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Local Street Artist Pretty Much Over Everyone

The ever-edgy Valencia Street unleashed a frenzy of eye-rolls the other week as some street artist attempted to segregate the sidewalk between “techies” and “real San Franciscans.”  But that list was recently added to, and the stenciler has added a long list of folks not deemed ‘real’ enough.

Hippies, hipsters and yuppies?  Nope.  9ers and gigantes?  Sorry.  Even renters, home owners, homeless, and the Tanner family don’t make the cut.  In all, 42 groups of people fall in the techie camp.

Is the artist buying into the “We Are All Techies Now” trope being pushed by the besieged maker community, alleging they are victims of the same xenophobic discrimination faced by Latinos?  Perhaps.  But I prefer to think the artist is just fucking over everyone.

Comments (21)

Gonna go out on a limb and guess the same artist didn’t add these other stenciled names (The Tanner Family?)

I’m probably being overly optimistic, but maybe it’s intended to be a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the fact that just about every subgroup in SF has been deemed by some other subgroup to not be “real” San Franciscans who are “worthy” of living here. Maybe the artist was *intending* to list every extant subgroup on the left side, such that there would be no one left over who could conceivably fall into the “real San Franciscans” category on the right? 

+1. 

what the fuck else could it possibly mean? 

Needs to add ‘STENCILERS’ to the left-hand list.

I’m proud to be an Unreal San Franciscan. It’s not a bad way to be, really.

The Artist’s failure was in attempting to divide sides along authenticity rather than income.  Hard to define “real” but one’s pay check is pretty telling. There are divisions here for sure, but they don’t need to be demarcated on the side walk.

Ah, so making more than the median income makes you “not real”.

Neither blacks nor Asians made the list?!? Dang; not even good enough for that, huh?

We should we care about some random street vandaliser who’s opinion is meaningless?

And instead we shoud listen to the meaningless opinion of random blog commentor?

What this artist/truth teller should be doing is making a path for the techies to an ATM that loops back around to a point where the real san franciscans are. The techies can get money from the ATM then appropriately pass along those ill-gotten gains to the people that could really use it: the real San Franciscans. Keep enough to live and look hip, but give the rest to the people that deserve it.

What is really cool about all this is that a city worker will have to remove this, and that city worker is most likely a native that can no longer afford to live here. Also, the nice person that did this act of vadalism is almost certainly a recent transplant to The City.

That’s truth right there.

Google should provide buses for all the nannies, house cleaners, coffee pullers, burger flippers, hair burners, teachers……….well, all members of the Third Estate. Google could bus them in from some remote Soweto and usher them back when they’ve finished their labors.

I like your thinking.  But maybe easier to just make the next Google buses that leave the city one way tickets?  

Or those nannies, house cleaners, coffee pullers, burger flippers, hair burners, teachers could try to keep up with a growing economy and get the necessary education/training to be able to afford to live in a desirable place to be.

Maybe you could work for equal access to the quality education/training needed to “keep up with a growing economy”

Unlike graffiti on walls which often is quickly buffed, sidewalk stencils can be around for years.

Usually they just fade away, but it does sometimes get removed on Valencia (some around 14th last year and the stencils near Dog Earred Books).

There are still fading google tax stencils at 24th and Valencia from before many were aware it was a google bus stop.

I’m surprised there haven’t been more stencils there and at other teach bus stops.

The Tanners are Rad.