JJ with more high quality 'tent as usual

Denny's has always been "America's Diner" but I visited Vancouver and saw the sign on a Denny's said "Canada's Diner". Still not over it.

Thankfully my hometown still has a very unique little mom-and-pop restaurant called "Cracker Barrel." Tons of local and regional antiques covering the walls, VERY UNIQUE.

"Keep weird", a phrase that apparently originated in Austin in 2000 and quickly transplanted all over the continent, is a surprisingly common sentiment, one which seems to equate to "we are a college town" in many cases, applying to cities such as Santa Cruz, Berkeley, and Ann Arbor. All three could also to some extent be described as "smaller Portland".

Noticed almost every city in the USA has a “unique” immersive Van Gogh experience

The “Irish pub”. I am from NYC, which had a large number of immigrants from Ireland, and I grew up assuming that the (many) Irish pubs were an artifact of this immigrant community. Then I went to places that didn’t have a lot of Irish immigrants, and found pubs that were identical in every detail. It turns out that they are sold as prefab kits, so you can set up an “authentic Irish pub” anywhere in the world.

The vast majority of local culture is heavily influenced by national culture these days. Even a place like Portland or Austin, which market themselves as "weird," are dominated by strip malls and cul de sacs. Another example are zoos. A lot of people seem to think that their local zoo is exceptionally amazing for some reason, but most zoos, at least in the United States, are quite similar.

You know who has the worst case of perceived individuality? Summer camps. Everyone thinks their summer camp was so unique, when there's SO MUCH overlap in songs, games, birthday traditions, jokes about the food, etc.

I distinctly remember seeing a Facebook post about someone's home state that clearly had been taken from somewhere else and had the original state name scratched out and replaced. People still commented stuff like "Yep, that's [state] for you." I had already started realizing a lot of Midwest states had the same kitschy sayings, but that was definitely what hammered it home for me.

"Keep ____ weird" t-shirts and bumper stickers.

Every city in the South - "We are unique because we are a modern city with microbreweries, cuisines from around the world, an emerging tech hub but we celebrate our tradition like our southern charm, take things a little slower, have manners, the best fried chicken and bbq, but you don't know heat until you experience our heat".

I thought everything in this video was obvious until he hit me with the squirrel truth bomb at the end and I was crushed. Damn it...I really thought my college's love/hate relationship with the squirrels and desire to make them the mascot was just us...

I often see places claim as a joke that their “official bird” is the mosquito. As a kid I thought that was a joke unique to my province until I saw it in touristy places when I travelled as an adult.

There is an entire Geoguessr map called “needles” or something of the sort, because now many cities around the world have their own observation tower like the Space Needle

The more interconnected the world, the less unique each city is. I would say New York, London and Singapore are all more similar to each other today than they are to their 1970s version for example. The further back you go, the more unique those cities would have been.

The weather thing became a pet peeve of mine while I lived in Vancouver, but with a slight twist. There seemed to be this collective denial of Vancouver's winter climate. Vancouverites would boast about the mild winters and how it "almost never snows", but for five winters in a row during my time there, it would snow hard enough that public transit would crawl to a standstill, busses unable to climb the gentlest of slopes, skytrains stuck for an hour at a time, university exams canceled and delayed. And every single year, I would hear the excuse "well it never snows here, it's no wonder the city isn't prepared!" 🤦‍♂️ maybe I just got unlucky with my winters.

