I’m Done Hating Toronto
And I’m not alone, either. Witness new Tumblr “Fuck Yeah Toronto” [via] that, among other bits and bobs, showcases some great photography like the example below (I hope it’s okay I’m putting a small version of it here). More importantly, the caption under the blog title reads “Because if you don’t love Toronto, you probably have no soul”. In this instance, the exclamation “Fuck yeah” seems perfectly appropriate.
I say this because: a) I’m bored with everyone hating Toronto, especially those who live here; b) Toronto is pretty fucking great, despite the glaring fact that it is not and never will be ‘like New York’. Get over it already; c) over the last 6-12 months, Toronto has seen a resurgence of both civic participation and a sense of pride, urgency and excitement about the city. A good chunk of that, I’d argue, stems from the sense of community that has emerged in the Toronto ‘Twitter-sphere’ and has also been nurtured and encouraged by award-winning magazine Spacing, and the two main Toronto blogs, Torontoist and blogTO.
That is, I admit, a little problematic given the demographics (largely young-ish, urban and uni-educated). But the dismal cloud of hopelessness that has always pervaded this city has, in uneasy fits and starts, started to lift and clear. People are feeling hopeful again, sometimes because of seemingly insignificant things. Some of us have stopped assuming that, despite all we have here, we were just going to give up at some point and move to NYC, San Francisco or London.
So, sure, such straightforward boosterism is sometimes a little crass. But, amidst a swirl of change and growth, there are times an exuberant, irrational yell is the truly optimistic response. To wit: Fuck Yeah Toronto! Now this is something I can get behind.
Three more things to be proud of: TOJam, the Artsy Games Incubator and Jonathan Mak.
Heh – thanks
This is very true. Despite the fact that Toronto lags behind Montreal and Vancouver, there is still some cool stuff going on here in the indie scene. I also *love* Everyday Shooter – it’s one of the few games that I treat like music, in that I turn to it when I feel like being enlivened and inspired (I think my gaming tastes are otherwise quite mainstream).
I just found this because I like Googling, & you just got yourself your very own mention on the FY Nav… Congrats =]
http://fuckyeahtoronto.tumblr.com/post/134470446/wowah
Hey,
Thanks for the comment.
I was quite excited about your Tumblr. As I wrote here, I think people are down on Toronto way too much. Still – even though I subscribe to your site, I wish you would attribute the photographs you put there. To me, it’s just bad Tumblr/blogging etiquette to not cite where things come from. And I think we also disagree about unions.
Still, I hope you keep doing this. Find other Toronto Tumblrs (like Avenues) and maybe you can be part of the beginning of a Tumblr scene here.
-Nav
I actually just figured out how to do click-thrus URLs today (I’m kind of slow, at times…) so starting tomorrow everything will be able to click through to wherever I got it from.
If I ever find the time I’m also going to go back & reference everything that I can remember the source of & set the click-thrus there too =]
What would the URL for Avenues be? I am interested in checking them out.
Also, we’re at 97 followers right now, so there is a definite tumblr scene here… we just need to tap into it a bit more. I’m excited with what could possibly happen here =]
Here’s the address for Avenues:
http://avenues.tumblr.com/
I’m sure there are many more out there – if you find them, be sure to link so we can find out what people in this city are doing are thinking!
I have lived in Toronto for my entire life, and I still don’t know what the West end is like. The farthest I have ever gone west is probably the CNE grounds. I live in EY.
Also, I forgot to mention that Toronto bores me. When I get older, I am definitely moving to another country.