The Absolute Worst

Have you seen this online kerfuffle about Los Angeles being "the absolute worst place ever"? I almost posted about this last week when the first article was published, but new developments seemed to keep cropping up, so I waited to see how it played out to get a more comprehensive look at the blow back. 

I clicked the original Vice article expecting to laugh. When I saw it was written by the recent transplant from London, I was actually excited. Being well aware of the jolt to the system a move from London to Los Angeles can present, I settled in with some coffee and got ready to be delighted by the usual pithy, insightful Britishisms that inevitably result from British critiques of American culture. 

This was not that. I'm sure the article was meant to bait us, meant to be incendiary, but still. By the end, I almost felt like the article was being written by some Chav wearing Burberry and chains from the bleakest bus stop in Essex, absolutely appalled by anything other than what they're used to.

Then there was this retort from the LAist, calling out the laziness and oddball choices of which things 'the writer' felt actually made LA the worst place ever. Doing some investigating into Jamie Lee Curtis Taete, it turns out that JLCT is yet another amateur making it very difficult for professionals. Not really a writer at all. A blogger. A mostly non-verbal commentator.  Maybe I'm just grouchy with people who have blogs with no words. 

Personally, I'm with the doll that is Joseph Gordon-Levitt. What is there to love? About anywhere. I'm not by nature a critical person. I definitely don't believe in un-constructive criticism of the host. I've been on the receiving end of too many wonderful host cities and people to feel like that.  And at the end of the day, I think, you moved here. Make the best of it. But some people carve their niche in the world by hating everything. The absolute worst thing is that the mood in the world-- at least in America-- has moved in that direction enough to give them some readership. 

All in all, I'd say the very first commenter on the Vice article had the right idea. Not just about LA, but about everywhere:

"The worst and I mean the WORST thing about LA is all the people who move here from some other place and then proceed to bitch about it. YOU are the reason the traffic is so bad and the rents are so high." Speak on, Dennis Cruz, Facilities Manager at the Gersh Agency.