Is there a hatred of California in the USA?

[Ihateregistering1]

I've lived in California, and I've lived in two states that have seen large influxes of people from California in recent years (Texas and Colorado) and here's where the 'California hate' comes from:

California has consistently ranked over the past few years as one of the worst places to do business in the US, thanks to a combination of high taxes, lots of regulation, expensive real estate, and high cost of living, thus many have moved to other states for their greater job opportunities. Now, many believe that California's issues are a result of it's largely very left-wing politics. Thus, many people fear that Californians will move in, vote for the same kind of politicians they voted for back in Cali, and thus cause the same problems that Cali faces now (high taxes, crippling debt, loads of regulations, terrible business environment, etc.).

Obviously that's a very simple explanation, and people can agree or disagree on it, but it's what I've seen cause most 'California hate'.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Isn't California the state where all arbitration happens when you get into a law based disagreement with tech companies? It's the only thing I can think of to hold against the place and I might be completely off the mark on that too.

[hr]

[small][sub]*I'm not a US citizen though so what do I know?[/sub][/small]

 

[Steve Waltz]

Up here in Oregon, hatred of California used to be synonymous with hatred of tourists. Now 75% of the population is from California... [sub][sub]They're the ones who constantly complain about the rain.[/sub][/sub]

Exact same thing over here in Nevada. And our tourism problem is way worse; you can?t even go to the grocery store without seeing a California license plate. And yet, despite a good chunk of our population being from California, there?s still a lot of hatred towards towards it. I?ve heard the term ?California refugee? more than once. XD

Maybe it?s because we live next to California that we have the ?California problem" that the OP is asking about.

 

[VyseRogueKing]

Californian here dude. You just gotta hella chillax and go with the flow. Don't know where all these haters come from.

Seriously though never heard much hate for Californians and I've been all around the country. Although I do know Jonathan Coulton has a song about hating California because it's too nice here.

 

[beastro]

Politically it's because government policies are driving the state into the ground, like Stockton going bankrupt or policies that the polity push for that will wind up making the state one they don't want to live in anymore.

Already it's a complaint in many bordering states that an exodus of Leftists has begun that are now trying to do to their new states what they did to their old one before resuming yet another exodus further north and east.

Within Cali it's a breakdown between resentment of Left-wing Southern Cali dominating politics and looking at the north as source of income to maintain their entitlements and the North wanting to get the state out of the red or event separate and become their own state so they can be more fairly represented - pretty much the divide and resentment between Eastern and Western Canada on a smaller scale.

Newfoundlanders are friendly to the point of creepy

Newfoundlanders are stereotyped as the Canadian version of Poles to a good degree - dim witted, prone to silly flights of misguided logic and hair brained solutions to simple problems.

One of my teachers in school was a Newfie and she always got a gentle, every day ribbing from the rest of the faculty for being one that she wore with humble pride.

ie. A few people do genuinely hate them, but most people like Quebec well enough, but EVERYONE goes on about how terrible they are.

It doesn't help that the Quebecers love to keep stirring the pot as well as the discrimination which comes from linguistic requirements, like the requirement that an official in a BC town like a coroner must know French-Canadian to be appointed, and if there are no local people who speak it (like here in BC), a Quebecer will be brought in the fill the position when they only comprise a minute fraction of our provinces population. I could see that the bi-lingual require being in place around Vancouver with Chinese or in the Fraser Valley where I grew up with Hindi because of the massive Oriental and East Indian populations there, but not a group that's .1% of the province and most live on the other side of the country.

In all fairness though, the problem comes from the Francophone leadership and their desperate efforts to keep their people isolated from the rest of Canada like forcing kids to learn French-Canadian and only that when they and their parents want them to learn English and integrate into the rest of the country.

 

[briankoontz]

I'm from Australia so I got that they were jokes but not why people were making them so I wanted to know if there is a common dislike of California that I don't know about.

A mild to moderate dislike, yes. As the Mamas and the Papas put it - "California Dreamin'". The Endless Summer personified by the Beach Boys helped create the modern man-child as well as reduced the maturity of the American and global populace. Hollywood is the dream factory.

In terms of the westward expansion of the European colonization of the country, California is the final destination, and that says something about the people who live there.

