Hollywood is Fine…Honestly!

Prior to moving to Los Angeles in the fall of 2017, I bought into all the bad stereotype about what living in LA would be like. I assumed everyone would be out for themselves, be plastic surgery addicts, and I probably had some outdated imagery from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous burned into my brain despite that I’ve barely even seen that series. I only moved out here because I was chasing a dream (to be in comedy) and was excited to try something new but was pretty heartbroken about leaving my adoptive home of Denver, CO. I made the assumption that I probably wouldn’t make any real friends for awhile due to ideas of everyone being fake or flakey and expected to have most of my emotional support come from from afar. I low key looked at moving to LA as a personal sacrifice that I was making for my career, held my breath, and drove the 1000 or so miles to my new home in Lala Land.

A month after I arrived it was Thanksgiving and one of my Denver friends was in Orange County visiting family so I got to connect with him for an afternoon. On some rooftop patio of a restaurant we were at he asked me, “So how do you like LA?” I still have the muscle memory of taking a quick beat, cocking my head and squinting my eyes with thoughtfulness and trepidation as I felt disbelief as I found myself saying, “You know, I think I like it. Or at least I have no complaints so far.” My friend smiled and gave me a deserved, “I told you so,” as he had been championing me to try out LA because he saw firsthand that I loved my life in Denver but was also hitting ceilings with how far I could go in some parts of my life. He had been to LA and used to live in California so he added with polite authority, “It’s just a place, like any place.”

“It’s just a place” became something I heard repeatedly from my other Denver friends. My best friend came to visit me in March of 2018 and she was surprised at how little she saw the same stereotypes that I bought into. When we were both back in Denver in the summer of 2019 and visiting with some mutual friends (who had also been to LA in recent years), we all marveled at how “LA was fine” because it’s “just a place.” In certain ways Denver and LA can feel like polar opposites, so to have so many Denver folks find LA to be welcoming enough is saying something. LA is the victim of a lot of rumored stereotypes, and while some have a nugget of truth to them most are outdated or based on a very small niche of people. Los Angeles is the second biggest city in the country which means with that many people, there’s something for everyone.

Now, I was somewhat lucky as I immediately fell into a niche of likeminded individuals from the jump. I started Second City Hollywood on day four of living here and Upright Citizens Brigade on day five. It is not hard to make friends (or at least friendly acquaintances) in a scene like the comedy scene at these schools and theaters. Most people are generally very collaborative, friendly, and welcoming. There’s always shows one can see (and usually for free when you’re a student as watching shows is apart of the curriculum and it’s somewhat easy to wrangle other classmates to go in small groups together) and people need help with DIY projects so everyone collaborates together fairly quickly. I’m not close with everyone from my early days of the live indie comedy scene, but a few I’ve remained in touch with and if nothing else everything about those early days made it easier for me to network and build momentum, both socially and professionally. Granted the pandemic ruined a lot of that momentum for me but I’m getting ahead of myself as that’s another story for another time.

I was genuinely shocked how not closed off or rude most people were out here and am happy to report how wrong I was. Now sometimes amongst LA folks people like to shit on LA or the people here. I’m not going to gaslight anyone and say that there are not some major egos or even narcissists because of course they exist. There is also a dark side to show business, no if, ands, or buts. But having lived in three wildly different parts of the country before landing here (the Northeast, Miami, FL, and the aforementioned Denver, CO) I can honestly tell you this: sucky people exist everywhere. And as a former social butterfly, I’ve seen more than my healthy sampling of this prior to moving out here.

I have a lot of thoughts on why LA gets such a bad rap in the people department. I’m going to better extrapolate on those thoughts in future posts, but I think it’s possible that there’s slightly more wounded people out here. I’ve heard a lot of discourse about people pushing back from the “hurt people hurt people” as if it excuses people for bad behaviors, and while I don’t excuse behaviors that hurt people I still think it’s remiss to ignore why these things happen. Artists are notoriously wounded humans and LA is literally built on art. Everyone is in survival mode and everyone is experiencing varying levels of unchecked vs checked mental health issues. Hot take: this exists everywhere but people hide it better elsewhere (or it comes out in different ways)- but that’s all for another post. Sometimes I think it’s just easier for people to blame LA as being a bad place with bad people than accepting that there’s nuance and a spectrum to people and situations and sometimes it’s just luck if you sync up with good reliable people because one wants, or even needs, to believe that it’s better elsewhere.

I’m writing here and will continue to write about LA not because I think my opinion and experiences are the monolith but because I wish I could have found articles, videos, something about the social component of LA or even a practical guide to the logistics of living here before I packed up my bags and headed west. Any conversation about LA seems to lack a lot of nuance, so I wanna fill in that grey area a bit. There’s many pitfalls and traps here (which I will also write about) but I find few negative situations to be unique the city itself…though I will say some minor details are super specific to this town and industry, but the bigger issues surrounding those small differences make the layers harder to slice apart and realize humans are just gonna act like humans no matter where you are.

Fun fact: my original post about this initially got lost/accidentally deleted so I’m rewriting as much as possible from memory and I think there was more but am very run down from an insanely busy week. I’m not a napper but I need a nap and if it turns into an early bedtime, so be it as today is my only day off for the rest of the week and I need to conserve some energy. But to conclude, LA is fine (assuming you stay away from douche bag Hollywood clubs and stuff like that) though it isn’t perfect either. I’ll be better expanding on all of what I mentioned in the future, as well as debunking other myths… like traffic- it’s bad, but it’s been pretty bad in every city I’ve lived in too and I barely notice a difference. (There is some nuance to that hot take and some aspects where I’m wrong, but we’ll get there soon.) I actually find the parking situation to be way more stressful but that’s for another post. And while I’ll never claim to know how to make it in the industry (if someone successful reading this wants to tell me their secret- or even just hire me - please hit up my contact page and email me) I have had enough experience to understand normal trajectories when just starting out, ego myths to stay away from, personality types that are wolves in sheep’s clothing, and I can even go into what to expect at the different comedy schools having spent time at the three major ones (UCB, Groundlings, and Second City) as well as some of the less famous ones (that are also very much worth going to). LA won’t be getting a “Disney edit” from me, but I’m also not going to make complaining about LA my whole personality because that’s annoying (and too prevalent. Hot tip: most who complain about LA are usually the biggest culprits of why people hate LA. Just sayin’.).

Thank you for stopping by my inaugural post about LA. I only have two more intro posts coming (one specifically on grief and one on how weed, why I started using it, and why I feel a need to blog about it). Both are kind of personal and not boring intros, I promise, and both will be out over the next two days. And then we can really get into the things of the things with all of these topics. Please check back and/or go to my social media tabs to follow and see my updates at the top (if on a desktop) or bottom of the page (if on your phone) and let’s connect again soon!