"The government doesn't do enough where it needs to and does too much where it shouldn't" is 100% correct. Just paying more taxes or voting for someone "new" doesn't fix the problem because the government itself is broken.

LA is just cyberpunk but worse

Born and raised in the Bay and lived in LA for 25 years before escaping. When people romanticize LA or California in general, I always say, "You're picturing Beverly Hills 90210 as your life. Your life will ACTUALLY be more like Boys in the Hood or Friday." LA is what I called "hard living". We live like New Yorkers EXCEPT you don't get New York - you just get Kardashians.

Never understood why people think moving to LA is going to magically make your problems go away and you’ll become famous.

I don't know if it was a conscious decision, but I really like that you left the loud noise of the traffic in. It's a pretty sad but fitting description of living in a city.

A lot of people compare the homeless situation to “slums” in other countries. Nah man, slums are actual neighborhoods, with cultural relevance, small businesses, food, sanitation services, churches, shopping, and local village medics. It’s a legit community. Completely different from this, where you are literally shunned from society. This is way worse. You’re literally on your own.

This whole time I thought GTAV NPCs were lifeless characters when in reality they were modeled after the actual people living in LA

“The government doesn’t do enough where they should, and does too much where they shouldn’t”. Great line Gembob

When i was a kid, my dad took me to LA for a weekend to show me how wonderful the city was. But i'll never forget when we drove past Beverly Hills, and the sign had, on the other side of the street, a homeless man crying in pain. This dichotomy made me realise this city is just not for me.

as a former high school teacher, I think this film should be shown to students. People have to experience the importance of community before they become adukts. People have to see the absence of community before they realize something is missing.

Was born and raised in LA until i was 21 before moving to WA state. I’m 30 now and it’s been one of the best decisions i’ve made. California is borderline unlivable, not just financially but spiritually and mentally.

This is New York too. But after having had family there since the 1850's, and knowing what has happened during that period, I've concluded, at the age of 67, that there was never was a "good" period. Maybe cities are just flawed; maybe humans themselves are flawed. But sometimes little pieces of hope come through.

Man, everyone sounds so defeated... I traveled to LA once in 2015 and while the city is blessed with an all-year Mediterranean climate, everyone was so unhappy and barely getting by.

There always seems to be this stigma that the US is the go to place, and that California and LA are the romanticized wonderlands of vast wealth, influence and culture. But typically when I see LA, I tend to see a world where celebrities live upstairs in luxury and everyone else fights for the breadcrumbs downstairs, in rundown subways and through the filth of city streets, flickering lights and waste dumps...to me it hits less like a dream land but more like a harsh reality of what it is to be a person trying to make a living in a world that cares more about money than talent or hard work. Maybe it seems a bit pessimistic, not every place holds the sentiment and a lot of people probably enjoy LA. I just don't tend to see the allure.

What that guy said about LA and new LA is so true. I’m an LA native who recently moved back after 12 years away (to help out family) and this new LA is shocking and soulless. Beverly Hills and that whole side has always been soulless, but it’s spreading out to other areas where community has been strong. It’s depressing.

I’m 2nd generation Californian raised 20mins outside of Los Angeles. You see all these people on the streets and in shelters, now account for the people living in their cars, with friends & family, couch surfing and the ones literally one bad day from losing their homes….. it’s so sad 😢

I’ve been waiting for this video and now it’s here. I can see why people are leaving California but at the same time. A-lot of people from California are moving to my northwestern state and making more unaffordable than ever.

"Along the coast, and through the valley, is a river of headlights, that flows with the energy of 10 million souls. Each one trapped in a box, racing towards their next paycheck." gave me goosebumps. sad reality

LA is tough - I lived in Hollywood and Echo Park for several years - there are some wonderful things, but you pay a lot to live by some very sad homeless encampments - there are so many people in serious need of mental health wandering the streets and on public transportation. You feel helpless to aid them. I moved to NYC last year - I’m much happier.

I'm a 5th Generation Angelino and this video made me literally cry. Los Angeles has turned into the biggest-richest Ghetto in the world. This video is so spot on and L.A. is without a doubt failing in everyway. The fact that they keep building and ignore the pains of SoCal is obvious and sickening. Growing up on the West Side and knowing most everyone in the neighborhoods it was a whole different world, a different Los Angeles. Now it's a overcrowded, under managed mess. God Bless the producers of this video. Remember....Be the solution not the problem! GOD IS GOOD!

