After slogging through the tech vs. art and rich vs. poor rhetoric swimming around San Francisco, we thought this trend of anti-San Francisco hate blogging had reached it's logical conclusion with that Gen-X vs. Millennial screed. But we were wrong! Meet Peter Shih, the latest entrepreneur/resident to find himself unsatisfied with the city around him. Naturally, he took to the blogging platform du jour to express his displeasure in the most obnoxious way.
Peter Shih is part of Celery, a company that makes it easier for businesses to accept credit card payments (because that hasn't been done yet, obviously). Today Peter's post on Medium titled "10 Things I Hate About You: San Francisco Edition" broke wide thanks to its unflinching hatred for pretty much everything in San Francisco from public transit to parking to the weather. And also women, probably. To wit, reason #3:
3. Weather I hate how the weather here is like a woman who is constantly PMSing. I hate how I can’t tell the difference between August and February. I hate how I have to turn on the heater in the middle of summer. I hate having to always carry a jacket because of the 20 degree swings between day and night.
[Note: The post was later edited to remove the "PMSing" reference.]
But the weather's not the only thing that's cold. What about the women? Reason #5:
5. 49ers No, not the football team, they’re great. I’m referring to all the girls who are obviously 4's and behave like they are 9's. Just because San Francisco has the worst Female to Male ratio in the known universe doesn’t give you the right to be a bitch all the time.
His peers aren't so hot either. They're covered in Reason #4:
4. Start Up Guys I’ve got some advice for you: It’s cool that you have a very fulfilling job and love what you do, really bro, I mean it. But please try and talk about something other than what’s on TechCrunch when in a social situation. There is more to life than who raised money from who and which startup got acquired by Google.
This coming from someone whose Twitter bio is limited to which class he was in at Y-Combinator, the revered startup incubator.
As for the city's homeless problem, Peter's (ahem) disruptive solution includes handing them vodka and a pack of cigarettes and paying them to ride the cable cars so more people will notice them. Which brings Peter to his next point: Crime in Peter's San Francisco is worse than crime in New York because it "happens in much closer proximity" to where "normal upstanding citizens" like himself travel. If only we could send the crime somewhere else... Like Los Angeles maybe? Where they have ample parking (reason #2 to hate San Francisco).
Of course, no hateful screed is complete without lashing out at the cyclists:
10. Bicyclists Stop being fucking hypocrites. If you want to share the road, then you need to respect the rules of the road and stop running stop signs and lights. Next time I see one of you fuckers bomb through a crosswalk and almost mow down a row of pedestrians I’m going to clothesline you.
Although everyone can agree with point #1: Public Transportation. Muni really does suck.
Update: Several changes have been made to Shih's original post since it went up on Medium, most notably removing some of the more offensive statements. [Double update: it is now gone entirely.] For posterity's sake, local journalist Susie Cagle has preserved the original piece in its entirety.
Update, August 16th: Cue the backlash.
Previously: 'Douchebags Like You Are Ruining San Francisco,' Gen-X Techie Says To Millennial Techies
[Valleywag]
[UptownAlmanac]