Culture Study Podcast - What is SoCal Culture？

00:00:00.000 This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.

00:00:10.240 And I'm Gustavo Arellano, columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

00:00:13.580 When I thought about doing an episode on Southern California, you were the first person that

00:00:17.700 came to mind, in part because in all of the conversations that we've had, like you managed

00:00:22.580 to put in references to various places in Southern California that makes me incredibly

00:00:27.960 curious to explore more and more and more every time that we talk so that's part of it but what

00:00:33.200 would you say your bona fides are as a southern californian person oh my god uh born and raised

00:00:39.760 anaheim aka anacrime which is in orange county california one of the most accursed places in

00:00:46.660 the united states which by the way gives me an outsider's perspective and insiders at the same

00:00:51.980 time my um my family's been now in southern california five generations from my great

00:00:58.520 grandfather who picked oranges back when orange county had a bunch of oranges all the way all the

00:01:04.680 way to my nephew so that's five generations i have spent my entire life here as a person

00:01:11.180 as a writer for the most part and also i mean southern california is where it's at for both

00:01:18.800 The beauty, the problems, the future of this country, the past.

00:01:23.500 I know it's a humongous region, but still, in many ways, it really embodies all that's horrible yet wonderful.

00:01:32.380 Because at the end, I'm an optimist above everything.

00:01:34.840 I'm a cynic who's an optimist.

00:01:36.420 Yes, you are.

00:01:37.140 Of the American dream.

00:01:40.180 And it's, what, ni plus ultra, however you say that, is the California dream.

00:01:45.580 And really, when we talk about the California dream.

00:01:47.380 Ni plus ultra.

00:01:47.700 ne plus autre whatever i'm sure that's a great that's a great french accent for a spanish

00:01:54.460 speaking person because french is my second language but then when i try to do spanish i'm

00:01:59.580 just swallowing everything i'm like not saying any words i somehow don't believe that but sure

00:02:04.120 anytime i see a consonant i'm like oh i probably shouldn't say that because that's how you do it

00:02:09.500 in french um so you know when we said we were going to do this you were like make sure and

00:02:15.440 encourage readers to submit questions that aren't just about LA how do you think that LA I don't

00:02:22.640 know like occludes conversation about like the diversity of Southern California because it is

00:02:27.840 so many things that are not just LA oh my god I literally just had this um how can I put this

00:02:35.000 politely because it was a polite conversation but this beef let's just call it beef with my editors

00:02:40.260 where there was a story recently that we ran

00:02:44.180 that we talked about a certain group saying like,

00:02:46.720 oh yeah, they're part of the Los Angeles area.

00:02:48.640 I'm like, they're not the Los Angeles area.

00:02:50.460 It's Orange County.

00:02:51.620 I am gonna advocate for Orange County.

00:02:53.640 So right there, just the disappearance.

00:02:55.580 When we talk about Southern California,

00:02:57.640 technically we are going all the way

00:03:00.260 from like Ventura County,

00:03:02.760 which is right at the edge of Santa Barbara

00:03:04.500 to the Arizona border out in the Mojave Desert.

00:03:08.100 So Riverside, San Bernardino County,

00:03:10.260 to obviously L.A. County and then Orange County.

00:03:13.380 We exclude San Diego for reasons I've never really cared about

00:03:16.080 because who cares about San Diego?

00:03:18.260 Sorry, that's my Southern California bias.

00:03:20.200 It's a wonderful place.

00:03:21.260 But we're talking about a region.

00:03:22.880 Jeez, that alone is what?

00:03:23.900 Like 23 million people.

00:03:26.160 Wow.

00:03:26.680 It's huge.

00:03:27.360 It's huge.

00:03:27.860 And L.A. is a big chunk of that.

00:03:29.280 Of course it is.

00:03:29.940 The city of Los Angeles alone is 7 million.

00:03:32.360 I think L.A. County, I think it's 17 million.

00:03:35.760 Orange County is 3 million.

00:03:37.140 The Inland Empire, which is Riverside and San Bernardino County, that's another about six million.

00:03:42.680 Then I think Ventura County is about about a million, maybe a little bit less.

00:03:46.100 But we're talking about a huge, huge place that is bigger than most states.

00:03:50.280 Yet the rest of the country, and understandably so, you look at the big city, the megalopolis Los Angeles, and you think of a lot of stereotypes.

00:03:58.220 I mean, the great example, of course, was, who was it, Snoop and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the concert during the Paris Olympics that was exclaiming, yeah, we're going to this is going to be an L.A. concert.

