Honestly, calling it "tech" is a bit of an insult to the idea of tech. Sure, there are some good examples in San Francisco, like Pixar. Ed Catmull is a genius who invented 3d animation, that's technology. Google at the very least helped shape the internet as we know it today, and Apple can at least be called a real competitor to Microsoft for desktops (although Linux is objectively superior).
Now look at where we are, bullshit apps that are rapidly enshittifying before our eyes and a bunch of useless startups probably created as part of a money laundering scheme. Speaking of which, since no one wants to live alongside CHUDs, the Bay Area has the most overvalued housing in the world. I'm from bumfuck nowhere, and I always looked up to San Francisco growing up, and seeing it in its gentrified state makes my blood boil: the wealthy have no taste and their wealth is wasted on them.
Why can't they go fuck off to Martha's vineyard or some antebellum south town instead of safe havens for weirdos?
I grew up in SF. Seeing techbros turn it and the surrounding region into shit has been wild.
A few months ago I was in DOGPATCH of all places. I walked past this door with a friend, discussing gentrification (yes really) and some Ring privacy-invasion device loudly exclaimed “YOU ARE BEING RECORDED.” No I am not joking. I just had to stand in awe of the banality of bourgeois bullshit that’s completely taken over the city.
Still have some sentimental attachment to the people that used to be here though. The only places where things haven’t changed much are the small airports there. Instructors and whatnot are the same people from 25 years ago. The pay is still shit too. I watched the airplanes there as a kid. It inspired my current career. A relative was an air traffic controller and I got to go up in the tower cab a bunch. Lots of fun memories. But today you drive out to the next street over and you’re reminded that techbros own the place. The current airport controllers barely earn a living wage (which has remained constant even as everything else becomes exponentially more expensive). Even the airplane owners from back then, obviously wealthy individuals are feeling the crunch. When an airplane owner complains about the cost of groceries you have a problem. Nowadays those places kinda feel like microcosms where people pretend it’s still 1990. Everything is just kinda sad now. A better writer would probably put it more eloquently.
Obviously the 90s were pretty bad too. But the people weren’t quite as insufferable about it.
Feel this. My dad started flying general aviation right after I was born & those little airports really do seem like the last bastion of Bay Area crankery, you know the little stucco houses with a bunch of ham radio antennas deeply set back behind a spooky uninviting front yard littered with pine needle duff. Of course such dens were owned by some un-self-aware engineer working for a weapons company, but at least it felt more unique than the sandstone and glass architecture built on top of places like the bowling alley my birthday parties were held at—also owned by un-self-aware engineers employed by weapons manufactures.
Sucks I'm colorblind and got prescribed antidepressants once so I can never get a pilots license. Guess I just stay here to get bombarded by the passive aggressive JewBelong billboards smugly accusing me of antisemitism during my commute.
My ideal vision of a communist utopia involves many, many spreadsheets. Better than capitalist spreadsheets in quality and quantity. Apologies to all the anarchists out there in advance.
Been a while since I been back but I think at least half of the billboards were for HR software. I feel at though you've been beaten to the punch re: shovels.