I’m a truck driver, and I gotta say, that little bit about “time” and spending it with the ones you love really hit home for me. Went to art school, college debt, eventually had to drive truck. A helluva lot more fun when my wife goes with me.

This doc is about 200% more cyberpunk than the recent game release. And it's about reality. I've lived in CA my whole life, visited metro areas in nor and so cal. Cyberpunk is straight up happening now, folks. It's not speculative fiction. It's not even fiction at all, just an exaggeration of current actual reality, held up in a magnification mirror. It wasn't when it was made, it was a warning. A warning that the powers that be did not heed, but instead, saw as a blueprint to self enrichment.

That story of that family that made good money buying that house and allowed him to live in it while paying it off to them was heart warming. We should all strive to be like that family

I love that line, “if you can hold onto your soul, you have everything to gain” That literally fits LA life SOOO perfectly

I’m 20 born n raised in LA. This man portrayed it more accurately in the first minute than people have done in Hollywood for the past 60 years.

Been in LA for almost 13 years and I am so done! This film speaks to many of the reasons why I am exiting to another country.

I work in the film industry, but I only made it a year in LA before I had enough. Even though that city had the most 'opportunity' for me I couldn't see myself living my life there. The hours spent in traffic, money spent on parking tickets, uneasy feeling of crime all around you, and the annoying people who live there. It is honestly a sick society where everything is more expensive than it is actually worth. It is true that there are a lot of fantastic creative people who live there too, but in my experience they are few and far between the opportunists and grifters who lurk in every corner of the industry there. It is all sickening to live in the epitome of urban sprawl and F tier urban planning. I was literally so sick of it that I moved to Canada.

As someone who is originally from OC/LA area and also a veteran I can’t even afford to buy a single family home making 100k a year by myself with zero debt and a 700 credit score. It’s absolutely crazy, I moved from California to Mexico City about 2 years ago and it’s been an absolute blessing being able to truly enjoy my life with real friendships and not be in house debt. I’m 26 right now and of course with the lower cost of living here in Mexico City I’ve been able to invest and save more money. No one wants to be poor and it’s sad to see so many people that created culture in California are getting kicked out of their own homes. There should be regulations on foreign property investors and idk maybe incentives for locals to buy properties, I don’t have the answers but it is truly sad to see so much culture is being eradicated by technology, consumerism, and GREEEEEDD.

GemBob is aptly named because that man's a gem. Another terrific, hard-hitting video that this ridiculous website is unworthy of. Great stuff, mate.

I love what that woman said, there’s so many with mental health issues because we think we don’t have time for each other. People are more invested in ego and self than they are with helping others, even if helping someone comes in the form of something as simple as a real conversation. I’m sad I live here.

Once big tech moves in, the entire area changes. Housing goes up, strip malls start to appear, the local community is forever altered and the whole area is really geared for people under 30 (the average tech worker). Families can't survive here, they move further out to the suburbs. This is what happened in the bay area, then I moved to a small beach town in SoCal and the same thing happened here. As soon as big tech moved in, the town got flooded with apartment complexes full of tech workers, the housing went up and the people essentially got priced out of their own home town. Big tech will keep doing that. They love to move into a cheap area and essentially gentrify it for the worse because the locals will get priced out and their standard and style of living will change forever.

I came to Los Angeles 53 years ago by accident. My father's boss was killed in an airplane crash, the business closed and my father found a job in Los Angeles. This is a weird place. It is a place where the focus is on beauty, fame and wealth. For the most part, nothing else matters. It is very hard to maintain friendships here because this is so much focus on status. If you aren't rich, you better fake it. A 2 bedroom home in a dangerous neighborhood costs a million dollars. Many people drive cars that cost more than their annual salary. It's very common to meet condescending, unfriendly people. Keeping up with Kardashians is not a TV show here, it is a lifestyle. BTW, most people are living far beyond their means and are actually broke, living on credit. As a single person, it costs me around $5000 a month to live a fairly frugal life here. There are a zillion things to do in the city and great dining; however, the traffic here makes it near impossible to get to the cool things to do.

"the government doesn't do enough where it needs to and does too much where it shouldn't" fuck man, gembob pretty much hit the nail on the head

My mate lived in LA for two years doing makeup on film stars. She has lived in a few countries, she has never wanted to go back and has no good things to say about it. She said it was too hot and too superficial. She also retrained as an ecologist

If you open your eyes; this is just a node. The entirety of the industrial society looks and feels like this. Empty, soulless. Great production and narrative. Very artful, poetic and soulful/philosophical. Spot on analysis!