00:04:11.320 Well, Snoop is from, well, Snoop is technically, I believe, from Claremont, which is one of the cities, suburban college cities out there in the eastern portion of Los Angeles.

00:04:20.740 And the concert itself was held in Long Beach.

00:04:23.840 All of them completely different areas all along answer to say, yeah, there's a lot of subtleties in Southern California.

00:04:29.760 That's not just all L.A.

00:04:31.680 Yes.

00:04:32.540 It's interesting that you exclude San Diego.

00:04:34.680 Do you think Palm Springs is involved?

00:04:36.500 Absolutely.

00:04:37.320 Palm Springs.

00:04:38.240 We're talking about Coachella.

00:04:39.580 We're talking about Compton.

00:04:41.140 We're talking about Skid Row.

00:04:42.700 We're talking about, I mean, JPL Laboratory.

00:04:46.420 Camp Pendleton's interesting because it's technically federal property in San Diego

00:04:50.880 County, and San Diego historically has been more of the military area of the southern

00:04:56.800 portion of Southern California, but Pendleton is right next to San Clemente, which is the

00:05:01.220 southernmost tip of Orange County, so it's kind of Southern California.

00:05:04.960 So you just have all these different places really melding into this, and a lot of times

00:05:10.300 people forget, oh yeah, that's part of Southern California, even in Southern California.

00:05:14.860 Yeah, totally.

00:05:15.540 Okay, I'm going to tee up our first question because I think it will also allow us to talk about part of why we're doing this episode.

00:05:23.240 So this comes from Danielle.

00:05:26.080 I have lived in Southern California my entire life, and I'm not sure what is bizarre, interesting, or alarming about our culture.

00:05:34.500 I've not spent enough time anywhere else to be told how different I am as a Southern California person.

00:05:40.540 Can you please enlighten me as to what you are getting at?

00:05:43.580 Hmm. I wanted to have people as co-hosts on this series who simultaneously love where they're from and also understand, you know, through some sort of analytical distance, whether it's in writing or actually leaving the place, what is also like hilarious, weird, alarming, all of these things. So what do you think is all of these things about SoCal just generally?

00:06:09.780 I mean, I think one of the distinguishing factors is just like diversity on steroids.

00:06:17.100 Yes.

00:06:17.860 So because I travel a lot through the United States, I mean, I mean, especially through the American South, the American Southwest, but also, you know, going to New York.

00:06:26.900 I've been to a lot of places and like I go to almost any other airport in the country.

00:06:33.960 And I don't fly out of LAX much because, again, I'm in Orange County, so I go through John Wayne. 0.94

00:06:37.900 Also because LAX sucks. 0.60

00:06:39.880 You know what? 0.99

00:06:40.360 I am like the only person on the planet who doesn't think LAX sucks.

00:06:43.840 I'm sorry, folks.

00:06:44.760 Show up two hours before your flight and you're going to be okay.

00:06:49.260 I'm sorry.

00:06:50.920 I swear. 0.54

00:06:51.800 I go to any other airport and I literally always think, wow, I forget how many white

00:06:57.940 people there are in this country because you just do not see where white people are a majority.

00:07:04.860 Sure, there are places in Southern California where there are that, but even then, I mean, that would actually be an interesting survey for me to try to figure out, like, what is the whitest city left in Southern California?

00:07:17.660 Oh, yeah. 0.88

00:07:18.700 Because, I mean, I can't maybe like the super, super exclusive places at this point, like Bradbury, like Newport Beach, I know is very, very white. 0.74

00:07:27.780 But even then, like we're not talking about the John Wayne era. 0.77

00:07:31.000 And by the way, John Wayne, all of his children, half Latinos because he only married Latinas.

00:07:36.240 So that's what I'm saying.

00:07:37.420 So that would be the first thing that I think distinguishes the Southern Californian.

00:07:40.340 Like we, whether you like it or not, we are part of a diverse clientele.

00:07:45.180 The other big one, and this is this puts us more in the realm with Texas, which Texas, North SoCal will want to hear this.

00:07:51.400 But I think the base when we talk about food is going to be Mexican food.

00:07:56.020 And especially with Southern Californians, that has been our mother's milk now for about 140 years where everyone is eating a style of Mexican food one way or another.

00:08:07.480 And sure, you have all these other ethnic places for the immigrants and it's amazing food.

00:08:13.060 But the children eventually realize, well, hey, Mexican food, let's put fun in our burritos.

00:08:18.260 Let's make tacos out of bulgogi.

00:08:21.220 Let's do this, this and that.

00:08:22.960 So I would do that.

00:08:24.160 And then one other, a third thing, like what makes us Southern Californian?

