Welcome to Boston

If you woke up today feeling a strange sense of peace and harmony in the world, as if everything was happening exactly as it should, it's probably because Thought Catalog posted another insanely vapid, empty listicle devoid of anything even remotely approaching insight or actual information appealing to anyone besides a generation raised with highly attuned olfactory palates for the nuances of their own special snowflake excrement. Join me, won't you, in considering the stupidest introduction to the city of Boston I've read besides every single other time anyone else has ever written this exact same article. Except the time I did.This is the most Thought Catalogy piece I've ever seen since the last one. 

 

The content itself is execrable enough, but I have to say the most alarming part for me here is the author bio. "Gaby Dunn is an editor at Thought Catalog and a columnist for the New York Times Magazine." 

A few excerpts:  

1. It’s pronounced Woo-ster (Worcester) and Gloss-ter (Gloucester).

There are a ton of these cities in Boston and you better get them right. Things are not always pronounced intuitively. If you mess this up, you will get laughed at.

No you won't. Also, Boston is a city made up of other cities located an hour or more from the actual city, in case you weren't aware.

In related news, that accent is real. It is so, so real. But you gotta respect it.

No you don't.  That accent is fucking stupid and that's coming from someone who has it. 

Those people are true Bostonians, and at this point, for me, even the most grating version of that accent makes me warm and nostalgic.

Miss those poor people I interacted with from a distance sometimes. 

I have had many boyfriends (and one girlfriend) who spoke that way. That being said, if you tell me to “pahk the cah” and you’re being cute, I will stab you in the neck.

Oh, edgy content. Also, no you won't, because no one from Boston has ever said "pahk the cah." People get shot here, not stabbed so much. Maybe you're thinking of the Boston city of Edinburgh, Scotland. That's a hard name to pronounce too. 

2. The T closes at 12:30 a.m. Bars close at 2 a.m.

Kind of appalling, but the trains, which are various colored lines called “the T” or the “MBTA” stop before the bars close. Also this ain’t New York. This city sleeps.

New York City is the city that never sleeps. Two for two on describing cities by their most famous cliches.

3. Give Allston a chance.

This place is generally regarded as a craphole, but I lived in Allston for years and I loved it. You know the Austin, TX saying “Keep Austin Weird?” I once saw graffiti on a wall that said “Keep Allston Shitty.”

The rent there is cheap. (I had a huge house with two other people for less than $1,500.) The bars are great. (Check out Model Cafe and the Silhouette.) And the house parties do not stop. (They really don’t.) Allston also has nice thrift stores, good restaurants (Sunset Grill and Tap has over 400 types of beer! Bagel Rising is delicious and hipster!), and fun music venues. Actually, don’t go to Allston. Keep it for the dedicated, proud few.

Like me, a person who lived there in college and moved the fuck out as soon as I could. You know, real Bostonians. 

4. Sports is not a joke.

Not. A. Joke. There’s liking a sports franchise and then there is pure, bone-deep, familial dedication which knows no bounds and will be defended with violence if need be. Boston sports riots make other more political riots look like ticker tape parades. People regularly die in Boston sports riots. They. Die.

Regularly die. 

I’ve had numerous friends who will stop on the street and yell “Yankees suck!” at strangers wearing New York hats and shirts. They’ll literally be in the middle of talking about puppies or rainbows and then they’ll turn, vitriol spewing from their gnarled mouths, yell “Yankees suck!” with a vengeance and then turn back pleasantly to the conversation at hand. That’s how innate this stuff is.

Yo, your friends aren't Bostonians, they're assholes who happen to be from Boston. Also, hot news item, Boston is a city known for having sports teams. Insightful analysis.

5. Somehow people are super liberal and still super racist.

Boston is one of those weird cities with, it feels like, two faces. One face is the one that supported marriage equality and is home to one of the biggest gay pride parades. The other is WICKED racist. Southie doesn’t let gay people march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Every so often there’s a hullabaloo where the cops arrested a black person in Cambridge only to find out he’s a Harvard professor. The neighborhoods can be very racially divided.

One time I was listening to a podcast with friends and the Indian comedian being interviewed started to talk about Boston. We paused the clip and bet on what kind of racist thing probably happened to him there. Lo and behold: He was called a racial slur on the street. We were joking about it, but the serious legacy of busing and segregation lingers.

Cool story bro. 

6. There’s a pretty good arts scene for museums, music and comedy. Take advantage of it.

Shows at the Middle East! Shows at the Comedy Studio! Shows at Improv Asylum or Improv Boston! Art shows at the MFA or the ICA! So much good stuff has come out of Boston. Did you know Louie C.K. and Steven Wright and David Cross and Bill Burr started in Boston? Craig Finn of The Hold Steady went to Boston College. The Modern Lovers, Dropkick Murphys, Passion Pit, New Kids on The Block, Magnetic Fields. You get the picture.

Boston’s a creative place, but without all the glitz and schmaltz of New York or LA. Take advantage of what you can see while it’s still here!

So weird that this big city has produced people that you've heard of that went on to do things. I didn't realize that that was the way the world worked. Huh.  

10. The Fens is where gay prostitution happens. Now you know.

It’s like the Elephant Graveyard. You are never to go there, Simba.

What. The. Fuck?

11. Boston is a series of neighborhoods, all with distinct personalities.

One of the best things about Boston is how unique each area is. The neighborhoods are like a diverse groups of friends and the people that live in them are so specific to those places. There’s deep neighborhood pride, on top of devotion and love for the entire city of Boston. There’s neighborhoods plucked straight from The Town or The Departed right next to the academic elitism that is Harvard University right next to the drunken bacchanalia that is Boston University or Comm Ave.

Someone who lives in Jamaica Plain will not hesitate to tell you the best bars in Jamaica Plain. 

A girl in Davis Square will tell you you have to get coffee at Diesel because it’s the best. A guy in Dorchester knows every inch of his block and every neighbor he’s had for his entire life.

So what you're trying to tell me here, in this piece written on a hugely popular website, shared 6,000 times on Facebook and Twitter somehow, is that a city that exists has history, produces products that people consume, and that its residents know where the places to get food and drinks nearest to their specific homes are?   Someone get this girl a column in the New York Times Magazine.