as someone who grew up in Texas but now lives in NYC, it is exactly this kind of condescension that makes a lot of Texans dislike people from the coasts.

That's fine with me. I've lived in Michigan, Tennessee, Kansas, and California. There are lots of good people in each of the first three as well as lots of small minds. The Bay Area feels right to me.

I remember seeing a FB post from someone in Kansas saying that they felt that anyone who couldn't be happy there didn't really try. You can't imagine my rage at that statement: blaming me for my depression when I didn't fit in during my school years. What a joke. No, I can't be happy in that environment long-term.

The Bay Area would have offered me so much more opportunity for happiness as a teen, such that it's practically stupid. I feel schadenfreude at Texas getting reminded that it isn't hot shit.

I feel terribly for the people who were deceived and have regrets about their situation. Still, they did it to themselves. For all the negatives on the west coast, it's a paradise to me in terms of opportunities for work and recreation and finding similarly-minded people and making friends.