Hey JJ! Long time fan, but excitedly this is maybe the first time I think I actually have a specific example I'd love to share about. I live in Texas, and when i was touring different universities in high school to see where I wanted to go, I first went to the University of Texas in Austin. Their tour guide made a huge deal not just about the campus squirrels, but that there was an albino squirrel that had been spotted around campus, and that he's a bit of a local mythical celebrity, talking about him in the way someone would about Bigfoot. They also said that students who see the albino squirrel will get an A on their next exam. That was all good and fun, until I toured my hometown Denton's University of North Texas, where lo and behold, the tour guide said the *exact* same thing. UNT even named their squirrel "Lucky", and after being a student here for 4 years, I can tell you the level of local stardom this albino squirrel has obtained is ridiculous, he's frequently seen in cartoon graphics standing right next to our school's mascot, and is commonly seen as our second mascot! It always cracks me up when people talk about it like it's unique to us. I've only toured schools in Texas so I'm not sure if specifically an albino squirrel is a uniquely Texan thing, but I thought it was really funny, and particularly felt called out when you brought up that part of the video. UNT's Lucky tradition goes so far that the poor little guy usually gets run over once a year and there's a huge vigil set out for him, and the university will "secretly" purchase a new albino squirrel to release on campus. There's even a bar/restaurant just off campus that uses Lucky as a mascot/theme! Really crazy stuff, great video!

This may be more prevalent in the rust belt, but everybody in my parent’s generation would talk about how they could get a great paying job out of high school at one the many factories, but their town was uniquely affected by X plant closing, and it hasn’t recovered since.

Another one for universities: "when [x] university was being constructed, the campus designers were so smart they didn't make the concrete paths, they just lets students walk over the grass, and then they just paved over where there was no grass!"

When I realized that University of North Texas wasn’t the only school with a legendary albino squirrel that if you saw it was supposed to give you good luck on whatever exam you were headed to, wasn’t unique to UNT, I was kind of let down. It’s nice to feel special, but when you find out it’s a lie, it’s worse than feeling ordinary.

I remember reading about fun things to do in every city and every single city said they have “a great craft beer scene.” I’m not sure why cities think beer is so unique

One I remember seeing on Twitter a lot is people from NYC insisting that bodegas are unique to them in some way. Bodegas are just small family-owned convenience stores under a different name, and every major city in North America has these. And yet New Yorkers insist for some reason that actually their bodegas are different. As for personal experience, I think this idea that each city has its unique food culture is perpetuated a lot. I'm from Québec City, and while it is true that we have one of the highest rates of restaurants per capita, thanks to tourism, this idea that the food we serve is specific or particular to Québec City is a bit misleading. I'm sure you can find restaurants in Montreal, or whatever, serving the same "unique Québécois flavours, that a lot of the restaurants in Québec City claim to serve. The incessant battle for being the best place to eat poutine, I think, is a good example of this.

When I lived in Toronto, it was proudly described as "the most multicultural city in the world." When I moved to London, England, it was proudly described as "the most multicultural city in the world." I found this annoying, but I got an explanation from a British paper: the same London agency was hired by both cities and sold them the same concept, which works because it's impossible to measure

I remember reading a reddit thread about how "eating things with ranch dressing" was a Midwestern thing. Ranch dressing was invented in California and is common pretty much everywhere in the US

Cleveland has the opposite with one of its traditions. We have a “clam bake” which is a Fall tradition, sort of like a Louisiana crawfish boil. I was surprised to find out that not only are we the only place outside of the east coast to have a “clam bake” but that our version is distinctly different from the New England tradition. I found out when I joined the army and nobody but my Boston friend knew what I was talking about, we completely disagreed on what a clam bake looked like.

Every metro area in the USA also has: 1) “the weather man everyone trusts” 2) a seedy furniture or appliance place that constantly goes out of business or has a most annoying commercial 3) local personal injury “ambulance chaser” law firms so heavily advertised you cannot escape knowing their catch phrase.

Once saw a drawing for a generic European city where just about every major city is split by a river, has local landmark church(es), some cobblestone path near the city center, big chain stores like Lidl, possibly a public tram system of sorts, a boulevard & parks, small bars close to each other, cafés of varying fanciness from casual to high-class historical place, Functionalist/Soviet-style Brutalist concrete blocks for affordable housing, old town left over from a big fire, possibly a very distinct railway station, ethnic restaurants, possibly an American-inspired business district (glass high rises) and so forth. There may be some narrow roads from the past and in recent years there's been ever more need and want for more accessible cycling & walking paths. Distances between cities & towns are generally less longer than in NA but there are some exceptions within Europe. Local river may or may not be some shade of brown due to muddiness. Parking can be a nightmare. City has either a fancy old-style main city library or a more (post-)modern take on a library building. Local flea market, a funny plastic junk store with possibly overpriced snacks to amuse the tourists and young people etc. The map I'm thinking of was made by Malachi Ray Rempen in 2018, "Map of every European city" from Itchy Feet comic. He also has an "every American city" version of the same concept.