00:08:28.580 I mean, this gets to one of the questions that we'll get to, I think, later is like, it's hot.

00:08:34.840 There's outdoor culture.

00:08:36.380 There is an outdoor culture that I think is very different and also car culture, right?

00:08:40.440 Oh, yeah.

00:08:41.340 Car culture.

00:08:42.980 That you will be in traffic for a long amount of time and that's just how things are.

00:08:47.080 That is the negative part of car culture.

00:08:50.140 Like that's the stuff that everyone deals with.

00:08:52.160 Like I was recently out in Colorado.

00:08:54.360 I was doing, I did lectures at Colorado Springs and Pueblo.

00:08:58.180 And so I would see my distance.

00:09:00.580 Oh, it's going to be 60 miles.

00:09:02.240 Oh God, it's going to take me five hours.

00:09:04.280 No, it's going to take me 60 minutes.

00:09:05.960 It took you 50 minutes even.

00:09:08.040 Whereas 60 miles in Southern California, it was going to take you, what, to like Simi Valley.

00:09:16.660 And that's going to take you about three hours, which is like you, and the whole time you're not moving.

00:09:20.880 You're just stuck in traffic.

00:09:22.380 So that's sort of the negative part of car culture.

00:09:25.520 But the other important thing is that we are all incredibly proud of what we drive, whether it's your imports, whether it used to be Tesla's.

00:09:35.200 But now, you know, your Audi's, your Lexus's, your like higher end cars, whether they are or not, whether it's a low rider, whether it's the VW bus, whether like I did like one of the columns that I did.

00:09:48.300 I think it was maybe in 23. But, you know, California is basically by 2026, they want to outlaw chroming, chroming in vehicles, chroming for anything.

00:10:00.080 And so the stance that I took, look, I love the environment. I do think we need to crack down, especially on environmental racism.

00:10:05.120 And a lot of these chroming facilities are now in working class neighborhoods.

00:10:08.800 But when we talk about like, who are we trying to save from chroming?

00:10:12.740 It's also who are we being punitive. 0.98

00:10:16.040 And that is working class cultures, specifically Mexican and black culture, where we love our big freaking bumpers, our hubcaps, just as shiny as a diamond.

00:10:27.340 So I went and talked to, you know, went to car clubs and all of that. 1.00

00:10:30.720 And they're like, yeah, this is crazy.

00:10:32.060 And by the way, if you're going to try to stop us from doing the chroming, we're just going to go to Tijuana or Arizona to get it.

00:10:37.740 But yeah, car culture, huge, huge.

00:10:39.460 And that's actually one that I just take so for granted that when I go elsewhere, like, I don't really know.

00:10:45.320 It's like, oh, yeah, people don't really care about their cars.

00:10:47.360 Easter Sunday, I thought, you know, everyone's at church.

00:10:50.880 No one's going to be at the car wash.

00:10:52.500 Yeah, right.

00:10:53.280 Like, line out because I guess you need to look for your Easter best.

00:10:56.920 It's not just what you dress, but what you're driving.

00:10:59.820 It's so funny because here in Washington, like, if you get your car washed, it's just going to rain the next day.

00:11:05.180 Like, why would you do that?

00:11:06.940 and i grew up though on the other side of the mountains in idaho and also in a place where

00:11:11.260 that like car culture was huge like when you um got your first car when you were 15 or 16

00:11:18.140 it was always a hand-me-down in some capacity but then like the the point of pride was you fixed it

00:11:23.420 up yeah right um and you fix it up with your friends and like these gorgeous old trucks or 0.54

00:11:29.460 even like i drove a shitty ass subaru but like i put in a sick stereo because that's what mattered 0.96

00:11:35.800 Right. And because some of it, you're not driving in traffic there, but you are driving a lot just as distances between places. 0.95

00:11:43.020 And I think like when you spend more time in your car, that place becomes more of a point of pride and identity than elsewhere, for better or for worse.

00:11:51.560 And, you know, because you mentioned trucks and I forgot to mention trucks because, of course, Southern Californians love their trucks as well.

00:11:56.840 And I think that's where the car culture is different from other areas because our temperature is so beautiful.

00:12:04.180 you could drive them all out in idaho you need a sturdy car you're probably not going to be

00:12:09.300 you're not going to have a low rider as a daily driver because the snow's just going to eat

00:12:14.220 through it so you're going to get your ford f-150s your little toyotas what you know your gmcs of

00:12:20.840 course you're going to get the subarus and they're all beautiful cars and we all have them by the

00:12:24.840 way here in southern california as well but here it's like you see it all going back to what i said

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00:17:35.040 So our next question, I would not throw at just anyone, but I would throw at you because you are also a history buff and you love, like, the history of specific places.