The "you ok?" From pink sweater green hair shows more compassion than the entirety of the LA population. I can't believe I ever wanted to live in that horrible place.

"What do you consider to be valuable?" "Nothing you can buy here." No truer words were ever spoken.

in recent years I realized how cities are literally designed to destroy your soul. I lived in Paris in my late 20s and now in London in my late 30s and I see how in my 20s I was very blind to some of these issues and quite enjoyed the city life whereas 10 years later I felt like I was in some horrible matrix. I`m now moving to the countryside 😄

The City of Angels: behind the beauty lies ugliness; behind the nice weather is a brewing storm; behind the wealth is extreme poverty; behind the lies is the truth.

and there are people who consciously welcome this _dystopia_ with open arms to satisfy their cyberpunk dreams or simply out of egoism, wich is even the most sadistic.

It never made sense to me how the state could hold such a massive poverty problem side by side with one of the worlds most profitable industries (cinema).

The more I watch these videos the more thankful I am to live in small town America.

sitting in the comfort of my home watching this knowing those veterans sacrificed so much for us and to see them like that just hurts my soul

This is fucking insane. When he confronted about being a filmmaker in the industry I was in l.a about three weeks ago my boy and I are both tatted up so for some reason one way or another, everyone would approach us to ask what we do and ask to connect. Everyone there is like a Npc in Skyrim it’s crazy

“The government doesn’t do enough where it needs to and does too much where it shouldnt” I could NOT agree more this is a perfect explanation

34:45 “where the promises of the future are nothing more than simulations of the past”…that line was brilliant and wildly accurate. The world, as us older heads knew and loved it, is gone.

46:31 Bryan’s story of his church coming together and paying his family’s rent was incredible (hard to imagine this happening outside of a faith community)

it's mind-boggling to observe and compare the interactions between the homeless and the "regular" residents of Los Angeles. The badass leader of the veterans may be eccentric, but he gives off way more genuine intentions compared to the girl at the beginning of the video, who asks if the journalist was a part of the "film industry."

My daughter and I were living in a hotel and had no place to stay none of my friends and family would let us stay with them. Huge wake up call. I had a family member that literally had a spare bedroom

I felt an intense anxiety listening to these people's stories. The absence of a face (for every business) while talking to the people affected by it really highlights the problem in LA. Varied, unique, breathing people offering their mind while these faceless brands (offering focused, calculated, mechanisms) loom in the background gives a haunting look into the future roadmap for that city. Bigger companies, less communities, giant rat trap, divisive bubbles. The more faceless figures that appear, the less cohesive the community. How can you hold someone accountable, socially, who doesn't exist socially? facebook/twitter/social media isn't a social interaction between communities and corporations, it's a veil/advertisement/tool they use to blend in with the crowd and feign ignorance when people ask how they're benefitting the rest of the city. I'd use the image of wolves among sheep, but it's more like a feeder covered in barbed wire that the sheep have to sacrifice comfort for survival... As it slowly bleeds them to death.

So from what I can gather, Gembob definitely hit a bolo when he said “don’t record this”, he’s not a veteran, and he keeps making bad choices even after getting assistance time and time again, while maintaining its taking away his “freedom” and that’s why he doesn’t like it.

Wow, you are an excellent documentary maker. So thought provoking, eye opening and most of all reminds one of their values and what we often lose sight of. Thank you. I'm very happy to have found your channel. And grateful.

As someone who was born and raised in a suburb of LA and lived there until 2 years ago, you got some of the facts which is more than most people get. So bravo! Maybe one of these days I’ll sit down and record my own ideas of why LA is dead/dying and why there’s nothing left there for anyone anymore. The problem isn’t America as a whole as many people like to think, but more regional and cultural to CA. It’s all greed.

I live near LA and can 100% confirm there are a lot of aspiring actors/actresses and models there. Especially as a photographer or film maker the "looking to connect" networking culture is real. Not saying it's inherently a bad thing, it's just what you can expect.

Well put together. Thank you for sharing this with us. Human connection and the capacity for love still underlies all of the bad that we see happening in these areas.

The man that was talking about people not just needing a home and handling things on a case-by-case basis speaks the truth, some people just don’t know how to stay within the parameters of societal rules.I thought that was so insightful and true what he said.

