“Flat And Featureless”: 41 Places In The United States That Don’t Live Up To The Hype

Movies tend to glorify almost all states they are supposed to be set in. Nobody wants to see the actual everyday experience of sitting in traffic or driving past a plethora of strip malls or boring suburbs.

Not a state, but Hollywood. As a resident of California Hollywood is absolutely awful. First thing that hits you is the stench of pee and the visual of a homeless man pooing on the walk of fame.

Probably the inverse here, but as a lifelong NJ native, we spend 10 months of the year getting pilled on in all types of media until come summer time.

Then all of you freaks clog up our beaches and parks.

Hawaii

former Hawaiian residents get asked the most of any other state, "why'd you leave Hawaii and move here?"

if you've only watched movies or vacationed there, you wouldn't know, but if you've lived there or spent some time there, you'll quickly realize the discrepancy between Hollywood and reality.

palabear:
I loved Hawaii but driving from the south side of O’ahu to the north shore, you see how many people are struggling. It’s much different off the beaches.

Alabama. “Southern Charm” is just people being rude to you who are too cowardly to actually insult you.

Connecticut always gets portrayed as being hoity toity but apparently it’s mostly rural with lots of places that are run down and dangerous (which is going to be true of every state).

North Dakota. Because I've seen multiple movies and TV shows set there, and I'm pretty sure it's just people not realizing they're actually in Canada.

healthycord:
I didn’t know it was glorified lol. Drove through last summer and while it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, it wasn’t what I would call a looker of a state or teaming with people.
Stayed the night in Bismarck and had a meal there downtown. Folks seemed nice.
ND is pretty in its own way. One thing I wasn’t prepared for were all of the oil dikes just on the side of the road. I’m sure I’ll drive through the state again at some point and hopefully I could spend some time to actually look at some stuff. We were just bombing it from WA to Wisconsin and made it in 2.5 days. Long drive.

California. Movies make it look like everyone is living by the beach in perfect weather, driving convertibles and chasing dreams. Then you get there and realize half the population is sitting in traffic paying $18 for a sandwich.

Not a state but L.A. Its is only fun if you like spending 70 dollars on an Uber ride and spending half your vacation in traffic.

I mean LA and Southern California is mostly shown through the lens of a Hollywood movie set. Once you’ve done a studio tour you realize how fake everything truly is.

California. It comes across as this bastion of progressive people. In reality, if you're not in LA or SF, it's pretty darn conservative, and unaccepting of weird people.

Texas. Most of Texas metro areas are just sprawling big box stores and concrete.

Viking_Musicologist:
Office Space does a pretty good job of painting suburban Texas really looks and feels like.
Especially Dallas and Fort Worth those cities are basically two unruly steers lassoed by concrete.

I’d say more cities so like LA and NYC. Lot less trash and homeless in the movies compared to real life.

Oh and the constant smell of pee. Also the constant sirens and construction. The snow always being pristine in New York movies annoys me too. It doesn’t show how it becomes black as coal with yellow from all the dog and human pee.

And when it unfreezes in the spring all species poos are on the sidewalk because no one picked it up during winter.

MediocreKirbyMain:
My friend’s currently in NYC for the first time in their life and the #1 thing they’ve had to say about it is that it smells like pee everywhere lol

Garland, Texas was glorified in Zombieland. It's actually marginally worse.

I grew up near NYC. I miss it dearly. But I’ll hot take and say NYC/New York

Now that I visit the city as a tourist moreso than I did as a kid, it’s fascinating to think NYC is so large and vibrant and diverse but seemingly 95% of movies set in NYC all film around the same 1 sq mile in Midtown and Downtown Manhattan.

I’m not saying the rest of NYC is bad. More areas should be featured. But if you visit much and expect it all to look like the movies , you quickly find out you can walk all of it in just a couple hours.

Montana for sure. Everyone sees all the pretty scenery and move there not researching cost of living, jobs, wages, etc… not to mention the winters.

Not state but the City of New Orleans.

They usually just show the French Quarter (which isn't that big to begin with) and make it look like the whole city and that it's just constantly Mardi gras everyday.

Yeah, it can be fun be it's still a tourist area. The rest of the city and state is pretty ugly.

Texas. It's full of jerks, not oil millionaires.

Delaware.

I have never seen an underground fighting club, or the wholesale destruction of skyscrapers by a bunch of anarchists.

I also have never seen Superman hanging around.

Nor have I seen a bunch of weird musical gemstone shaped people at the beach.

All of them.

None of them ever quite live up to their reputation for movies and the like.