00:17:42.740 This question comes from Brian.

00:17:44.960 Do folks in Southern California visit the old Spanish missions, maybe on high school field trips?

00:17:49.720 Visiting Old Town San Diego while in town on a work trip revealed a place eerily similar to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, just with a Spanish colonial flavor instead of a British one.

00:17:58.900 I've also visited the La Purisima Mission when in Lompoc, and I saw a statue of a Junipero Serra near the state capitol building in Sacramento

00:18:07.460 Colonialism has a complicated legacy, but the history and influence is insightful, especially given the names of most major California cities are tied to the missions and saints

00:18:18.060 First, can we just talk a little bit about the role that missions played just in the formation of what we now know as SoCal?

00:18:26.480 Not just SoCal, but all of California.

00:18:28.980 And yes, Junipero Sera, who's now a saint, he was a Dominican who in the late 1700s,

00:18:37.120 started in 1769 was a Porto Alto expedition.

00:18:41.680 But basically the first Europeans who traveled through inland California were Spaniards

00:18:47.380 who were doing it in the name of the crown, but also in the name of evangelizing through Catholicism.

00:18:51.980 so they set up i think it was 21 missions going from san diego i think the most northern one is

00:18:59.280 santa rosa so in in the bay area but yeah they went up there and the at least what they teach

00:19:05.060 us in schools and yes it's all about schools is that they were roughly a days away from each other

00:19:11.400 walking like so slow slowly but surely they fell into this you know so this was during the spanish

00:19:17.280 era they fell into disrepair during the mexican era which wasn't that long then by the time

00:19:22.740 americans start coming in in you know in droves truly after really after the civil war a lot of

00:19:28.920 these were in disrepair but because of this novel named ramona by helen hunt jackson who she sought

00:19:35.980 to tell the story of the mexicans who were here and oppressed by the americans and also the native

00:19:41.520 American. So she tried to do like sort of a California version of Uncle Tom's cabin.

00:19:47.580 But instead of sparking a civil war, it did the opposite. It had Americans wishing for the days

00:19:55.820 that never really existed, the days of the gay Spanish dons and señoritas doing fiestas for 0.99

00:20:02.180 weeks on end. And so all of a sudden, people started wanting to dress like Spaniards, 0.93

00:20:07.880 wanting to eat like Mexicans.

00:20:10.340 Like fetishism. 1.00

00:20:11.580 Fetishism.

00:20:12.380 Fetishism.

00:20:13.260 Kerry McWilliams,

00:20:14.300 a legendary progressive historian,

00:20:16.260 he deemed this

00:20:16.880 a Spanish fantasy heritage.

00:20:18.700 And to this day, 0.63

00:20:19.680 we are still infected by it.

00:20:21.900 That's why when you have

00:20:22.700 the more recent developments,

00:20:25.400 housing developments,

00:20:26.400 you have like

00:20:27.220 fake Italian named communities

00:20:29.600 with Spanish tile homes

00:20:31.880 and arches.

00:20:32.880 We still have that.

00:20:34.200 it that's a whole podcast episode just the mania of this but to sum it up really briefly yes

00:20:41.360 we the missions are still around they're owned now by the catholic church so they went into

00:20:46.280 private ownership and then they ended up going back into the church oh yeah and president lincoln

00:20:51.120 actually turned uh you know he turned that over he turned all the missions to the catholic church

00:20:55.960 when he became president and like during the civil war he does this then they got rehabilitated

00:21:00.740 mostly by private donations.

00:21:02.460 Today, they're still existing.

00:21:03.840 Here in Orange County,

00:21:04.560 you have Mission San Juan Capistrano,

00:21:06.480 famous for the swallows returning to Capistrano.

00:21:09.100 That's probably the most famous mission

00:21:10.600 in the United States.

00:21:12.380 I mean, in San Juan Capistrano,

00:21:14.300 right across the street from it

00:21:15.560 is Heritage Barbecue,

00:21:16.640 one of the great barbecue places

00:21:18.400 in the United States,

00:21:19.600 because it's, again,

00:21:20.100 it's Southern California barbecue,

00:21:21.400 so it's a little bit of everything

00:21:22.780 with the brisket and all of that.

00:21:24.720 So I go down there more often than not,

00:21:27.360 and you see some adults going in,

00:21:29.200 but really it's these buses.

