I legitimately don’t understand what appeal that has in art. Is it just for insecure people who want to feel confident but don’t know what that actually is?
I like music because it makes me feel things and entertains me, and ego-stroking does none of that. hearing how much a random person loves themselves doesn’t enrich my life at all.
I think the PNW freeze doesn’t exist. I think the origin of it is people in adjacent regions (like eastern Washington and Oregon, Idaho, and Northern California) which are extremely friendly experience a culture shock when they go to cities west of the cascades because friendliness is optional and not expected.
Then transplants come in from other places, hear about how “unfriendly” everyone is, and when they have the same struggles with making friends people have anywhere, they blame the region. And it’s repeated enough that people feel justified using it as an excuse.
Another aspect I think is people tend to bond more over interests so simply being extroverted isn’t going to work as well as it will other places.
Sometimes I think it’s a psyop.
Whether it’s a group for some hobby or something, a bar, a club, or festival, people often try to meet other people and no one thinks it’s weird except online.
Most people there are regular people and your failure to make friends is because of your personality.
I keep seeing people with no self-awareness whine about people in Portland and it’s dumb. Take a deeper look at your behavior.
The city is over 600k people. You can be a straight edge mormon and make friends there. You just have to not be the kind of person who enjoys demonizing entire cities for dumb reasons to escape from their own feelings of alienation.