great things locals already knew about.)
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Further reading:
L.A. Newbie Claims 'Los Angeles Is the Worst Place Ever'
Los Angeles Rant Claims 'It Sucks Here'
One Man's Love Letter to L.A.: If You Don't Like It Here, 'Get The Fuck Out'
Third-Generation Angeleno Joseph Gordon-Levitt Explains Why He Moved From NYC Back To LA
Om Shanti STFU: Local Yoga Studio Owner Hates L.A. Residents, Thinks We're Vain and Full of Botox
The New York Times Discovers This Crazy Place Called the La Brea Tar Pits
In An Article Supposedly About L.A.'s Art Scene, New York Times Assures Its Readership That New York's Is Still Way, Way Better
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You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
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