Do you have a beard and wear a lot of flannel?
Do you love discovering the restaurant behind the other restaurant that leads you to an alley to that brand new restaurant?
Do you have a record player and prefer being shot in soft lighting?
If you’ve answered yes to any of these, you’ll fit right in with the boys of East L.A.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
To promote Eastsiders, the kickstarter-funded web series that chronicles the love lives of the gay scenesters of Silver Lake, the creators interviewed a bunch of genuine gay hipsters.
Here’s the adorableness that ensued:
offbeatoh86
Actually, I prefer not to be shot at all. I want to stay alive.
Captain Obvious
@offbeatoh86: …Not sure what you think happens in those areas but you will not be shot there unless you’re begging to be.
You have a better chance of being raped, wounded, or killed in West Hollywood, Santa Monica(which is super sketchy), Beverly Hills, and Sherman Oaks. Ironically the upperclass white areas are considered “safe” by white people and happen to have the most life-threatening crime.
Why do you think the real wealthy people in the areas are unseen and well hidden behind gates within their gated community that leads up to their gated home off on a hill that you cannot see from the street?
GMB
SO HIP. So scruffy. So edgy…
and so white.
Sadly, the guys in this video look exactly like the people i see whenever I bum around Silver Lake. In short — there are virtually no black people.
I’m a New Yorker, so obviously I’ve got different expectations than your average Angelino, but for a city with a black population that’s downright HUGE, it’s truly disconcerting to view something from some neighborhood that’s got so much systemic geographical housing discrimination that a giant minority group is essentially invisible.
It’d be one thing if each of these scruffy white-bread gays were *aware* of the lack of diversity, but when someone can say “we have every kind of gay here” with no seeming awareness of black people — or that matter, gay WOMEN — something’s just wrong.
I’ve met some of these guys. Someone like John Polly is probably more aware than others. But “Eastsiders,” I challenge you to challenge these people. What does “diversity” really mean?
– GMB
stranded
I live in a suburb of LA and i loved going to Silverlake. I never really been to LA but i got accepted to UCLA so i started to get to know more of that side. I noticed it was a cool low key but creative neighborhood that wasn’t entirely gay centered but just gay friendly, and yes GMB it was diverse. but in the past five years as hipster became more mainstream, it just became another west hollywood. You can see the impact of gentrification.
tardis
@Captain Obvious: Depends on what part of your experience is. I come from these neighborhoods, and let me tell you…they ain’t pretty. For me at least, it isn’t easy living in one of these environments. It’s a bit stressful.