What I learned from this video was less that my city isn't special (it isn't, I knew that when I moved here) and more that JJ had a very sheltered idea of what was unique to Vancouver.

As I'm born, raised, and still live in Thailand, this will be about Thailand! So I used to go to school in the Thung Khru district of Bangkok, which has a very famous road named "Pracha Uthit Road" running through it, which in turn made the neighborhood known as the "Pracha Uthit" neighborhood. "Pracha Uthit" in Thai literally translates to "People/Citizens Donated", as in the citizens of the area gave the land to the government / royal family for infrastructure purposes. Growing up, I thought that there was only one "Pracha Uthit" road and area in Bangkok, but I later found out that there exists 4-5 others spread throughout Bangkok, like Huai Khwang or Don Mueang. Because the name literally signifies that it was land given to the government by the citizens, it's no surprise that it's common elsewhere as well, but it didn't click in my head why it's called that until I was older. The Pracha Uthit I'm familiar with just so happens to be the one most people (who doesn't particularly live near any of them than the other) think of first when thinking about the name.

i remember vividly a few years ago when i was furious and heartbroken to learn that "if you don't like the weather in x, wait five minutes" wasn't a uniquely colorado phrase

Growing up in Lakeland Florida in the 70s, we had a Red Lobster (and it was great back then). I always assumed it was a big national chain because as I grew up and traveled, there always seemed to be a Red Lobster wherever I went. Later on I found out that the one we went to growing up was the first and only one back then. The Red Lobster and I spread our wings and crossed the country together. My town did have a special place but I never knew it.

It's funny you listed 96.7 KISS FM, in Austin. It actually use to be a locally ran Top 40 radio- KHFI in which the local personalities would travel around to school pep rallies and be really big in community. The personalities and station were so popular they had produced a calendar every year that was highly coveted. And this was in the 90s.

I think the entire western US applies it's roll-through stop sign logic to Californians. Every state I've been to I've heard people complain about California drivers. My anecdotal evidence backs it up too. In California stuff that you'd totally get pulled over for in Nevada is just normal driving.

As a young adult who grew up in the suburbs of a red (conservative) state, friends and I would often fantasize about moving to a blue state where everyone would agree with our views. After living in multiple cities in multiple states, both red and blue, it's become very obvious that ALL suburbs/rural areas lean conservative and ALL urban areas lean more liberal. This should have been obvious from looking at an election results map by county, but for whatever reason I think a lot of people still believe "everyone from California is a democrat" or "everyone from Texas is a republican."

I'm Indian, and I've seen autorickshaws often appear on city merchandise and memorabilia targeted at tourists, for several Indian cities. The funny thing is that autorickshaws are a common form of transport all over asia and several other parts of the world too, but cities seem to like to use them as if they're unique icons for their particular place.

Driving around California years ago I realized that every city had the same street names recycled in every location. I would be interested in comparing the aesthetic of streets by the same name, noting any similarities. Locally, just in my city, the exact same clusters of businesses are cut and pasted repeatedly in every direction. And menus for “ethnic” restaurants all feature the same dishes, which tastes the same because it is all mass produced by the same food distribution company, no matter how mom-and-pop you thought it would be.

My college also mythologized the squirrel problem, even claiming some long-gone founder from the 19th century imported squirrels to campus to make it more unique (which implies they were foreign to central illinois at some point??)

