Young People Still Hate Dallas

I gave Dallas a chance by doing a summer internship there. I'm not picky, I'm from the Midwest and have traveled around the country and the world. I've never experienced a more hateful/pretentious culture in my life.

Dallas is narrow-minded, old-fashioned and homophobic. People are so incredibly pretentious. Like congrats dallas, you can buy an escalade or GMC truck on credit! There's so much Ralph Lauren it makes me think I got in a time machine and traveled back 10 years ago. All I Ever hear women talking about is getting married.

My boyfriend drove down with me to help me move into my apartment. Just walking around northpark mall we got so many hateful glares and rude comments. We weren't even holding hands or showing and PDA. It seemed that our presence physically appalled people.

People are so intensely judgemental, I never plan on going back. It made me realize how cool the Midwest is compared to that place.

It's not the aesthetics of the city that make it so unattractive, it's the people and the culture.

Houston and Austin are filled with immature, narcissistic rebellious twenty-something mostly mindless self centered and self important elitiest-wannabes and children rebelling against parents and authority.  Nothing else...booze, party, sex, talkietalk, dancydance...hot cars and cool shades rule.  Mostly white too.

I think Austin is pretty cool too, but I've never lived there there. I've lived in Houston and find very little to like about the place. I've traveled to many cities around the world and lived in a few, I always welcome a return to the flat out convenience of Dallas. When my son was living in Austin and getting his BA and Masters, he thought Austin was THE ONLY PLACE TO LIVE and nearly had a breakdown when he was offered a great job in...wait for it...Dallas! At first he was like a fish out of water, then after reconnecting with old HS friends, now also moving back to Dallas for jobs, and lots of his UT buddies, also moving back here for jobs, he openly confessed, "Dad I never thought Dallas was cool, but it is way cooler than Austin. So much more to do!" I had to remind him that the last time he lived in Dallas he wasn't 21. Did I mention it was also a hoppin' good place for jobs for guysngals with Masters Degrees to work that don't include waiting tables like Austin. Trendy cool like Austin has a price. After his last visit back to Austin, he casually dropped how amazed he was at how little real infrastructure Austin had and how bad the traffic was. Cool has it's limits if you can't get there relatively easily and have to bike or walk. DFW has just about anything you could ask for including top-shelf museums, concerts, NASCAR, 4 Professional Sports Teams, great new, trendy and ethnic restaurants and lots of craft beer places including a few new local craft breweries and more on the way, and clubs to listen to local music. I'm a little jaded because I've watched this city grow and evolve and absorb the needs and wants of the people who live here and move here and become a place where there is something for just about everybody. If you only see the superficial side of the city, you either haven't been here long or you don't want to be happy here. I frankly don't care where Dallas is on the "cool" list, but I know that Dallas, even without Mountains and Beaches, is exciting and varied and is a GREAT PLACE to live and work. If you haven't figured that out yet you must be the kind of person who expects everything to come to them. Get out. Read some of the Blogs on "The Dallas Observer", and check them out. If you need more exciting things to do than that to make you happy, may I suggest the Gaza Strip or Afghanistan where just making it through the day can be really exciting. 

Dallas is filled with wanna be's, and arrogance. Change the "Dallitude" and maybe the city will become more appealing.

There is nothing cool about Dallas, unless you like one chain restaurant after another. 

The author surmised that young people hate Dallas because of the percentage of young people that live here.  Seems a stretch to turn that one stat into such a bold statement.

Firstly, no one under 75 reads this blog.

Secondly the elderly here also hate Dallas as well as water, people, walking, food, dogs, ideals, concepts, automobiles, nurses, viracept, youth, girls with breast, men with health, thai food, dirty colostomy bags, Japanese, steak, dentures, and Vietnamese. 

Part of Austin's appeal is that it's trendy. People move there because other people move there. It's an "It" city at the moment. There isn't necessarily a reason a city becomes an it city, but with Austin, I think because it's considered a bit edgier, which young people like. 

Being top 10 is still an accolade

Houston is the worst

"The numbers show that fewer young people live in Dallas than in Austin or Houston."

Is that the actual cities, or areas. If it's the areas, that could explain. The actual city of Dallas has less affordable and nice aprtments than either Austin or Houston. 

@username Funny, somehow I got the feeling that you were under 75. I am. You sound like you're under 21 and missing a lot of what Dallas has to offer. Sorry. All I read from you agin'ers is jealousy, hate and whining. Unlike Atlanta, most of what is cool here is above ground and unlike Austin, caters to adults and not just college students...although I think a lot of SMU students think the place might be pretty tolerable.

@username 

Vietnamese what? Language?  Food?  Wars?

Girls with breast?  Personally, I'm gettin' on toward elderly (nowhere near 75 yet, though), and I have no animosity towards girls with only one breast.

Dirty colostomy bags?  Is anyone really fond of those?

@smiling1809 hoola hoops used to be trendy.  bellbottoms used to be trendy.  Madonna used to be trendy.  trendy is too shallow to matter.

@smiling1809 Keep Austin Weird and Sixth Street. Compare that to the West End...boring, and Deep Elm..scary. Dallas is just boring. 