Bryan seems like a good guy, it sucks seeing people who been in L.A they whole life see it become a hellhole

Hearing about the Armenians of LA reminds me a ton of the Lithuanians of Chicago. Both are an ethnic group that have had to endure hardships and came together in America due to those areas being lands of opportunities. Now with these areas decaying many move to the suburbs

This was a great watch! Very thoughtful and well made. Thank you!

the quality of this video is absolutely insane, I know you made this 10 month ago but I hope you read this because you should be proud for what you have put out here, one of the best things ive ever watched

"Capitalizing off the spiritual needs of a materialist society" wow, well said.

As a LA native who's lived on crenshaw my entire life the community is really shifting. It's way different from what it used be hell 5-6 years ago. Little markets getting shut down and being replaced with 8 story apartments for ridiculous prices. Traffic becoming worse and parking being hell even on a somewhat quite street. It's becoming impossible to live here. I know people from other states don't want to here this but native Californians are going to move out in even bigger numbers. It's just not sustainable or even fun to live here anymore.

This was really great! Thank you for making this!!!❤

I finally escaped in 2019 after 30 years. Best decision ever. This film is spot on and I couldn't take it anymore. Very inhumane place.

Living in a 3rd world country, seeing this whole chaos happening in a state like LA is like seeing a sneak peek of a dystopian, post apocalyptic future that is very likely to happen to us, its like literally a foresight to me

I'm a trucker from the Midwest. Everytime I go to California it's the most disturbing experience I've had.

I appreciate the enormous amount of work and sheer grit and of course, talent, that went into your work.

Take a moment to take in that in Finland it's illegal to be homeless, meaning your city is obligated to give you the help/support for you to be able to have your own home no matter your situation.

My dad lived his whole life there and was still trying to be an actor by the time I was in my late 20s. But he really just ended up being a limo driver, eventually dying of a heroin overdose. His youth in LA was just drug-addled lunacy. Yet he remembers an idyllic childhood. Eventually his neighborhood was taken over by gangs Even his rich friend took advantage of his family's wealth to be a junkie. He eventually kicked it though. I didn't live my whole life there, just a few years in Orange county. I'd never live in LA. The only LA thing I am grateful for is David Lynch.

I genuinely think that glink is one of the most underrated channels on this entire website with these well made and insightful documentaries.Can’t wait for whatever you do next

L.A. and San Francisco have a two part problem. The first is that unlike NYC it made ZERO effort to build high rise apartments for the poor. NYC has thousands of high rise "projects" that kept untold numbers off the streets and in schools to receive a basic education. Los Angeles used all their land to develop luxury properties. Miami and many Florida ciries are making this same mistake right now. The second problem is that there has been a truly historic influx of wealth from all over the world into SF and LA. Between tech, real estate, luxury, and entertainment the buying power of the wealthy has exploded. The idea that a TV personality like Kim Kardashian and her kid sister could become billionaires was unheard of 30 years ago. The chasm between the rich and the regular working class of has become a Grand Canyon. If millionaires and billionaires are moving into your county... move out and rent your property. Your cost of living will explode. But therein lies the problem. Once the middle class get priced out the void is not filled, it no longer makes sense for banks to keep branches open, supermarkets and gas stations close, drifters move into the area and crime will soon follow. This is the same mistake Florida cities are making. People want to claim its about liberal politicians but let me ask you why is that the conservative states have the lowest incomes, most uninsured, highest gun crimes, and contribute the least to federal taxes? How long has Beckley West Virginia been run down and crime ridden? How about Mobile Alabama? South Carolina have more mass shootings in 2022 than all of NYC. The second

Awesome production! Great editing and amazing sound!!

Went to LA for the first time in September and it is a miserable place. Very unsettling seeing mansions in Beverly Hills with full streets if homeless tents a block away.

You recorded so many times near my house. You were like a couple blocks away from my mom and dad’s house multiple times. Makes me realize how small but big LA is at the same time

The Bible says *What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his own soul?*

Terrificly profound and thoughtful film!! I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and LA/Hollywood. I haven't lived there for almost 20 years now, but when I went back to take care of some business about 10 years ago I couldn't believe all of the people rushing around to seemingly go nowhere. The realization that really hit me was that I had been one of those people too!! Even though it was the proverbial "infant" of what LA has now become, I do miss growing up in the Valley and Hollywood the way it was back in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s. I live in Mexico now and though I am a US Citizen, born and raised, I imagine I would feel like a real Foriegner in LA now..

I’m sick of people telling me to move from the uk to LA.