See, having grown up in the woods, I assumed the opposite. I assumed that all big cities basically have the same stores and services and when I started living in cities I found it somewhat inconvenient that there were so many differences

Inversely I was shocked to discover that peanut butter was uniquely American, while living in Prague I found it in the “ethnic section” and the label was a personified peanut with a bandana flag and cowboy boots/hat, the backspace was reminiscent of the Mojave, often biscuit spread was the replacement

As someone who has researched different US cities pretty extensively I kind of already knew most of these points, yet I still disagree that cities are all homogeneous. Or at least the really famous North American ones (like LA, SF, NYC, Boston, etc.) still do have a lot of unique characteristics. However I think a lot of the smaller, less historic cities do tend to feel the same, especially due to how car orientated they are

My college here in the US had a tradition of taking lunch trays from the cafeteria and using them to sled down a nearby hill when it snowed. Thinking back now, this is probably common to most colleges and universities that are in areas that see regular snowfall.

I would say road design and laws are the one thing that seems different from city to city. The “Michigan Left” is the one thing we find confuses the hell out of visitors.

The first time I heard the saying "Don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes", I was in Colorado and from my experience it actually has meaning there, but then again I grew up near LA, which is one of the few places where you do not ever hear this saying as it is one of the most meteorologically uneventful places on the planet.

my university has an obsession with our white squirrels. they used to be a common image used in university press and club logos and were on a lot of our university merch. i was extremely disappointed to find out that white squirrels sightings are a common occurrence on most college campuses due to the lack of natural predators making the white fur mutation more common.

I also fell for the trap of thinking The Old Spaghetti Factory was a one of a kind place. I grew up in St. Louis and the OSF in St. Louis is located in a historic part of the city, so credit for OSF for playing into that. I sure got fooled.

Another thought: every city since at least as far back as the 2000s has a heavily gentrified neighborhood that will have some sampling of these: a third wave coffee shop, a used record store, a brunch place, a microbrewery, a niche bookstore, a boutique store, a dive bar, a small music venue, a sushi place, or “a local institution.” Bonus points if the neighborhood name includes “district”, or starts with “The”. These all may be locally owned businesses and even one-offs at that, but it’s roughly the same stuff you can get in every other gentrified neighborhood.

I am positive that every location in the world that constructs some major piece of infrastructure or transportation system has a loudmouth group of citizens complaining that it’s behind schedule and preposterously over budget which is making this location the laughingstock of the country, while also claiming that when [blank] built a similar thing, they did it in half the time at half the cost, and we can’t do it because of our bloated and inefficient local government which is full of crooks taking bribes.

My favorite is the "If you don't like the weather in (city), just wait 5 minutes." In the book The Sportswriter, one character says this to another and he responds with "They say that everywhere." After reading that I noticed that, yeah, everyone says that about their area.

A lot of these “just our city things” are neither one city nor every city, but far more regional than most people expect. I never heard the “winter and construction” joke until I moved north from Texas to the Midwest. Because it never freezes in Houston, construction can happen all year round because the water in concrete won’t freeze. Also, we never really had potholes to fix because no road salt. And people do legitimately drive differently in different places, but only regionally. The biggest cities usually have more unique things about them, while smaller cities are almost always incredibly similar within their regions. Youngstown Ohio and South Bend Indiana are very similar. But also iHeart Radio is a shockingly large, relatively new monopoly. They bought up a bunch of radio stations in the late 90s and early 00s.

I've found in several cities I've visited there's a "Mid City" that's extremely similar. Basically it's a working class area that was built up prewar and has been disinvested/neglected, and now it's becoming gentrified with the old brick storefronts turning into microbreweries, moderately expensive restaurants, boutiques, etc.

A horrible dating scene is something that every city thinks it uniquely has, but I suspect dating just sucks. I live in atlanta and can’t tell you how many memes about the dating scene here I’ve seen.

