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Comment by tathougies | Hacker News Reader

I'd argue SF is more culturally important than New York City. New York is important economically and politically and historically, but culturally speaking, today it's a bit of a drag. Other than broadway (which is really a minority of culture anyway), I'm not sure what important thing happens there. LA is probably the most culturally important city in the US, followed by San Francisco. Nashville or New Orleans is probably a more important city culturally than New York. This is in terms of production of culture, rather a place where one may consume it, for which New York would win easily.

New York has a lot of culture, diversity, and history, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't really define American culture in the way Californian cities do.

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> SF is more culturally important than New York City

I lived in SF for 25 years and this isn't remotely true. Indeed, it might have been remotely true 20 years ago when artists could afford to live there. There used to be dance studios everywhere. SF Carnival was huge. Burning Man got its start at Baker Beach. No more. Anything cultural in SF now is store bought.

Anyways, that's what I think. How do you think SF defines American culture now in 2019? What is it that we export more web presences?

> Anyways, that's what I think. How do you think SF defines American culture now in 2019? What is it that we export more web presences?

Almost every American 'culture war' issue has been centered in SF. This is incredibly important, more so than movies, plays, or art. It's one thing to produce a popular play. It is something completely different to be so influential that you manage to convince an entire nation to give up on their tens of thousands of years old definition of marriage. And yes, SF was the center of that. It was the center of the 'sexual revolution', arguably the kick off to all the culture war issues we see today. Regardless of how you feel about them, it is incredibly difficult to argue that the values often espoused in and around SF are not winning.

That culture war nonsense is projected by media onto SF (or CA). It isn’t SF defining American culture. Again, SF may have had some cultural leadership back in the 60s but no one walks around in bell bottoms anymore. SF isn’t that different from other major cities. It has the same problems. Maybe I’m missing something but this place is way too busy to care about culture.

I disagree... Things don't get projected by the media arbitrarily.

The issue is that you are assuming culture means cultural products -- movies, songs, books, etc. I'm talking about culture as fundamental values. In my opinion, the cultural products are a product of culture. In the grand arc of history, cultural artifacts are influenced in design by the culture that made them, not vice versa.

> no one walks around in bell bottoms anymore

Right, that's because the bell bottom wearers all became really rich selling you the phone you're always on. The idea that this is not also part of culture is some kind of weird double think.

The three most important cultural cities on the planet at the moment are NYC, Tokyo, and Paris. Those are followed by London and L.A. After that there's probably a good fight among a dozen other places (Rome, Shanghai, Seoul, etc.). San Francisco probably arrives in the tier after that one. It's influential, and arguably #1 for tech, but it's on nobody's list as a top tier producer of cultural output.

Lived in SF for a decade. Beautiful city, and I loved it (before tech), but it’s not even close.

NYC has half of the US TV and film industry. Pick a random movie or TV show, and it’s probably set in New York, if not filmed there. Turn on a talking head on cable TV...it’s probably coming from a studio in Manhattan. I encounter film productions literally every day while walking around the city.

The global finance industry. The global fashion industry. Essentially all theater. Art production and sales. Sothebys and Christie’s. The Tony awards and The Thanksgiving day parade. The Yankees, Mets, Rangers, etc. The Met, MOMA, Whitney, Guggenheim and about a dozen others. All of these are either based in NYC, or split the honor with LA.

Like I said, I love SF, but culturally, outside of tech it’s a backwater.

Any other cities besides NYC and LA that aren't "cultural backwaters"? Or just 2?

Impacts: American standup culture, the Apollo, Madison Square Garden, major sports town, U.S. Open, haute cuisine, hipster cuisine, disproportionately popular setting for American stories, Sesame Street, fashion, Brooklyn, hip hop, punk, architecture, historical sites, world class museums, ballet, opera, film festivals, The New York Times, the New Yorker, etc.

It's not hard to make a top twenty ranking of films set in NYC, regardless of what you pick in what order. Same for TV shows. How many cities get to say that?

But, yeah, other than that there is not much of a cultural impact.

I'm not making the case that it had the biggest or best cultural impact, but it's definitely important, even if you think it is a drag, which I guess you're allowed to think that, but it's subjective at best.

curious to why you state SF is culturally important?

It doesn't seem to have a lot of production of note in the arts or media (TV, movies, games, music, books, etc).

It also doesn't seem culturally aligned with the rest of the USA, so I think that would be evidence to point to it not having a big influence or impact on US culture.

SF has produced important musicians (Janis Joplin, Train, Journey, Jon Fogerty) and authors (Jack London, Kerouac, Steinbeck arguably, if you consider Salinas part of the bay area). While not as populated as NYC, the effect of SF is disproportionately large. Whether you agree or disagree with its morals, the summer of love, the hippie movement, the LGBT activism, the tech scene, etc has disproportionately affected not only America, but the entire world.

> It also doesn't seem culturally aligned with the rest of the USA, so I think that would be evidence to point to it not having a big influence or impact on US culture.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, can you explain? I would actually argue the opposite. Almost all modern American culture wars have been centered around San Francisco in some way, shape, or form.

Speaking as someone who has spent their entire life on the West Coast, I almost never even think about New York or the East Coast. To me, it's the east coast that seems disconnected from reality.

Lucasfilm? Pixar? EA? It's not exactly hard to spot the impact on pop culture.

Not everyone has your local knowledge. Thanks for sharing information in a non condescending way.

I always thought Pixar was close to Oakland, not SF. Lucasfilm is a pretty good pick. But there are a lot of other higher impact studios in SoCal.

EA's talent is spread all over the globe. What games are developed in SF? I don't see how a corp HQ that mostly buys studios after they make a breakout game as a center of culture (center of power, yes. culture, no)

For what it's worth, I'm including Oakland and San Jose as part of SF, because they are part of the Bay Area. This is fair. People include NYC as one city, even though Manhattan is arguable the center of NYC and NYC spans five counties. Same with LA -- people include cultural centers in LA that are not in LA city proper. Greater LA is absolutely huge compared to the bay.

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