When I describe East Coast vs West Coast culture to my friends I often say "The East Coast is kind but not nice, the West Coast is nice but not kind," and East Coasters immediately get it. West Coasters get mad. 😂😂😂
Conversation
Niceness is saying "I'm so sorry you're cold," while kindness may be "Ugh, you've said that five times, here's a sweater!" Kindness is addressing the need, regardless of tone.
I'm a West Coaster through and through—born and raised in San Francisco, moved to Portland for college, and now live in Seattle. We're nice, but we're not kind. We'll listen to your rant politely, smile, and then never speak to you again. We hit mute in real life. ALOT.
171
748
19.1K
So often, we West Coasters think that showing *sympathy* or feeling *empathy* is an act of kindness. Sadly, it's really just a nice act.
Kindness is making sure the baby has a hat. (s/o to breenewsome and BlackAmazon)
Quote Tweet
I have become a dedicated and obstinate materialist aka “ DOES BABY HAVE HAT “ for reasons like my last retweet. @BreeNewsome talks concrete realities and folks want to talk ephemera
Show this thread
32
451
8,918
When you translate this to institutions or policy, you'll see alot of nice words being used, & West Coast liberals/radicals are really good at *sounding* nice. But I've seen organizers & activists from other places get frustrated because nothing happens after ALOT of talk.
56
743
11.9K
Nothing happens after the pronoun check-ins and the icebreakers. It's rare we make sure that people's immediate needs are addressed. There's no kindness. You have people show up to meetings hungry, or needing rides home, and watching those with means freeze when asked to help.
43
648
10.2K
As we begin to "get back a sense of normalcy" or "re-calibrate" to what people in Blue States™ think is Right™ and Just™, I want us to keep in mind the difference between Niceness and Kindness. If something sounds nice, doesn't mean that its kind.
131
1,342
13.8K
West Coasters are like, yeah it’d take 45 minutes to drive to give you a sweater so good luck
1
What a hilarious ring of truth for this native New Yorker who spent much of her adult life on the West Coast!
1
4
And when I moved back to NYC I had an epiphany about the way East Coast and West Coast defines "rude" as I a stood on (yes 'on', not 'in') a ridiculously long, incredably fast-moving, line at the grocery store
1
5
Show replies
To be fair, my (NYC) Mom used to say "Brrr! I'm freezing. Put on a damn sweater!"
But this is correct, and brilliant.
3
27
i’ve had my kindness go rejected or unrecognized due to not delivering it with a “nice” tone many a time on this coast
bums me out that people confuse the two. also imo leads to lots of cross-cultural confusion
2
30