My personal view of Californians is that they've spent too much time in the sun - they're a bit spacey.

The United States is very homogenous though, more so than ever before, and the differences between California and the rest of the country are minor.

 

[xacto14]

Pretty much this, if any state is hated by Americans, it's Jersey. Having lived there, that hatred is deserved.

From PA here: Agreed, and Jersey drivers suck. That is all.

 

[Dalisclock]

Texas is thinks it is a separate nation

it helps when those people also think that Texas is still a nation and is being occupied by the rest of the US.


yes, those people exist.

Oh, I've been told by quite a few texans that their consitution allows them to secede from the union whenever they want to because they were a seperate nation for 10 years. I call BS but haven't seen anything legal one way or another.

 

[MoltenSilver]

I'm pretty sure that it's similar to the Canadian "hatred" of Quebec.

ie. A few people do genuinely hate them, but most people like Quebec well enough, but EVERYONE goes on about how terrible they are. Same with the common "perception" that Alberta is locked in a hate-ridden blood feud with Ontario. National jokes are a bit weird.

While I can't speak to your experiences, as an Albertan I do know a *lot* of people who legitimately hate Ontario and Quebec. Part of the hate for Quebec is similar to what other people have brought up - ie. the xenophobia/isolationism and the bilingual requirements. But the real sticking point is transfer payments, when wealth is moved from the areas doing better to the areas doing worse; now the people I know don't have a problem with this in principle, but the reality is we're always the ones giving, and when we're the part of the country in trouble it never comes back our way.

 

[Ryotknife]

Do we hate California/Florida? No, but we make fun of them. In California's case its the surfer/California girl stereotype (platinum blonde hair, airhead, horrendous shopping habit), being out of touch with reality, being hippy, spending too much time in the sun, etc. Their big wine industry gives them an air of pretentiousness.

In Florida's case its because they are freakin nuts.

Now....New Jersey on the other hand....

 

[NeutralDrow]

Hate us? I hadn't really thought of it until I watched the Nostalgia Critic review of Airborne. Apparently, we're supposed to be incredibly self-centered and stuck up. And reading everyone else's response...wow, that's all stuff I'd heard about other states (except the hippie stoner part, but I'm hoping Colorado will take that off our hands fairly soon). What's the opposite of "the grass is always greener on the other side?" Whatever it is is totally appropriate.

That said, I don't think I've heard of anyone else mirroring our sadly-justified stereotype of being so tax-averse our education suffers for it. Even from Mississippi.

Californian here. People hate us because we are all hippies and/or movie stars. All of us.

We're not all surfers any more? Awesome! Now I can tell people I'm from San Diego again.

...I wonder what our stereotype is. For some reason, I can't help but think it's "Wait, there's something south of LA? Like, Mexico?"

 

[asinann]

While people in Washington state don't hate Californians, we DO hate what they did to our cost of living in the 90s and early 00s. Californians would move from California to take a tech job in Seattle and buy a home in one of the suburbs for what in Washington was 3-5x it's value because that's what those homes went for in California. Then they started passing citizen's initiatives that drove up the cost of other goods and pushed their emissions standards onto us even though we already had some in place that restricted the problem pollutants. They passed bills that crippled the logging industry (the town I live in had seven sawmills shut down because there wasn't enough timber for them) killing the economies of many small towns. A logging company tried to take dead and fallen timber out of a forest that had already been through a wildfire two years ago (no living trees would be cut, just clearing out the dead stuff) and the Californians fought until that company was told they could not take the dead timber, wasting the wood and leaving a massive fire danger out there.

Basically, they came in and decided to try and make us into California.

 

[Saviordd1]

The only state in the US that starts with C that people hate is Connecticut.
God do people hate Connecticut.

 

[chaser5000]

I say a lot of terrible things about California but thats just to piss off my buddy from Cali, I have no real opinion about the state.

 

[Tsaba]

hatred? There's no hatred here, most of us are just a little tired about people from certain states *cough NY, CA, TX, FL cough* talking about themselves like they are the only states in the US. Some people just voice it poorly.