People in cities are like: oh yeah our city is built over *the tunnels* , I guess that is just a specific coincidence that happened in our particular city ( every city is like this )

speaking of the squirrel thing though, when I went on college tours about 5-6 years ago, I visited 12 schools and over half of them had a tour guide that mentioned "we have a squirrel watching club, and a squirrel watching club watching club" as a way to prove how quirky they were

I have a veeeery specific Mexican example. I'm from Monterrey and growing up I would hear this van that sold sweet pastries (pan dulce) on the street, and they play music on a loudspeaker so neighbors would come out and buy bread, kind of like an ice cream truck. But the music they played was a kind of campy and silly song from a classic Mexican movie: "el panadero con el pan". Anyway, I grew up thinking that this was a quirky thing from my neighborhood, and then was disappointed to realize that in fact bread is sold with this music in many parts of Mexico.

When bands or artist say on stage your cities crowd is the best and they are so glad to be back.

That radio thing was my first experience realizing some of my cities culture was outsourced, especially the celebrity interviews where it sounds like our local DJ is interviewing the celebrity, when in reality they're dubbed-in. That said, I live in Montreal so there are some cultural oddities I don't see in other Canadian cities

I attended the University of Waterloo, and it was a part of the culture to complain about our unique problem of Canada geese overpopulation. The one time I was talking to my brother who attended Western University, and he kept going on about how his school has a unique Canada geese problem and how they should become the school's mascot, a phrase I had heard at Waterloo countless times 🤦‍♂️

I love it when the opposite of this happens. There's this soft drink that's stocked everywhere, even as a mixer in bars. I thought for the longest time it was a multinational brand, turns out its tiny and the factory is 8 miles from my house...

Not sure if this totally counts but when I moved out of Minneapolis I was surprised to see the sheer amount of Thai restaurants in other places. I just thought Minneapolis had a bunch of them.

There's homogeneity of variation among cities as well. Take, for instance, local restaurants, bars, breweries, etc. This seems to be a trend that is cities across the US (and Canada) are embracing. But the menus seem to be the same with subtle variation. Lots of steak and burger places. Breweries all tend to offer a similar experience. Differences in flavors seem to be regional, which might make your city somewhat distinct from a city in another region, but not distinct from other cities within your region. There are still some cities, mostly smaller cities and towns, that lack a foodie culture. But for those that are developing one, it's hardly unique.

Coming from Ohio, something that a lot of Ohioans like to be very ironically proud of is our conservative Christian billboards (the most famous of which is probably one that just says “HELL IS REAL” on the interstate between Columbus and Cincinnati which I regularly see on t-shirts and postcards) when in actuality, weird conservative Christian billboards are fairly common in every single Midwest or middle American state. This isn’t really something people feel is unique to their city, since these mostly appear in rural areas, but I think it’s still an interesting example of people feeling something is unique to their location when it’s actually extremely common.

The “Blaming Bad drivers on the community next door, particularly over ethnic stereotypes” is absolutely true in Toronto, with the standard joke being to blame bad drivers as being from Brampton (A Suburb that is Majority of Indian Decent).

Shoutout to RPI, which doesn't just have the squirrel trope but also straight up has a cult dedicated to them on Discord.

Pretty much every University Ad is exactly the same. Diverse students, someone doing lab experiments, ballet or dance, people sitting on grass talking, voiceover about exploring your future, sports, wearing a Tshirt that says grow.

A hilarious international example; I was shocked and extremely annoyed when I moved to Manchester, England, to see Canada Geese among the parks. I thought Canada Geese would, obviously, be a North American phenomenon and I could be free from them.. turns out they're an invasive species in Europe. Sorry y'all!

My friend’s mom went to NYC and when she told people she was from Wisconsin, they asked if knew what a crosswalk was and how it worked.

Every city I'm familiar with has its "second city". These are cities that are usually nearby, slightly smaller, but otherwise near identical to their more famous counterpart. This is usually the city that locals go to to do local things and have fun as the famous city always ends up covered in tourists. I live near Seattle and our second city is Tacoma. It's just a smaller and more compact version of the Seattle experience.

