Peter Shih moved from New York City to a startup incubator in San Francisco and developed an online payment processing company called Celery.
So far, it’s your typical Silicon Valley success story.
But something happened along the way west to California’s Golden Gate. Shih decided he didn’t like the City by the Bay.
Didn’t like it at all.
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Last week Shih wrote a rant called “10 Things I Hate About You: The San Francisco Edition” on a site called Medium. The original post has since been removed, but several other bay area websites have picked it up.
Shih’s criticisms of San Francisco include transportation: “Why the f*%^ would I want to go anywhere if I have to choose between spending an hour on a bus where homeless people publicly defecate or an equally enraging hour of circling the same 4 street blocks trying to find parking on a 45 degree hill?”
His take on the women there, whom he calls 49ers: “No, not the football team, they’re great. I’m referring to all the girls who are obviously 4’s and behave like they are 9’s. Just because San Francisco has the worst Female to Male ratio in the known universe doesn’t give you the right to be a b*tch all the time.”
On getting a taxi: “Transvestite to Taxi ratio being quite literally off the charts, it is impossible to get home safely, especially if you live far from downtown.”
On bicyclists: “Next time I see one of you f*%@ers bomb through a crosswalk and almost mow down a row of pedestrians I’m going to clothesline you.”
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Then there’s the weather. Mark Twain is thought to have once said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” It’s not clear whether Twain actually said this, but anyone who knows San Francisco weather gets the joke. Shih kicks it up a notch: “I hate how the weather here is like a woman who is constantly PMSing.” Nice.
That’s when the Shih really hit the fan.
San Franciscans are up in arms that someone should call their beautiful, beloved city a toilet. Signs have popped up suggesting Shih go back to the Big Apple.
Anisse Gross wrote a counterblog on Medium called “10 Ways to Open Your Heart to San Francisco.” She suggests Shih “try walking,” and as for the weather being like a woman PMS-ing, “I’m going to put aside my entire dissertation on your hatred of women (including the fact that a uterus is the reason why you are here!)”
Folks, hold on to your uterus. Just for a moment.
As someone who has had to put up with San Francisco’s superiority complex my entire life, I am enjoying watching my northern neighbor get itself in a collective living wage wedgie because someone dared to point out the Tenderloin makes LA’s Skid Row look like Beverly Hills.
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I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and all I ever hear from folks in the Bay Area is how great they are, and how much SoCal sucks. Yes, we in the southern part of the state steal your water. Yes, we are superficial. Yes, we have no meaningful culture center. At least we know it! People in Los Angeles look at themselves in the mirror and have no illusions—we need more Botox. On the other hand, look up the definition of “smug” in the dictionary, and you’ll see a map of San Francisco. Which you canNOT call San Fran. Or Frisco.
Don’t get me wrong. I love San Francisco, love the look of it, the restaurants, the quirkiness, the edge. But there’s a reason nearly all the big money in Silicon Valley is not in San Francisco. It’s a messy, dirty, funny, lovely, wonderful place. It’s the brother who is always the life of the party, but you’d never lend him money. L.A. is the gold digging ex-wife, but at least she knows it. And the weather’s better.