 

[Quickman]

Pro's:

- fun place, great sites to see, MANY things to do
- every demographic under the sun lives there, which makes it a good spot for being more open-minded and universal towards many different cultures
- once again, a very open minded culture
- great differentiation among landscapes. Every city feels like its own world. If you don't really care for city life there is always the more country landscapes up north
- many bands and artists tour there.
- Hollywood and the movie studios if you enjoy such things

Con's:

- traffic. Horns. Angry people. Everywhere.
- with those awesome demographics you also get the dark side of that as well... Every sort of criminal activity is around and there is widespread racism throughout the state. I know the history of California (don't want to open that debate personally) and how everyone wants to present it as "stolen land" but still... Lots of old hatreds, anger, and resentment in that state
- very expensive to live and/or visit there.
- often there is a "you don't speak Spanish around here??? WTF?!?" vibe due to the influx of illegal aliens and undocumented people (not jusging, as these are based on my personal experiences)
- wih Hollywood being there... Here is the big one as to why many people "hate" Hollywood and criticize California:

They often present a very one-sided view of Americans. Because of the fact surrounding the sheer power and dominance of Hollywood they are very inclusive and will often times attempt to speak for the rest of the country as a single state. One even gets the feeling that they attempt to influence the entire country based solely on THEIR state. Also a good amount of our trashier, worthless pop culture (Paris Hilton, Kim kardashian, kanye west, etc, etc) is showcased, broadcasted, and shipped out from there. The world seems to view the United States based off of the notion that Hollywood represents us all and it doesn't.

With open-mindedness in a big city/popular state comes the dark side as well. There is a lot of sleazy business in that town/part of the world as well.

I hope this answers your question.

 

[BOOM headshot65]

Texas is thinks it is a separate nation

it helps when those people also think that Texas is still a nation and is being occupied by the rest of the US.


yes, those people exist.

Oh, I've been told by quite a few texans that their consitution allows them to secede from the union whenever they want to because they were a seperate nation for 10 years. I call BS but haven't seen anything legal one way or another.

Legally, they do not get the right to Secede. They have a lot of rights that other states dont, yes, but they are not as big. Its things like "Texas has its own private power grid separate of the United States", "Texas can have a police division higher than state troopers but lower than the FBI (the Texas Rangers)", "Texas can fly its state flag at the same height as the national flag instead of the normal 'state must be lower'."

The closest they have to a "We can Secede" right is that part of the treaty for when the Republic of Texas was annexed by the US is that Texas maintains the right to split itself into up to 5 smaller states at will. So if Texans decided they wanted to become North Texas, South Texas, East Texas, West Texas, and The Peoples State of Austin, it is in their right, but that is as far as they can legally go. Or at least, that is what I understand about it.

OT: Other people have already pointed it out. Extremely expensive to live in, terrible business environment, mass exodus of people leaving the state to look for jobs due to the aforementioned exodus and taking their shitty politics with them, extreme levels of crime, if you dont live in Los Angeles, San Fransico, or San Diego you dont exist, and the extreme cost of living. Like, here in Kansas, for the same monthly rent as a micro-apartment in LA, $1700ish, I can buy a 2,300 square foot home with an attached 3 car garage and 1 acre of land. To put that into perspective, that home is 17 times the size of the apartment for the same money........and Kansas isnt even in the top 10 for cheapest states to live in.

Needless to say, there is nothing and no amount of money ON THIS PLANET that would make me live in California, since as far as I am concerned it has ONE good point: The Weather. Other than that, I will stay in the Lower Midwest and the South thank you very much.

 

[VanTesla]

I always thought there was a hatred of Florida in the U.S.A. What, with that bugsbunny.gif and all.

Yeah, pretty much this. It is unreal the amount of stupidity that comes out of florida. It doesn't even really make sense, I mean, what's fuelling it?

But of course, it's a large area, so there's undoubtedly some intelligent lifeforms living there. Lifeforms I feel terribly sorry for.

Never heard much about negative said about California, though, aside from LA's supposed crime levels.

Fear not for they have Florida Man to watch over them!
http://www.reddit.com/r/FloridaMan

Traffic. Arrogance. Vapidness. Disconnected from the rest of the world. Gangs. Dirty Cops. A crappy airport that most flights route through. Smog.

Also racism and anti-immigration nut jobs....