I actually had the exact opposite revelation a few years ago. There's a small restauraunt chain around the Savannah, GA area named Carey Hilliard's, which I always thought was a big national chain, but they actually only have about seven locations. I only found out once I moved out of the area.

"Don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes" I have traveled this country for years, lived in 11 different states and visted countless towns and cities. Everyone says that and everyone thinks it's unique to their town.

I also like the opposite of the 'old spaghetti factory' situation. There's a chain of fast food restaurants around here that I assumed were a national chain... Turns out that they pretty much only exist in my county.

Thanks!

I've noticed many cities seem to think being on a river is a defining feature of the city's geography when the vast majority of cities are located near some kind of river.

Here in Germany, especially in the southern parts, a lot of towns tend to have their own beer brand. Unfortunately in most cases the local brewery was at some point bought by a much bigger brewery that just sticks a different label on their own beer to mask it as local.

My cousin had a roommate back in our 20s that was a local radio dj, they did games, showed up to concerts and sports events and all kinds of whacky shit and he even sounded kinda like that kiss fm guy so that was trippy to hear

New Jersey and wawa, a gas station that serves deli food. Every single state has a chain of upscale gas stations that sell a large variety of drinks and fresh prepared foods.

I love how in every small city there's a small beer factory that produced "the best beer ever" as locals says but every time it's just a normal lager.

Sometimes it works the other way; in Oregon there’s a service stop chain called Plaid Pantry, basically like 7-11. It’s such a generic place that I always assumed it was national. Absolutely nothing in the store would give you any indication that it was a regional thing.

I'm from West Des Moines, Iowa, and growing up, I always thought my city was so uninteresting and boring because it fell prey to strip malls and cookie cutter houses like any suburb. The skyline you see in the endcard is Des Moines, the closest "major" city to me as It's a five minute drive to downtown from where I live and the city border is about five blocks down the street. I couldn't apply most of these trends to DSM, aside from the weather meme, i continue to find new and unique things to like about it.

Thanks for this, I knew I wasn’t crazy when I discovered this in my travels lol

For me, it's food halls in historic buildings. I used to think that Atlanta's Ponce City Market (a food hall located in an old Sears distribution wearhouse built in 1925) was a unique gem of the city, but then I started to visit places like Reading Market in Philadelphia or Chelsea Market in New York City. It made me realize that historic food halls are less of an oddity unique to a city and more of the natural result of market forces. It's much easier to monetize a massive historic industrial building inside a major populated area by stuffing it full of vendors than keeping its original purpose.

I'd be curious to see a video about "suburban/small town monoculture" too. I guess people are more likely to assume suburbs are monocultural than cities, but I grew up in a suburban town that prided itself on being a uniquely "picturesque small town." Off the top of my head, one example is the "historic old town area w/ railroad history & an antique mall." Although I know not *every* suburb/small town has this, and specific details differ, overall that origin story is incredibly common (especially in the west; I grew up in Oregon, US). "It was all farms/lumberjacks/pioneers out here until The Big Railroad Station arrived & brought Opportunities & Growth." I have to admit that I have no clue how common it is East of the Mississippi, because I haven't traveled much out there, lol. I suppose it's probably more of a "regional/west" thing. But I've seen it everywhere from South Dakota, to California, to Alaska, to British Columbia, with surprisingly small deviations in the "railroad/pioneers/gold rush" themes. And always at least 1 antique mall nearby.

I took my friend to the airport in Detroit last week and not even 5 minutes away there was a Falun Gong billboard next to the highway and it reminded me of your video

The every city saying “we have 2 seasons” thing is funny to me bc in Boston the joke is “we’re one of the only cities with 4 seasons” lol but we also make the same “our weather is so crazy jokes” bc we’ll go back and forth from like foot of snow to 70 degree weather back to a foot of snow week to week sometimes

I usually take the opposite stance, that the city I Iive in is "normal," and I am sometimes pleasantly surprised, or disturbed, by the things I discover are unique about it.

