We were lied to. What a surprise.
What’s surprising isn’t that people lied to us. It’s that people so easily believe the lies.
Santa Clara, about 45 miles south of San Francisco, just hosted Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium, homefield of the SF 49ers. That brought a slew of visitors to San Francisco. Many were likely trepidatious – even though San Francisco is a world-class destination – because of the constant drubbing it gets in the media.
I am a native San Franciscan. I see the City for all its glory and all its warts. No city is without those pesky warts.
And, one of our biggest warts is homelessness (and all that entails) which was greatly exacerbated by the pandemic. It is a problem that is hideously tough to manage, partly because of the different views as to why it is a problem and the wildly different ideas of what the solution is.
I’ve been to numerous places and homelessness seems to exist in about all of them. While San Francisco is seen as “woke” for our seeming inability to rectify the issue, what most people don’t take into consideration is one of the things that makes San Francisco a much-adored city – our weather.
San Francisco’s year-round fluctuation in temps typically range from lowest temps in the coldest months in the high 40s to the highest temps in the warmest months in the low 70s. That’s pretty mild and more conducive to living on the streets than most places.
Indeed, San Francisco isn’t a perfect city. And, sure, if you only focused on our problems, San Francisco might see like a hellhole. But, if you took the time to think about it, you might realize there is something missing in that picture.
As I said, San Francisco is world-renowned. Since its inception, San Francisco has been a destination, whether to make it rich in gold or in tech, or just to see its sights.
Then there is the cost of living. San Francisco is also often criticized for its crazy high cost of housing. If you used your brain and thought about it, you’d wonder why anyone would pay $1.5 million+ for a 1,000 square foot home to live in a sh*thole. It just doesn’t add up.
An estimated 1.3 million people visited San Francisco for the Super Bowl. That’s San Francisco, not Santa Clara, and is way more people than actually attended the game.
Why? Because everyone has heard of San Francisco (when traveling, no one has ever asked where is San Francisco when I say where I live) and know it is a top tourist destination. Unless you live in the Bay Area, maybe in California, or are really into tech in Silicon Valley, you’ve probably never heard of Santa Clara.
That’s not to say Santa Clara isn’t a lovely city – it is. It’s just not San Francisco.
After the Super Bowl, I read a couple of articles in which visitors expressed surprise at how lovely San Francisco is:
Adam Rank, NFL writer: “I’m going to tell you: They lied to you about San Francisco. They tried to take a run at Frisco, saying it was some terrible place and you needed to be scared. It really was nothing like that. It was a delightful city.”
Pat McAfee, Sports Analyst who expected San Francisco to be a “sh*thole”: “McAfee, who spent the week broadcasting his ESPN show from the Bay Area, was effusive about how “beautiful” the city was. ‘We were so surprised by what we had been told and expected versus when we walk through the streets.’”
The number of lies flying around these days is insane. The number emanating from the White House and this administration is . . . astounding? mind-blowing? dumbfounding? I don’t know. I can’t put a word to how unacceptable and wrong that is.
But, really, being lied to isn’t the problem per se. Sure, lying is wrong. But the bigger problem is people have just stopped thinking (related posts: C’mon People Now and Just the Facts). Worse, we set ourselves up to make believe we are thinking when we aren’t. We choose to let media personalities tell us what to think. We let algorithms dictate what we view and read. We surround ourselves with like-minded people who confirm our views. We never stop to question what media personalities are telling us, what algorithms are putting in front of our faces, that those like-minded people may be wrong.
A while back, I was very frustrated with my husband. I can’t recall what it was about, but I remember saying to him in exasperation, “Turn your brain on!” Our kids thought that was pretty funny even if my husband didn’t.I hope that stuck with my kids – turn your brain on. Because it is really important to engage your brain. I just wish a whole lot of people out there who are sucking up the lies would do just that – turn their brains on – instead of simply eating up all the lies they are being spoon fed.