Say what you will about Boston, but as people who’ve lived here most of our lives and in very few other places around the world, and/or spent a couple years here in college and never left a square mile radius of the dorm, I think we can all agree that it’s inarguably the greatest city on the planet.

There are so many little distinctive things about Beantown, as we all definitely call it. Things here just aren’t the same as they are anywhere else. From Harvard Square to Faneuil Hall to the Back Bay and almost nowhere else in between, there’s a reason they call it the Hub of the Universe.


(I’m not entirely sure what that reason is since I only skimmed the Wikipedia entry, but it’s probably a good one, because everything in Boston is good and saying that out loud is a reminder that we too ourselves are also good.)

Here are a few of my favorite things about Boston – which are probably your favorite things too – because we are all a homogenous group of pop-culture-fixated consumers with the exact same perspective. Please share with your friends who also live here because there’s no doubt they feel just the same.

The Citgo Sign: Nothing says Boston like an advertisement for Citgo, a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela, the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas conglomerate. This iconic sign is a reminder whenever you see it in every single TV show or movie filmed in Boston that gas is a product available for purchase.

Go Sox!: Unlike most other cities in the country, we really love our sports teams here in Boston. Whether it’s the hometown nine, or the hometown 11, or the hometown five, or the hometown however-many-people-play-hockey-at-once, one thing is sure: we know about them and also care about them. It’s kind of our thing here, you might say. And ours alone. You won’t see people paying for tickets to a sporting event, watching the game, then talking about the game just anywhere pal. Haha, take that New York City. We don’t like them and they aren’t cool at all. And #YankeesSuck, don’t ever forget that.


Music: Since Boston is a city where people exist and live, we’ve got a pretty good track record of producing humans that are interested in performing music. Whether it’s the rocking bad boys of Aerosmith, a band that had its heyday thirty-five years ago, or the pretty boys of New Kids on the Block, a band that had its heyday twenty-five years ago, we love a good reminder that these popular celebrities were once regular shlubs just like us, walking around Boston, looking at the Citgo sign, supporting the local sports clubs.

The Hatch Shell: Nothing happens here anymore, but there are tons of pictures of it available online that make it fun to share and talk about. Plus, it’s where we celebrate being not just all about Boston, but all about America. And nowhere else in America does anyone care about celebrating America. At least not like we do.

The Weather: Because Boston is the only place where snow occurs, we’ve become a pretty hearty sort up here in Boston, place where it sometimes snows.

Freedom: We invented freedom and democracy in Boston, and like all residents here, we think about this fact daily on our regular trips along the Freedom Trail.

Neighborhoods: Did you know that Boston is comprised of a variety of different neighborhoods, each with their own distinctive character? For example there is the North End, where restaurants are, and also Cambridge, which isn’t in Boston, but is where students go to schools such as Harvard, which is a famous school. Here’s a picture of Harvard:


Looks pretty nice.

Accents: Another unique thing about Boston is the stupid way we talk. We sound dumb as hell! Gotta take pride in it though, because that’s just what someone from Boston does. Takes pride in things.

Pride: Whether it’s Irish pride, or Irish American pride, or Italian-Irish-American pride, we run the full gamut of pride options here in Boston.

Whitey Bulger: Whitey Bulger, or “Whitey’’ as we call him around here, was a famous murderer who we love to see movies made about because it reminds us of all the cool murders he did in neighborhoods we don’t go to.

Dunkin’ Donuts: Regional fast food franchises just don’t get more distinctive than this. America might run on Dunkins, as the famous slogan goes, but Boston has access to a secret ‘authentic’ Dunkin Donuts coffee formula that they don’t make in the thousands of franchises throughout the country. (OK, just kidding, there’s no secret formula, but if there were it would be brewed with Tom Brady’s tears and Ben Affleck’s ab sweat.)

Racism: We’re the one city that has racism. It’s cool here and everyone likes it because it’s our brand.

The Charles River: Our river is polluted and gross, but they wrote a song about it thirty years ago, which makes it a fun sort of polluted.

Drinking: Speaking of polluted, we love to drink beer in Boston. No one else anywhere drinks beer so we’ve got the market cornered on this one.

The Roads: Oh man, these roads. Have you seen them? Not that easy to navigate. Anyway, that’s a thing about Boston. The roads thing I just mentioned. We love them because they’re ours.

So, yeah. That’s Boston in a nutshell. We wouldn’t want it to be anything different than what it is. You can take all of your other garbage cities with their easy-to-navigate roads and clean rivers and stick them where the sun don’t shine. That’s a thing we say in Boston, because we’re salty and drunk all the time.

How do you like them apples?