San Francisco is a 49-square-mile city… that right-wing media loves to base 90% of its coverage on it within a small fraction of that land space.
San Francisco is still here — beautiful, bewildering, maddening, awe-inspiring. Sure, the seven-by-seven has its laundry list of problems (as does any large metro in the United States), but there’s a reason why San Francisco has inspired songs; been a fixture in countless pieces of literature; served as backdrops to dozens of films; existed as a perennial touchstone for people to find a sense of home and community.
Another beautiful day in the bay pic.twitter.com/hIg2urW8QL
— studio_dad (@studio_daddy) August 15, 2023
San Francisco isn’t dead, nor is it in a state of absolute unraveling. It’s not sliding down a doom loop, either. It is, however, a city in the midst of change — an evolution into a metropolis that’s, frankly, more approachable and less esoteric.
For those of us who live here, we know this on a cellular level. Those who don’t — and often surmise their ideas of what living in San Francisco is like from sensualized news clippings — connote our city with dystopia. Or as toxic-human-and-popular-podcast-host Joe Rogan previously said: San Francisco is like a third-world country. (Well, it’s just not at all… so let’s squash that narrative, right now.)
Recently, a meme has been circulating around the interwebs that pitch-perfectly captures this rich dichotomy.
“Another beautiful day in the bay,” reads a post on X from [at]studio_dad, whose post gained some hyperlocal virality. But it wasn’t the short bit of copy that helped it garner hundreds of reposts and nearly 1,400 likes as of publishing. That’s because of the image attached to the post: A picture of a loveable, timid golden retriever that has “San Francisco” text placed by its front paws, while a terrifying, werewolf-like piece of Halloween decor, with text put on its back that reads “San Francisco in the news” sits next to the dog.
(It’s unclear if [at]studio_dad was the individual actually responsible for making the meme, FYI.)
Truly no notes. A ten-out-of-ten. It’s a slam dunk for meme culture.
For those of us who basically have to defend San Francisco tooth and nail when speaking about our home city to family still living in, say, the Midwest, it’s nice to have another meme in our digital toolbelt to use against their Fox News-based takes.