00:21:30.740 buses of kids, because to this day, one of the great brainwashing experiments in the United

00:21:37.560 States and in public education, I think it's fourth grade. Whenever they teach us about

00:21:42.000 California history, no, maybe it's second grade, but almost all public school kids still have to

00:21:47.120 build a replica of a mission. I did it. They're still doing it. Even in progressive, well,

00:21:53.580 California, we're still building these missions. You could use sugar cubes. You could use popsicle

00:21:59.140 sticks, you could use Legos, whatever, but you build a replica of the mission. I'm sure now the

00:22:04.700 teaching is more enlightened, but still like where on earth, how foundational of a myth is it to

00:22:10.180 California, even to this day that we're propagating the missions as something that everyone should do.

00:22:16.120 I don't know. I've never been to Colonial Williamsburg. I have no very little experience

00:22:20.480 with Virginia, but it would be interesting if they teach kids in Virginia, hey, let's build

00:22:25.960 williamsburg let's build monticello let's build this this and that i don't know if they're doing

00:22:30.060 that right or like here you know on the various reservations in the pacific northwest there's

00:22:35.580 oftentimes a mission what used to be a mission or just the church remains like what if you were

00:22:41.340 teaching kids like let's make this like slightly dilapidated church that is on like a vestige of

00:22:46.760 colonialism that is on the reservation that's near you it must just be like tradition like you can't

00:22:53.160 get rid of it. And that's the thing. We have torn down statues of Columbus. They have removed

00:22:58.920 statues of Junipero Sera, who was declared a saint last decade under much controversy because

00:23:05.460 the mission system, look, the idea of the mission system was, oh, we're going to save indigenous

00:23:12.580 people, their souls. We're going to save them. But how it actually worked out, they brought

00:23:17.420 Native Americans who wanted to be converted into the mission system. But there's so many horror 0.95

00:23:22.320 stories of death by disease lashings rape straight up rape like this is documented in the own uh

00:23:30.400 narratives of the spaniards and this is who we're supposed to celebrate junipero sera the architect

00:23:36.180 of this mission system decimated indigenous communities like it's just very very probably

00:23:41.340 and and then you go to a lot of these missions and they have graveyards where you have thousands

00:23:46.460 of Native Americans buried there.

00:23:49.140 And so the Natives Americans of today,

00:23:50.900 like it's just so complicated,

00:23:52.920 the actual reality of it.

00:23:54.680 But I have never heard anyone say,

00:23:56.500 no, we should not.

00:23:57.840 We should ban kids from building these missions.

00:24:01.180 I just hope, maybe that's a story for me actually,

00:24:03.480 because how do they teach it now?

00:24:05.420 Because I would hope it's a little bit more enlightened,

00:24:07.860 but at the same time,

00:24:08.700 like where do we get off telling kids,

00:24:10.400 yeah, build these.

00:24:11.280 And all the missions now,

00:24:12.240 they're not dilapidated anymore.

00:24:13.540 they all got refurbished because of Charles Fletcher Lummis, who I just have to shout him out

00:24:18.380 because one of the great antiquarians in American history and also one of the people who popularized

00:24:22.580 Mexican food. So the mission systems, if you if you have a problem with the mission system being

00:24:26.600 taught, blame the popularity of Mexican food. But that is a good story for you. And I'm sure 0.99

00:24:31.920 we'll actually hear in the comments about how they're teaching it now, because a lot of our

00:24:35.680 listeners, either if they're younger or they have kids who are going through the system right now.

00:24:38.940 So the next question is about a certain type of person who finds a home in Southern California.

00:24:43.940 This comes from Sarah, and Melody's going to read it.

00:24:46.300 What is it about the culture of SoCal that makes it so ripe for the crunchy to alt-right pipeline?

00:24:52.660 I'm thinking specifically of the surf lifestyle mommy blogger turned MAGA fanatic Jessica Reed

00:24:57.920 Krause, aka House Inhabit, but she seems to be a product of her environment rather than an isolated

00:25:03.160 case. Is it just the culture of quote-unquote free spirits that easily morphs into a lifestyle

00:25:08.820 of consuming highly unregulated wellness supplements, raw milk, and not vaccinating

00:25:13.440 your children? Is it a backlash to the solidly democratic politics of the state?