@TheRuddSki Ft. Worth does have a lot to offer and Dallasites who don't drive over are really missing something. Their downtown is limited, but cool, the Stockyards are overrated but cool, many of their museums are world-class and their Zoo is one of the best in the country...but my sister-in-law and her husband, who live there just rented an apartment in Uptown. They love the McKinney Trolley the Uptown scene and Klyde Warren...and, please, don't give me that "well what do you expect they've probably never been anywhere else" junk. They've traveled all over. You people are really way to critical, but it is obvious that this exercise is like casting pearls before swine. 

@TheRuddSki FW is way cool, both Austin & HTown have downtowns that are open after dark, as is FW. Dallas, meh- i go to Deep Ellum but downtown still hasn't caught on. 

@TheRuddSki That doesn't make sense. Must be that bad weed you are getting.

@bvckvs Don't forget chain restaurants. Dallas has lots and lots of chain restaurants.

@bvckvs world class museums alone would do it world class symphony, world class entertainment venues and Arts District. Austin gets thumped in every single area.  Culture is not some unwashed guy strumming a guitar under a tree

@TheCredibleHulk Enough. Your guy doesn't have such a stellar record either, but that's not what this discussion is about.

@scottindallas @tlewis186 Okay..tell me what's cool about Dallas? 

@tlewis186 @bvckvs Hey, what's wrong with chain restaurants? Dallas is the incubator for most chain restaurants. It's called job creation you numb-skull and, besides, without all the chain restaurants, which do service the needs of a lot of people, you'd never be able to get into the "cool" places.

@skeechi We're talking young people here skeechi..not places that old dudes like you frequent. 

@RTGolden1 @Tim.Covington Well, let's see. Dallas and the surrounding area have SMU, TCU, UT-Arlington, UT-Dallas, UNT, TWU, Uof Dallas, Dallas Baptist U, Texas Wesleyan. Add them all up and that is well over 125,000 students. But let's be honest college students aren't all we are talking about here. The population of the metro area is over 6 million, 6.7% are in the 20-24 year old college age bracket, 15% are in the 24-34 age bracket. Who really matters in this conversation? Just askin'

@tlewis186 @scottindallas  Most people here on this blog think the Virgin Mary is super cool and carrying guns while at Walgren's or around the area where Kennedy was shot.  Six Flags is also cool to hang out with guns and rifles.  Going to large mega churches and donating money to the closeted preachers can purchase hot tubs is a great Dallas past time.

And when you mention chain restaurants, please don't forget that you can eat  there on your birthday for free or join Groupon to get a discount.  Another fun and cool thing to do here is hating everyone that is different and to make fun of people who question NASCAR. And of course when all else fails and we get bored there is always the old standby of Obama bashing that never gets old.  From birth certificate to Obamacare to the fact that he is Satan. 

@cwi4691 @tlewis186 @bvckvs What's wrong with chain restaurants? Thanks for making my point.

@tlewis186 @skeechi Old Dudes OWN the joints you narcissists hang out at and they take your money while you think you are cool....mega joke dude.

@bvckvs @skeechi Have you really never heard of Erykah Badu, Norah Jones, Roy Hargrove, the original Dixie Chicks, which led to the revamped Dixie Chicks, Cowboy Troy, and probably plenty of others? I'm not claiming that Dallas beats Austin in terms of popular music artists, but your Edie Brickell claim is obviously quite inaccurate.

@bvcks. Erica Badhu (sp?) might take issue with that.

Why doesn't my reply to a particular comment nest right below any more?

@bvckvs @skeechi  Austin has none of that, and no pro sports, no Super Bowl Final Four or CMA. Steve Ray was from Dallas, not Austin. Willie Nelson was born just south of here. Austin made the top ten overrated cities too. The CMA here in Nov with 90 concerts will dwarf South by Southwest

@tlewis186 @cwi4691 @bvckvs And WHAT pray tell was your point? That chain restaurants are bad? OR only for the "common folk" who are beneath your level of sophistication and financial status? What absolute arrogance. So you are saying you never go to chain restaurants? Dallas is about jobs, convenience, diversity of entertainment for all classes of people, not just whatever group you are in. What's wrong with that? Are you saying there are NO chain restaurants in Austin or Houston? You are so full of yourself. I do love your flag, though.

@bvckvs @tlewis186 @skeechi Oy--you had to bring up the genital hair.  Oy.

@ToscasKiss @bvckvs @skeechi Michael Martin Murphy graduated from Adamson HS, does that count? 

@Threeboys  Because you lack the right amount of bitterness and you fail to come off as an old jaded fartazoid.

@cwi4691 @tlewis186 @bvckvs Mature folks go to restaurants to eat good food.  Adolescent minded "utes" go to be seen and hang out and drink shots.

@bvckvs @ToscasKiss @skeechi Actually, both of those artists are trained and accomplished musicians, who put great emphasis on their conceptual (weird? out there?) presentation.  I say that as someone who has not been particularly a fan of either of them, but I have heard enough, and seen and read enough about them to be aware of the musical foundations supporting the work these ladies produce.

And what about Norah?  And the others I named? And, come to think of it, Rhett Miller?  I'm sure others here can name more than I can come up with, but even just with my suggestions, don't you revise your Edie Brickell as last artist out of Dallas assertion?  I ask just as one music-loving Dallasite to another.

@bvckvs @Threeboys Edie Brickell who?

@bvckvs @Threeboys Really?! Despite a slight misspelling, it's obvious to whom Threeboys is referring.  Do you really not know, yet you're making snarky claims on this subject?  Or...what?