I lived in SF for 25 years and this isn't remotely true. Indeed, it might have been remotely true 20 years ago when artists could afford to live there. There used to be dance studios everywhere. SF Carnival was huge. Burning Man got its start at Baker Beach. No more. Anything cultural in SF now is store bought.

Anyways, that's what I think. How do you think SF defines American culture now in 2019? What is it that we export more web presences?

Almost every American 'culture war' issue has been centered in SF. This is incredibly important, more so than movies, plays, or art. It's one thing to produce a popular play. It is something completely different to be so influential that you manage to convince an entire nation to give up on their tens of thousands of years old definition of marriage. And yes, SF was the center of that. It was the center of the 'sexual revolution', arguably the kick off to all the culture war issues we see today. Regardless of how you feel about them, it is incredibly difficult to argue that the values often espoused in and around SF are not winning.

The issue is that you are assuming culture means cultural products -- movies, songs, books, etc. I'm talking about culture as fundamental values. In my opinion, the cultural products are a product of culture. In the grand arc of history, cultural artifacts are influenced in design by the culture that made them, not vice versa.

> no one walks around in bell bottoms anymore

Right, that's because the bell bottom wearers all became really rich selling you the phone you're always on. The idea that this is not also part of culture is some kind of weird double think.

NYC has half of the US TV and film industry. Pick a random movie or TV show, and it’s probably set in New York, if not filmed there. Turn on a talking head on cable TV...it’s probably coming from a studio in Manhattan. I encounter film productions literally every day while walking around the city.

The global finance industry. The global fashion industry. Essentially all theater. Art production and sales. Sothebys and Christie’s. The Tony awards and The Thanksgiving day parade. The Yankees, Mets, Rangers, etc. The Met, MOMA, Whitney, Guggenheim and about a dozen others. All of these are either based in NYC, or split the honor with LA.

Like I said, I love SF, but culturally, outside of tech it’s a backwater.

It's not hard to make a top twenty ranking of films set in NYC, regardless of what you pick in what order. Same for TV shows. How many cities get to say that?

But, yeah, other than that there is not much of a cultural impact.

I'm not making the case that it had the biggest or best cultural impact, but it's definitely important, even if you think it is a drag, which I guess you're allowed to think that, but it's subjective at best.

It doesn't seem to have a lot of production of note in the arts or media (TV, movies, games, music, books, etc).

It also doesn't seem culturally aligned with the rest of the USA, so I think that would be evidence to point to it not having a big influence or impact on US culture.

> It also doesn't seem culturally aligned with the rest of the USA, so I think that would be evidence to point to it not having a big influence or impact on US culture.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, can you explain? I would actually argue the opposite. Almost all modern American culture wars have been centered around San Francisco in some way, shape, or form.

Speaking as someone who has spent their entire life on the West Coast, I almost never even think about New York or the East Coast. To me, it's the east coast that seems disconnected from reality.

I always thought Pixar was close to Oakland, not SF. Lucasfilm is a pretty good pick. But there are a lot of other higher impact studios in SoCal.

EA's talent is spread all over the globe. What games are developed in SF? I don't see how a corp HQ that mostly buys studios after they make a breakout game as a center of culture (center of power, yes. culture, no)