00:25:18.320 So I think that last part of it is like a huge component. And I think like, for people who

00:25:24.420 aren't familiar with House and Habit, this woman used to be more of like, kind of like a lifestyle

00:25:30.580 blogger, like designer type person. Now she has the most popular culture sub stack in the world, 1.00

00:25:36.900 millions and millions of dollars that she makes every year and she mostly traffics in conspiracy 1.00

00:25:42.200 theories she's kind of a gossip columnist but it's like she like she came out really hard

00:25:46.780 defending Johnny Depp and like the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trials like and she like is friendly

00:25:52.660 with RFK and and Trump like there's a very there's a there's a Trumpist component to this

00:25:58.500 celebrity gossip and conspiracy theorist ness which also feels like very similar it's not

00:26:05.820 exactly the same but like kind of the q anon pipeline of like crunchy left to q anon

00:26:10.860 so some of it i think is the same thing that drives southern californians to idaho because

00:26:16.740 it's like well here i can practice like i can be who i want right like i can drink my raw milk and

00:26:22.620 i can build whatever structure i want without any permitting and all that sort of thing but

00:26:28.100 i'm really curious to hear is she the one who's based in orange county i believe so yes yeah yeah

00:26:33.980 Cause there, there's one who was just, yeah.

00:26:36.100 I mean, and here, this is an interesting thing.

00:26:38.040 Like we were covering this at the newspaper that used to edit OC weekly RIP.

00:26:43.520 I remember like in 2016, they, there was an outbreak of mumps or measles at Disneyland,

00:26:50.160 which we did this cool editorial cartoon of Mickey mouse totally inflated like his poor

00:26:55.180 throat.

00:26:55.480 Like it was the funniest thing ever.

00:26:57.260 Cause that's the type of stuff we would do, but we crunched the numbers and it turned

00:27:01.040 out that the lowest vaccination rates at the time in California were in South Orange County.

00:27:06.500 Now, South Orange County is the richest part of Orange County. That's when we talk about

00:27:10.520 the real housewives. That's sort of in that area. Cota de Casa, Rancho de Santa Margarita, 1.00

00:27:14.920 and all of this. And the highest rate, and this is before COVID. Remember, this is like 2016,

00:27:19.300 2017. So those people were not liberals. They just, frankly, in my opinion, a lot of these

00:27:24.880 crunchy granola types, they just have too much money. When you have too much money,

00:27:28.800 you start going crazy like oh i am i it goes back to this whole idea of elon musk and peter

00:27:35.240 thiel like we are gonna live forever well you can afford to try to live forever when you have a lot

00:27:40.980 of money when you're actually a working class type of person historically things have changed now of

00:27:45.340 course but you're going to scrounge for any little bit possible so and that's a thing i have seen a

00:27:52.320 lot of these crunchy granola types blah blah blah they're not really liberal they're not really left

00:27:57.140 They're proto-fascists who are able to hide behind either their baby boomerism, their money, their performative politics.

00:28:07.040 Yeah. Or they mistake identity politics as politics. Right.

00:28:10.340 Like they're like, I am OK with gay people. And like I will say out loud that I think racism is bad. 0.82

00:28:16.920 But the way that they vote with their dollars and the way that they even would vote if they didn't weren't embarrassed to be Republican would be different. 0.88

00:28:24.520 And not only that, the people they surround themselves are mostly gabachos, white people. 0.54

00:28:28.480 And like, that's not that's no left. That's no that's not that's not even liberal. 0.95

00:28:32.060 These are proto fascist. And in in Orange County, you have a bunch of them.

00:28:36.880 You've always had a bunch of them in also like, you know, Beverly Hills, Culver City, all these areas where this, you know, the Erewhon people basically have funneled themselves into this. 1.00

00:28:48.600 Then you get the pandemic. Then you get Trump. Then you get all of this.

00:28:51.580 And, yeah, it's not surprising that people are now able to make a lifestyle out of it and be really out in the open and say, oh, yeah, no, this is what my politics.

00:29:00.160 And by the way, if you call them conservative, they're like, I'm not conservative.

00:29:03.060 I'm just totally.

00:29:04.660 Yes, that's right.

00:29:05.660 Right.

00:29:06.460 And I did a fact check. 0.97

00:29:07.420 She's from San Clemente.

00:29:08.600 OK, that's the one.

00:29:09.740 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:29:10.320 Yes.

00:29:10.600 And she grew up in it.

00:29:12.060 So I always love like for someone who knows things.

00:29:14.380 She grew up in Corona.

00:29:15.560 Oh, God.

00:29:16.080 Corona, the city of near all the dairy farms in Chino.

00:29:22.260 So Corona was the place where all my cousins or a few of my cousins moved over to because they couldn't afford Orange County anymore.

00:29:30.660 So if she grew up there, though, that's when it was straight up.

00:29:33.260 Well, I'm not going to say it, but let's just say it was a little bit different from where she lives now economically.

00:29:40.180 Right. So she like and she grew up, it seems from her Wikipedia entry, she grew up with kind of a hard life.

00:29:45.080 But now she is, like, living this aspirational life.

