Portland is the place where young people go to retire.
Who knows maybe Portland is the place for you? It certainly is better than Brooklyn.
 |
| An entire bike lane has a MarioKart theme. |
.
The single story is Portland is the place for hipsters. Everything about the clips and images screams hipster. From mustaches to cycling, everything is hip in Portland. Who doesn't want Mushrooms and bananas painted on our sidewalks? People who live in Portland are educated and cultured, but in an ultra-hip way. They spend most of their time in coffee shops and art galleries or are exploring new ways to express themselves. They have a great desire to create, whether it's knitting at the airport or street art. Not a single image was shown of a conservative looking business man, most of the men appeared young and hip. I'm sure there are probably other people in Portland besides hipsters but it certainly creates a fun image that makes me want to move there and work at place like
Wieden+Kennedy
The entire premise of the show is about the weird happenings of the city of Portland. People from Portland are different from other places. The first episode of the show states how the "dream of the 90's is alive in Portland." One of my favorite lines from the clip is "Portland is the place where young people go to retire." What does that even mean? According to this show people my age can simply move to Portland and never really have to work like my parents did. People in Portland are too cool to have a real job.
This limiting image of young and hip singles doesn't seem very appealing to the elderly or even your typical conservative family with kids. I'm curious to see what Portland's enrollment in public schools is. There were hardly any children in most of the sketches from Portlandia.
Portland is the dream location for a young creative, the recent graduate with a degree in something like English or Advertising. I don't see an engineer or doctor moving to Portland according to these artifacts. Whether you spend your days at a coffee shop doing who-knows-what for a living or knitting a the airport, Portland will always be hip.
Always classy,
David Taylor
I spent last summer in Portland, and let me tell you what, that is exactly, 100% right on. It really is like another universe. I felt super out of place because I wasn't part of Portland. It's like they have a different language altogether. Unreal.
ReplyDeleteI've heard great things about Portland and I can't wait to visit. Maybe there is a lot of stereotypes about that area of the US but I have also read plenty of articles about how cool that place is.
ReplyDeleteBeing a Portlander I feel it my duty to comment on this post. This idea has a lot of truth to it. There are a lot of different people who live in Portland, sure the people you see everyday all seem like hipsters, but there really are business men and women who live there too. You do not have to be a hipster or a creative type to live there, though it never hurts when making new friends. People in Portland are friendly and caring. They realize that we all live in the same place so lets take care of each other and help each other along in life. My wife, who is not a hipster, moved to Portland to live with my four years ago, and she is currently counting the days until we move back. We were just back there a few weekends ago so she could run the Portland Marathon and people were sitting on their lawns and front porches just to cheer on complete strangers who ran past their house, I'm not sure of a lot of other places where people would do that on a Sunday morning before 10am. Portland is the best, and if you get the chance to live or work there, just know that people there respect those that show others respect.
ReplyDeletePORTLAND ROCKS
I love that show! And I've been to Portland a few times, and it's just so true. It's amazing how hipster an entire city can be.
ReplyDeleteI think Portlandia blurs the lines of reality and fiction. It is great social commentary on everybody and I like that Portland is a society that really allows people to do whatever they want with little prejudice. The people are accepting of the culture there. Here's an interesting article about it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.fastcoexist.com/1682583/portraitlandia-photos-of-portlands-most-portland-y-residents
This was really interesting to read. Great analysis!
ReplyDeleteAs a Portlandia-lover, I enjoyed this analysis very much. I appreciate that the main characters of this show embrace hipster's irony to the fullest, because they exaggerate and poke fun at their own lifestyle.
ReplyDelete