What the hell has happened to New York City? It's like I went into hiding to finish all of my school work and research, and now that I've finally reemerged the city has been populated entirely by assholes (well, a new, more loathsome breed of assholes, anyway.)
Rather than waxing nostalgic about a place that clearly never existed, I'll freely admit that New York City has always had its fair share of jerks. That was part of its perverse charm. The intense geographic proximity experienced by everyone: lawyers, bankers, construction workers, prostitutes, cops, academics, wage slaves, crammed into a tiny space living togther put everyone on edge a little bit and slight insults rapidly erupted into shouting matches that just as rapidly disappeared. New York City used to be the living contrast to California, the capital of passive aggression, as a place where if someone didn't like something about you, they would say it to your face. There's an almost admirable quality to that degree of honesty, and I think it served its purpose as necessary safety valve, so that we didn't all just decide to kill each other one day.
But lately I've noticed a change in tone. I think I attribute it primarily to the vast infiltration of the city by fratsters - that is, post-college frat boys who work investment banker type jobs but on the weekends pretend to be bohemian and hang out in places like Williamsburg and the lower east side. My neighborhood, which borders the east village and the lower east side, has been completely overrun with this type of person, and it's a change that's even being reflected in the physicality of the neighborhood itself, with traditional small apartment buildings being torn down in favor of "luxury" high rise condos of the variety that cater to the fratster - overpriced "luxury" in the middle of an "Artsy, happening" neighborhood. So you can choose to fraternize with the common folk when you want to, and then retire to your castle overlooking the peons. Needless to say, this influx has completely killed anything that was ever fun about my neighborhood. But more than that, it's changed the way people interact with one another.
Wealthy, white New Yorkers have always felt that the world belongs to them. Nothing new there. But I think what used to temper interactions between those rich people and people from lower socioeconomic strata was a fear of reprisal. Twenty years ago, one did not walk around Harlem spouting racial epithets, it was an invitation to get stabbed or worse, and this led to rich people generally staying within a few distinct neighborhoods, to minimize their interactions with others not like them. But the modern day New York City, is, for all intents and purposes, essentially crime free. Attribute that fact to what you will (Rudy Giuliani will try and take credit for it), but I think it's been a major factor in the diaspora of fratsters from their former enclaves in areas like Murray Hill and the Upper East Side to the rest of the side. Now it's safe for these people to go wherever they want. And even more than that, that false bravado of the frat boy, the guy who "tries" to start a fight with someone while out with a bunch of friends, knowing that his friends will break it up and the "fight" will never go anywhere, seems to me (at least anecdotally) to be happening more and more often. Those "fights" can only occur in an environment where no one actually expects real violence.
An additional, enlightening effect of this demographic swing that I've observed several times now is the underlying racism that many of these individuals harbor. Wealthy, white kids from suburbia who probably grew up mouthing the mantras of diversity and tolerance, when push comes to shove, will spout the kind of racial epithets that would make a Klansman proud if they feel like they've been somewhat wronged. I've seen this with my own eyes, more and more frequently. All of which goes back to my original question: What the hell has happened to New York City?
NYC used to be a truly diverse city in the broadest sense of the word. Ethnically, religiously, culturally, economically, racially diverse in that every kind of person from every sort of background you could imagine all lived in one place, and while it was far from perfect, people managed to get along. Now? It has turned into a playground for overprivileged kids with cushy, corporate jobs to cavort while driving the prices up so high that no one from any other kind of background can afford to live in the city any more.
Given that the one of the primary underlying causes of this unfortunate swing in NYC culture seems to be the lack of crime, maybe we can do something about it. Who wants to start a crime wave with me? This city seems ripe for the picking.
Rather than waxing nostalgic about a place that clearly never existed, I'll freely admit that New York City has always had its fair share of jerks. That was part of its perverse charm. The intense geographic proximity experienced by everyone: lawyers, bankers, construction workers, prostitutes, cops, academics, wage slaves, crammed into a tiny space living togther put everyone on edge a little bit and slight insults rapidly erupted into shouting matches that just as rapidly disappeared. New York City used to be the living contrast to California, the capital of passive aggression, as a place where if someone didn't like something about you, they would say it to your face. There's an almost admirable quality to that degree of honesty, and I think it served its purpose as necessary safety valve, so that we didn't all just decide to kill each other one day.
But lately I've noticed a change in tone. I think I attribute it primarily to the vast infiltration of the city by fratsters - that is, post-college frat boys who work investment banker type jobs but on the weekends pretend to be bohemian and hang out in places like Williamsburg and the lower east side. My neighborhood, which borders the east village and the lower east side, has been completely overrun with this type of person, and it's a change that's even being reflected in the physicality of the neighborhood itself, with traditional small apartment buildings being torn down in favor of "luxury" high rise condos of the variety that cater to the fratster - overpriced "luxury" in the middle of an "Artsy, happening" neighborhood. So you can choose to fraternize with the common folk when you want to, and then retire to your castle overlooking the peons. Needless to say, this influx has completely killed anything that was ever fun about my neighborhood. But more than that, it's changed the way people interact with one another.
Wealthy, white New Yorkers have always felt that the world belongs to them. Nothing new there. But I think what used to temper interactions between those rich people and people from lower socioeconomic strata was a fear of reprisal. Twenty years ago, one did not walk around Harlem spouting racial epithets, it was an invitation to get stabbed or worse, and this led to rich people generally staying within a few distinct neighborhoods, to minimize their interactions with others not like them. But the modern day New York City, is, for all intents and purposes, essentially crime free. Attribute that fact to what you will (Rudy Giuliani will try and take credit for it), but I think it's been a major factor in the diaspora of fratsters from their former enclaves in areas like Murray Hill and the Upper East Side to the rest of the side. Now it's safe for these people to go wherever they want. And even more than that, that false bravado of the frat boy, the guy who "tries" to start a fight with someone while out with a bunch of friends, knowing that his friends will break it up and the "fight" will never go anywhere, seems to me (at least anecdotally) to be happening more and more often. Those "fights" can only occur in an environment where no one actually expects real violence.
An additional, enlightening effect of this demographic swing that I've observed several times now is the underlying racism that many of these individuals harbor. Wealthy, white kids from suburbia who probably grew up mouthing the mantras of diversity and tolerance, when push comes to shove, will spout the kind of racial epithets that would make a Klansman proud if they feel like they've been somewhat wronged. I've seen this with my own eyes, more and more frequently. All of which goes back to my original question: What the hell has happened to New York City?
NYC used to be a truly diverse city in the broadest sense of the word. Ethnically, religiously, culturally, economically, racially diverse in that every kind of person from every sort of background you could imagine all lived in one place, and while it was far from perfect, people managed to get along. Now? It has turned into a playground for overprivileged kids with cushy, corporate jobs to cavort while driving the prices up so high that no one from any other kind of background can afford to live in the city any more.
Given that the one of the primary underlying causes of this unfortunate swing in NYC culture seems to be the lack of crime, maybe we can do something about it. Who wants to start a crime wave with me? This city seems ripe for the picking.
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All you need is some high end drugs within their culture and is starts eating itself inside out. However, it's ugly, ugly to watch.
~cheers