00:29:49.040 But I do think you're right. 0.99

00:29:49.980 Like, so much of it is just having too much money and, like, becoming insular and not having anyone who will call you on your bullshit, right? 0.99

00:29:58.560 What a blessed life. 1.00

00:30:00.320 I don't have the time for that crap. 0.99

00:30:08.800 The Culture Study Podcast is sponsored by Mill. 0.99

00:30:11.320 Sometimes it feels like there are just so many things that we are supposed to be doing all of the time to save the planet

00:30:17.380 And I know a lot of us get this messaging that like you are never ever doing enough

00:30:21.620 And sometimes you just need one or two straightforward things that you can do that make your life more sustainable

00:30:28.820 Mill is one of those things. It's a food recycler

00:30:32.200 The entire idea is to make keeping food out of the garbage as easy as dropping your food into the garbage

00:30:39.540 so mill it looks like a big garbage can a big beautiful garbage can it's not made of stainless

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00:30:57.060 it like I think I empty mine once a week it never smells and you can take all of the recycled food

00:31:05.320 and put it into your garden I've been putting it on top of where my sweet peas are planted

00:31:10.720 and the sweet peas seem to really like that turns it into this like clean dry nutrient rich grounds

00:31:17.420 it's kind of like coffee grounds but not wet and not smelling like coffee if you don't have a

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00:31:32.660 out of your garbage. I have gotten back in the habit of separating all of my food waste from

00:31:38.580 my regular garbage and like the amount of garbage that is in my garbage can is halved. But you have

00:31:44.400 to live with a mill to really get it. That's why there is this risk-free trial. You can get $75

00:31:49.480 off at mill.com slash culture. That's mill.com slash culture. Today's episode is sponsored by

00:31:57.020 ZocDoc. Both Charlie and I stubbed our toes so significantly that we thought that we had broken

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00:32:26.600 happening in the last two weeks that like I just I didn't know like do I try to get into urgent

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00:33:48.440 slash culture. ZocDoc.com slash culture. Okay, next question is an outside observation from

00:33:58.200 Allison. As a Texas native, I ask with bemused affection, why do people from Southern California

00:34:04.680 have a constant need to be outside all the time? I married a SoCal native, not Los Angeles,

00:34:10.540 a decade ago. And even though we have lived in the Midwest for almost all of our marriage,

00:34:15.060 I think he still wishes he could comfortably spend entire days outside year-round.

00:34:20.480 The cold in winter and the humidity in mosquitoes in summer sometimes just make outside miserable,

00:34:26.560 and yet the dream of eating every meal on the deck persists.

00:34:30.480 My in-laws even have outdoor heaters so they can be outside when the temperature dips into the 50s.

00:34:36.280 What's up with this?

00:34:38.520 Okay, so first of all, Texas native.

00:34:40.660 the reason you don't like spending all of your time outside is because half of the year you

00:34:44.540 cannot spend time outside. It's too hot. That's hilarious. And the other thing is when you live

00:34:51.040 in the Midwest, and this is something that is not familiar to me as someone who's from the

00:34:54.840 Northwest, when you live in the Midwest, there's bugs everywhere all the time. So of course,

00:35:00.780 you're going to be like, ew, outside gross. But us, we live in a place where it is glorious to

00:35:07.000 be outside when the sun is shining oh yeah i mean it's southern california so there's no there's no

00:35:12.140 real bugs because they're all poisoned by all of our car exhaust except except for the asian tiger

00:35:18.340 mosquito this small little thing that has just become endemic over the past like 15 years oh

00:35:23.940 yeah you we call them ankle biters small little guys and just like buzz all around they love my

00:35:30.560 wife my poor wife cannot get rid of them fast enough they mostly leave me alone but yeah 1.00

00:35:36.940 I mean, look, why don't you want to be outside?

00:35:40.520 Why wouldn't you want to be outside when it's temperate?

00:35:42.860 I mean, you go and not only that, so much of SoCal culture is because we live in such temperate, beautiful weather.

00:35:50.840 That's why we have our carne asadas.

00:35:52.840 That's why we have our outings in the park.

00:35:55.360 That's why we could go to the Hollywood Bowl, one of the greatest concert venues in the United States.

00:36:01.020 It's this big, huge 18,000 seat outdoor amphitheater carved into a hill right in the midst of Hollywood.

00:36:08.320 And you see the L.A. Philharmonic or, you know, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

00:36:13.380 It actually just celebrated its 100th anniversary last year, I believe.

00:36:16.840 So, so much baseball, football, not basketball, but you do your pickup games.

00:36:23.080 So, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, and look, I when I'm in New York, I love being out in New York because I love that urban environment.