I would say that is highly contributed to the inequality gaps in income with the big cities which have shown to cause more strife among different cultures in blaming one another for the flow of low income in a State that cost a lot to live in. There is also a huge amount of illegal immigrants in California compared to most States and even though I believe most of them are just trying to make a better life for themselves and their family there is some that do bring more violence and gangs as well which further fuels hate towards illegal immigrants and hispanics in general which is unfair. Also the State goverment under both parties in the past have been some of the crappiest in leadership compared to other States in general, but I would argue the size, diversity, and the local enviroment make it much more difficult to work with compared to most States even if you have a competent State government in charge. That is my take on California as of right now. Also with the nut jobs that was a big failure in the Reagan administration which defunded pretty much all full time psychiatric institutes and after that you had a huge uptick in homeless people because many of them where former patients of the wards. Little has been done to fix these problems since and has been under both parties to have a go and fix it and yet neither do much if anything to correct it.

 

[The Bread is Delicious]

California has consistently ranked over the past few years as one of the worst places to do business in the US, thanks to a combination of high taxes, lots of regulation, expensive real estate, and high cost of living, thus many have moved to other states for their greater job opportunities. Now, many believe that California's issues are a result of it's largely very left-wing politics. Thus, many people fear that Californians will move in, vote for the same kind of politicians they voted for back in Cali, and thus cause the same problems that Cali faces now (high taxes, crippling debt, loads of regulations, terrible business environment, etc.).

Being from California, the first part of this is entirely true. Our overregulation is notorious for driving business away from California or forcing businesses under. Also having bought a house in the last year, I can also say that real estate is a horrible, horrible thing, specifically in Southern California. I don't have much experience with Northern California in that department though. Not having lived anywhere else, however, I can't make a judgment on how Californians are infecting other states political mindsets.

As for hate from other states at us, haven't noticed much while I've traveled around a fair bit. I kind of had the feeling more people would rather ignore us considering how many problems we just make for ourselves.

Other things to note about California is that trying to pin us all down as one culture just doesn't work at all. There are too many people and too large an area to say we are all beach bums or anything like that, which is probably why California's image culturally seems to change with the decade. People in California tend to talk about it in two sections, NorCal and SoCal, because it is pretty culturally different just depending on what end of the state you are at. For a quick, simple example, the word "Hella" is very rarely used in SoCal and is usually a dead give away that someone is from somewhere closer to the San Francisco Bay area than to LA.

Speaking of LA, it is a pretty terrible place being an hour away from where I'm at now. It constantly just looks like a giant haze on the horizon and the traffic is horrendous. Most of what others have said about it holds true as well. If you come to California, pick another city to visit. I'd suggest San Diego if you are coming to SoCal and just take a day trip to LA if you really want to see it.

We're not all surfers any more? Awesome! Now I can tell people I'm from San Diego again.

...I wonder what our stereotype is. For some reason, I can't help but think it's "Wait, there's something south of LA? Like, Mexico?"

Having grown up in San Diego, I think that Stereotype is pretty accurate, LA steals all the fame and glory for it being a much worse city. I've heard a couple bands that I've seen play there really enjoying it because they can draw a big crowd for shows from the city's good size population, but it tends to have a smaller town feel to it because it is much more spread out than say LA is.

Last fun fact, having been made very conscious of it just reading through the posts, no one from California actually uses the word "Cali" in referring to it. I haven't met anyone that has a problem with people using "Cali" but it does tend to stick out in conversation interestingly enough.

 

[shootthebandit]

$1700ish, I can buy a 2,300 square foot home with an attached 3 car garage and 1 acre of land. To put that into perspective, that home is 17 times the size of the apartment for the same money........and Kansas isnt even in the top 10 for cheapest states to live in.

You must have missed out a few zeros? You can buy a house for $1700? A house like that in the UK would be at least £170,000 (I know you get slightly more dollars to a pound). Realistically a big house with a 3 car (and your probably talking about american cars which tend to be bigger) and an acre of land will probably be upwards of £300,000. You cant really buy anything for under £50,000 and then its a 1 bed ex-crack den. Instead of complaining about Cali look at how expensive it is to live in the UK

If you are correct im moving to kansas.

OT: from what I gather California seems to have a thing for low fuel/emission cars. The UK is a lot like that too but thats mainly because the tax the shit out of fuel then you pay road tax which is now based on emissions. Basically from you guys are saying california is the UK with good weather