In addition to squirrels, I am impressed how many universities feature a sinking library because architects didn't account for the weight of books! Never mind that the weight of the concrete or structure vastly outweighs the weight of the people and books, and if anything, weight problems would first lead to the floors' cracking rather than the whole building's sinking. (It is worth noting that I heard a riff at Tulane in New Orleans where the library, being on piles, is static, but the whole city is sinking, instead.)

You should do this for places around the world. Those are the ones that really get me.

I like how you ended the video with a shot of my hometown Des Moines.

2:10 actually i had a similar experience. My family is from Wisconsin primarily. Whenever I would visit, I'd notice a ton of piggly wiggly grocery stores in nearly every city. For many years, I assumed that piggly wiggly was a wisconsin specific grocery store. Only like 2 years ago did I in fact learn that not only is it NOT an exclusively wisconsin chain, its actually arguably a bigger deal in the south, where it was actually founded as the very first self service grocery chain

I imagine the squirrel thing is because college campuses are big wide giant grass fields with trees and safe from cars as opposed to the directly surrounding areas which may be more concrete and developed. They also have a unique food source in the form of human's trash and I would imagine additionally humans have a hand in deterring many predators, especially during the day.

Hey J.J it’s been many a year since I’ve seen you! I remember way back when we were doing some design work together I believe. Good points in your video, lots of things in most cities isn’t unique, hell half of all the Vancouver bars are owned by the same people just under different names!

There’s that small-town “historic Main Street” thing that you see just about everywhere! While there might be some local history actually present like a museum, the aesthetic is roughly the same. Also, I thought kissfm was just a Milwaukee area thing in middle school. I’m curious to know if any other university has Canadian geese instead of squirrels- the geese have their own Facebook page and everything.

Great one as usual, Wacky Timothy. Growing up in the Dallas/Fort Worth area of Texas, I frequented barbecue joints that the area was “famous” for. When I went to Tennessee for the first time, I found that Memphis and Nashville were “famous” for their barbecue as well. On trips to Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, the Carolinas, Alabama and even New York, I found that they all had cities which were “famous” for their barbecue. Turns out that barbecue is just a broadly American thing. And before anyone asks - Yes, this betrayal is the reason I’m vegan now.

10:19-11:50 I am from Atlanta, and I do want to acknowledge that we regularly think the weather in Atlanta is very unpredictable here, despite the fact that the climate of Georgia is very similar to other cities at similar latitudes with mild climates. However, I think the idea of having two seasons, winter and road construction is more of an idea in northern cities on this continent due to the colder winters that more easily degrade the roads. In southern cities I think people usually say stuff like, we have two seasons, comfortable weather and the interior of a hot oven.

One thing I'm still unsure about, is something called Christmas Tree Lane. It's just a normal street of houses, but during December it's kind of renamed "Christmas Tree Lane" and everyone on the street decorates their houses more than the usual person. I saw someone on twitter explain the exact same concept, also named Christmas Tree Lane. Either he is from my city or it's a common thing edit: after a simple google search, I think it's not very common but a few other California cities do this, and we stole it.

Not so much a thing I was shocked about or anything, but at my college (in central NJ), we had plenty of squirrels, but we also had a ton of deer that would just roam around the outskirts and sometimes the main areas of campus.

The funny thing is that even in places with very stable weather like Seattle, the "wait 10 minutes" joke still doesn't die. The goalposts just shift and "slightly less rain" starts to count as a significant change in the weather.

When I was in college, I thought Buffalo had a "unique food truck culture" After I visited some other cities, I determined we had a pretty normal food truck culture, haha

man's ripped away my entire geological identity in mere moments 😩 holy shit

I once heard a city council member going on and on about a waterfront redevelopment project that was unique and an example for the nation of reclaiming our neglected parts of the center of the city. All I could think was, "you need to do a little traveling, my friend."

In my town basically everything bad about traffic, prices, hunting and fishing yields, and pollution can be blamed on the mystical ‘Californians’. For example, people always say they did a California stop when they roll through a stop sign