00:36:30.060 I love the streets and all of that. But where am I going to like, OK, you go to Central Park.

00:36:34.380 That's just one little part in an urban area in Los Angeles, despite it being a huge city.

00:36:39.920 There's so much open space. How could you not want to be there?

00:36:44.240 Well, I will say one thing that's always struck me is it's not super walkable. Right.

00:36:48.160 Most places I've been in Southern California. And so you don't unlike, say, New York, where you walk everywhere.

00:36:55.120 You don't spend a ton of time walking to places.

00:36:57.500 You just spend time outside once you get to the place.

00:37:00.680 Like it's the famous song, Lighter Shade of Brown on a Sunday afternoon.

00:37:05.600 It's a classic.

00:37:06.620 It's neo oldie but goodie because they came out late 80s, early 90s.

00:37:10.000 And the whole thing is just kicking back in the park on a Sunday afternoon.

00:37:14.640 That's it.

00:37:15.040 And that is just encapsulates the Southern California spirit of how you would want to

00:37:20.280 spend your weekend just out in the park in someone's backyard grilling drinking watching

00:37:26.180 sports yes with your outdoor television or now on your phone and just enjoying it why do you want to

00:37:31.260 be in air conditioning you know the whole time that's what other parts of the united states for

00:37:35.200 that's what texas is for or you're spending your time in the car and you're like i if i'm not like

00:37:39.440 once i get out of the car i don't want to be in any sort of enclosed space yeah right um and that

00:37:44.520 allergy to for me in texas this is always a problem when i live there was that i just like

00:37:50.300 it was over air conditioned all the time like i was cold all i was how am i cold in the state of

00:37:55.460 texas for like five months out of the year but they're trying to keep anyone who's wearing

00:37:59.760 normal clothes at a normal temperature so okay so we have one more socal question that we're

00:38:05.380 going to save for our subscriber only ask in anything segment so it's about what someone

00:38:10.060 should know before making the move to socal so can you stick around for this of course

00:38:14.420 All right. So if you want Gustavo's insider advice on moving to SoCal and his top three restaurant recommendations, that's just if you like want to be there at some point, you have to become a paid subscriber. Head to culturestudypod.substack.com to get the full conversation.

00:38:31.340 It's been such a pleasure to have you. This is like my platonic ideal of an episode. So where besides your newsletter, which we'll link, where else can people find you on the Internet if they want to find more?

00:38:41.060 I mean honestly the newsletter is the best thing because I would say like Instagram I'm over Instagram Facebook nah Twitter I'm still on because it's a cesspool but I always knew it was a cesspool and honestly when I saw you last time you were checking it I was like why are you still there and you're like it's curiosity right like you're like it's interesting I mean observe almost I and that's the thing I don't even follow like any of the alt loser shit I'm following like

00:39:11.060 Like Super 70s Sports and The Hard Times, which is like The Onion, but for punks.

00:39:18.180 It's like all it is is parody stuff, and they're still there.

00:39:20.720 If they all migrated elsewhere, I'd probably go, but they're all there.

00:39:23.900 And I've also been in a seven-year-long gif war with like 44 people where we just send gifs to each other.

00:39:30.720 I cannot end it, so I'm going to be there until I get suspended, and I've been suspended in the past, so that might happen.

00:39:36.940 Amazing. Thank you again so much. This has been just incredible.

00:39:40.400 No, gracias as always.

00:39:44.280 Thanks for listening to the Culture Study Podcast.

00:39:46.500 Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

00:39:48.780 because we have so many great episodes in the works

00:39:51.080 and I promise you don't want to miss any of them.

00:39:54.340 If you want to suggest a topic,

00:39:55.940 ask a question about the culture that surrounds you

00:39:57.940 or submit a question for our subscriber-only advice time segment,

00:40:01.920 go to our Google forum at tinyurl.com slash culturestudypod

00:40:06.880 or check the show notes for a link.

00:40:08.620 and if you want to support the show and get all of the bonus content head to culturestudypod.substack.com

00:40:15.520 it's just five bucks a month or fifty dollars a year you'll get ad-free episodes an exclusive

00:40:20.560 advice time segment and weekly discussion threads for each episode you also get a big deal if you

00:40:26.380 are already a subscriber to the culture study newsletter there's a link for that in the show

00:40:30.600 notes the culture study podcast is produced by me ann helen peterson and melody rowell our music

00:40:36.160 is by Poddington Bear. You can find me on Instagram at Anne Helen Peterson,

00:40:40.580 Melody at Melodious47, and the show at Culture Study Pod.

Culture Study Podcast - May 28, 2025

What is SoCal Culture？

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