I stumbled into the first part of this series accidently one night while scrolling through KZfaq. As someone who lives and works on a farm and has never lived in a city, seeing what life is like somewhere like LA was so strange and confronting. Then after a few months I started to see simmilar things appearing in my home town, this radical shift from a farming and mining community to a weird, wanky place full of hipsters and Tesla's who moved out from the city as they can no longer afford to live there. Because of this, people who I grew up with are priced out of their home town, forced to move back in with parents or to other places, with no hope of being able to afford to have something of their own. I'd love to come and visit LA one day, to see really truly how different it is to my home, because I still don't believe that it's real, that a place that seems so cruel, and miserable and full of nothing but false dreams and materialistic desire could somehow lure 20+ million people to it. Heck even the thought of having more people in one city than my entire country has in it freaks me out. I think this documentary has done an excellent job at highlighting not only the issues that LA has, but that modern human society has. I feel like more people need to see both part 1 and 2 of this series as it really would wake alot of people up. From all of us down in Australia, all of us who are affected by this crazy property price increase, and all of us who might never have seen this side of the human story, i thank you. The work you put into this has changed many people's lives, hopefully for the better. I look forward to the next part

thank you for making this, Yehpar.

This is one of the best reports I've seen in a long time, now a days most reporting has a personal biased agenda made for a specific group but this was pure information with the only agenda I see is the betterment of humanity.

This is insane the amount of effort you put into showing the problems of LA and why its too late for fixing. Your film should be forced fed to politicians to show the problems of “Their” modern cities. As a person from Las Vegas I see too many people coming to Vegas and not being able to live anymore because of the rising of property value. Thank you for shining light on this major problem that still persist in modern America.

"Homeless" and "Veteran"? Goes to show what this country thinks about it's people. How can this happen in a "first world" country? I fear things are getting much worse before getting better.

LA is a place devoid of soul, meaning and character, and any attempts at authenticity only reeks of futile desperation. That's why I left working in Hollywood and moved to Spain with no plans of going back.

Brilliantly done, so insightful and deep, I totally agree with all that was said. Thankyou so much, god bless you ♡

Went to LA for the first time last November and was absolutely SHOCKED by the stark nakedness of the poverty and suffering. Everywhere, you see misery. Many of the locals treat them as if they don’t exist at all, or like something even lower than the dregs of humanity. It’s sickening.

I was on the verge of tears when that guy was talking about how he got his house. Very moving. This is journalism. Great work

Wow, what an amazingly made documentary! P.s. love the piano playing and the Beatles songs played on piano hehe

Really beautiful production man thank you

Your journalism is exceptional. Modern journalists should take notes.

I’m in nyc and shit is fucked here too no sense of community or spiritual sense it’s everyone out for themselves

Wonderful documentary. Fantastically written with thoughtful narrative!!

Los Angeles is a hellscape. I moved to Indianapolis and it's the best decision I've ever made. You couldn't drag me back to CA. I have nightmares just thinking about it. I used to live down the street from SpaceX in Gardena. It's the most ghetto spot you've ever seen but there's literally no space in LA so you'll see luxury apartments and corporations like SpaceX in the middle of the ghetto, it's bizarre.

The homeless are not a community, but a collection of individuals. Wow, that is some obvious thinking that is also really impactful. Everything from 11:00 with that person was brilliant. Unfortunately, people making decisions aren't going to take advice from a person they understand to be beneath them. I'm barely into this video, but I'm enjoying it so far. You have some good prose. Great work.

The problem with trying to fix any of this is the fact that the people with any real power just don't give a shit, and possibly even prefer it this way.

This was pretty deep. I’m from Northern Cali but left in the 1980s. Thanks for putting this together.

This documentary is awesome..reminds me of the epic docs about the Sixties. Def one of my new favs ! Super informative🙌🏽

I was in an Uber and a homeless man asked the driver to go slowly over his mattress to wring out the water. English wasn’t the driver’s first or second language so he thought he was being mugged. I’ll never forget that moment.

Man that part about stopping to talk to someone being not a waste of time but an oppurtunity for a collective conscious to experience itself speaks so true to me. When I was around 15 16 I would always stop and talk to homeless people and I really really felt that, those conversations taught me more than 7 hours of school. But yeah I thought that was a great catch man. Awesome doc, subbed.

Love your work just subscribed!! Thankyou

the cold hard truth is that nothing, absolutely nothing has value. Humans assign value to material things and non-material things. great video thank you for making this. love the ''true value'' part.