SF has produced important musicians (Janis Joplin, Train, Journey, Jon Fogerty) and authors (Jack London, Kerouac, Steinbeck arguably, if you consider Salinas part of the bay area). While not as populated as NYC, the effect of SF is disproportionately large. Whether you agree or disagree with its morals, the summer of love, the hippie movement, the LGBT activism, the tech scene, etc has disproportionately affected not only America, but the entire world.

> 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.

Lucasfilm? Pixar? EA? It's not exactly hard to spot the impact on pop culture.

Not everyone has your local knowledge. Thanks for sharing information in a non condescending way.

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)

For what it's worth, I'm including Oakland and San Jose as part of SF, because they are part of the Bay Area. This is fair. People include NYC as one city, even though Manhattan is arguable the center of NYC and NYC spans five counties. Same with LA -- people include cultural centers in LA that are not in LA city proper. Greater LA is absolutely huge compared to the bay.