These are from a brand of "human & open luxury". In Silicon Valley, you're not supposed to be driving around a Ferrari or going on cruises like a rich boomer. Instead, you're supposed to have friends on every continent, cooking ingredients (not kitschy souvenirs) from your world-wide travels, a marathon-ready body, and an everything-is-okay smile, deriving from your material self-contentedness and awareness of your luck. It's about becoming a vessel for temporal and social experiences, not someone leashed to a big TV. It's about signifying that you're open to the "best" of what every culture has to offer without sharing any of the pain or trying to make it better, aside from minor improvements to buttons or trying your hand at a hair-brained get-rich-quick scheme couched under a messiah complex. The idea is that these experiences and contact with other cultures are "human", but they're also a shallow way to both show off material status.

I'd wager a simpler explanation: People in SF especially are increasingly purchasing every-day items online.

This means retail shops need to capitalize on discovery and unique items. Especially items that are unique enough that people can't just snap a pic and order/price-compare it online.

Bingo. This is it.

OP's hatred of San Francisco blinded him to the simple truth.

Not really. Normal people have basically no interest Himalayan salt.

Himalayan salt is sold in Costco. It's not just an SF thing.

Right. I just think it's hilarious that the facade of "authenticity" is the new kitsch.

You never been to NYC have you. There are plenty of ridiculous stores here as well. Once a place is big enough and has enough people with cash that don't know how to spend it, all kind of weird stores spring up, happy to get some of that money.

LA is the same. Let's please not bash SF and tech un-deservely.

Heck, I'd say places like Miami, Vegas or LA are much worse in this department. (i.e. the ridiculous concept stores).

It's not that the store is weird, it's that the common thread through all the items it carries is "things that evoke human-ness". It's for people who are far removed from being regular people but who want to experience what they imagine that feels like. We have similar stores here in Austin, but they haven't (yet) taken over completely.

Honestly, no idea how you're grading something as having more human-ness than something else.

I've spent a lot of time in all three cities you mention and live in one of them. San Francisco is not the same, it's visibly pathologically worse.

Or it’s really a gift shop. Stuff that you wouldn’t buy for yourself but is kind of nice / high end looking and uncommon enough that your giftee probably doesn’t have it already.

Stores like these are great for buying small gifts for people impossible to shop for (they already have everything!) and if nothing else the items are usually optimised to be a talking point.

Does anyone know the store she was referring to? At first I thought it might be Foodhall in 16th and Valencia but it doesn’t quite match the description.

At least they're somewhat unique, better than the strip malls of uncultured rubbish that another commenter mentioned.

I find it hilarious that you think these stores are a parody but not the strip malls and payday loan shops everywhere else.