This is a good thread and I was thinking about it over dinner. Especially the part about NYC running the table for so long. https://twitter.com/iusedtobepoor/status/1281637983712468994

NYC had a massive head start going back at least to the earliest days of Jazz, Prohibition and the likes of Dorothy Parker just hanging around drinking and being cool. Dadaism predates WWI. NYC was cool before regular people had any concept of ‘cool.’

When Andy Warhol showed up and Lou Reed picked up a guitar it went even to the next level. It was another universe of cool for the rest of the century and into the 2000’s. Nothing else came close.

But the Giuliani era took a pretty hard toll on Hip New York. Manhattan was already unaffordable by the late 90’s. By the second half of the 2000’s Williamsburg has become almost self-parodying.

I think the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 was the beginning of a whole new cultural era, and this had an effect on NYC cool along with every other aspect of life.

For one thing, much of NYC became addicted to Startup & Hustle culture. Known as much for apps as art.

But also mobile tech & the broad adoption of the internet really leveled the playing field throughout creative industries nationwide. Opportunities in the Creative Class that didn’t exist before were now beginning to appear in smaller cities all over.

Also with the explosion of new media, everyone could see, and copy, what made Brooklyn cool. And oh boy did they ever. Some might dismiss this as unoriginal or inauthentic, or even gentrification, and thus not cool.

But I disagree. By 2012 or so NYC isn’t necessarily a leader in many areas. They’re looking through the Internet funhouse mirror and for the first time are borrowing ideas from the rest of the US & not just Europe.

NYC is absorbing things like Atlanta Rap, Detroit Rock, regional cuisine, California tech, PNW coffee, Bicycles, Fashion.

Also, society is becoming better everywhere offline.

New York was an absolute hotbed of Black culture and gay acceptance for decades. You can never separate the idea of what is cool or hip from Black people & the Gay Community.

But in the 21st century cities of all sizes are much better places to live for those folks.

Also, employers hire nationally in the age of the Internet. If you’re in a creative industry it makes less sense to move to an NYC rat race when every job in your field can be searched for online.

A large part of what makes up Cool or Hip is the idea of Authenticity. Authenticity is harder than ever to come by in NYC now. NYC isn’t Jimmy Breslin anymore. It’s Bari Weiss.

It’s much easier to find authentic local experiences and live in a regional context in smaller cities.

NYC will never be uncool. But it is very much coasting on its reputation and its place in the popular imagination.

Pound for pound, many cities are cooler than NYC now.

Never Forget the sickest burn ever put on NYC. Fear came on SNL and got themselves banned and never gave a shit. Absolute legends of Cool. https://open.spotify.com/track/6bjYA8eNwYLpNJoZK7G1Z1?si=zj_m3dkfQoC0ZIF5CG_g2w

Watching Other Music on Amazon and it is the perfect microcosm of this thread. Coolest locus in the world in NYC opens in the mid 90’s and can’t survive 2016.