Being mistaken for a local in New York City

Despite the existence of a New York State being the source of constant confusion for white Melburnians, their love for New York City continues unabated. However, the non-New York City parts of America hold little interest to Melbourne white people, with back-to-back Bush presidencies appearing to have neutralised the broad popularity of Kerouac's On the Road. In fact, the longest a white Melburnian has been known to tolerate a non-New York City part of the USA was a four hour layover at LAX in 2009. Even though the Aussie dollar is making a parody of parity by hitting $1.10 against the Greenback earlier this year, white Melburnians will only visit American places that are just like Fitzroy, only cooler. If North America was Chapel street, New York City would be the Windsor end.

In order to exchange your travel stories for cultural capital back home, you need to visit places that have the right balance between notoriety and obscurity. Telling people you went to Swaziland will mean nothing to most white Melburnians. On the other hand, saying you went to the Netherlands will only mean you get to listen to stories from people who were there five years before you. This is why being mistaken for a local in New York City is so important to Melbourne white people! This will be the one story they always tell. Long after they realise how naive it sounds to say 'New Yorkers talk just like they do in the movies'(!), the time they were mistaken for a local in New York City will be rehashed again and again.

But the problem of loving New York is that every other tourist also loves New York, sometimes just as much as you do! Right now your Mum is remembering her New York shopping trips to Macy's and Bloomingdale's - she even thinks these shops can't be found anywhere else. Meanwhile, your brother is in the midst of a Jay Z phase and is planning a trip to Times Square. Walking past RMIT at lunch, you just heard some First Years discussing their experiences in a Manhattan bagel shop and how the guy behind the counter was full looking at them. So how do you position your experience in New York as superior? Just follow the subtle tricks used by White Melburnians.

The first trick is to never mention how you thought New Yorkers would comment on your Australian accent. The streets of New York are awash with foreign accents, just like Melbourne. Aside from being mistaken for South African or British, there really isn't any difference having an Australian accent in New York as there is in Melbourne. Secondly, you should rave about the burritos and other Mexican food, but be careful to only frame the price as exotic. Thirdly, spend most of your time in Brooklyn.

The trip to Brooklyn is like a pilgrimage, but instead of paying respects to a God, white Melburnians go to worship trendier versions of themselves. Hedge your trip to Brooklyn against all of the fashion mistakes you have ever made and are yet to make. Think of the trip as a form of insurance, collateral or credentialing. Maybe you used to go to raves or have a Chinese character tattoo. Maybe you're worried that your current look will soon be out of date. The shame of these mistakes will be lessened if you have been to New York because New York never goes out of style. For example, the long beards that make white Melburnian men look like they're impersonating the Federal member for Leichhardt at the turn of the century and the short hair on white Melburnian women that is reminiscent of the 1993 year 12 class at De La Salle will eventually be subjected to devastating critique. Thus those soon-to-be embarrassing Facebook photos must be scattered amongst pics of house parties in Brooklyn. It used to be okay to make fun of out-of-date fashion even when you used to sport it yourself, but now online photo albums preserve your mistakes for eternity. Remember: cultural memory amongst white Melburnians goes back about five minutes, but Facebook is forever.

Smith street

White Melburnians don't like Smith street the way it is today but the past they long for never quite existed. For some reason though it's preferable to yearn for an imagined past than to enjoy the way things are right now. White Melburnians actually prefer some degree of gentrification than none at all. They would never admit this though as many of them lament the processes of gentrification even when they are the gentry. But would you prefer Smith street to return to its smack dealing heyday circa 1999 and get hassled by junkies every time you went there? No? Then you like gentrification!

But Smith street isn't completely gentrified yet because it still has plenty of boarded up shops, amateur graffiti and dive bars. It even has an empty lot overgrown with weeds! Yet this is balanced with an overabundance of salons, Japanese restaurants and Cavallero. Seriously, if you want to get your hair done and eat some udon there's no better place than Smith street. But it's a delicate balance so appreciate it now. One more salon or Japanese restaurant and it'll be a gentrified, sanitised, yuppie suburb with *gasp* late-thirties-women-in-expensive-jeans-pushing-strollers! They might even put-their-keys-and-smartphones-on-the-table-while-meeting-for-coffee! This is the white Melburnian version of hell. So enjoy Smith street today. You'll miss it when it's gone.

Postscript
I reckon Smith street is at the perfect level of gentrification right now so we have to appreciate it otherwise we will never progress as a culture. A culture can still thrive even when the stories it tells itself are retold over and over as long as these stories are adapted to the times in which they are told. So to avoid entering a Dark Age I suggest we recognise the cyclical processes of gentrification - neighbourhoods boom and bust over decades. There will always be a street like Smith street in Melbourne. It won't be exactly the same but this is okay because healthy cultures naturally change and evolve. While Smith street might end up like Acland street it won't matter because another street will rise to take its place. Even though Acland street still retains some gems and Carlisle street now has an appeal that wasn't around back in Acland's Golden Age. But white Melburnians usually do not lament the lack of affordable housing for the poor or the closure of local businesses that are typical consequences of gentrification - they're just pissed off their streets now lack the gritty charm they believe only the poor can provide. So we need a more inclusive way of talking about gentrification.

Complaining about the coffee in remote destinations

Whether you're in Coober Pedy, Tibet, Broken Hill or Bolivia, you will likely encounter a white Melburnian complaining about the coffee at a local cafe. Many claim to travel to experience foreign cultures but when the culture in question does not include expertise in espresso coffee (with Bonsoy) there will be outrage and contempt. Unwilling to accept cultural diversity when it comes to coffee, Melbourne white people want everywhere to be just like De Clieu. They refuse to imagine an alternative to drinking tiny portions of espresso coffee overwhelmed by warm milk and sugar out of disposable paper cups.

To white Melburnians, a lack of espresso coffee (with Bonsoy) remains the preferred indicator of a nation's poverty. Anything else, such as no clean water, high infant mortality rates, minimal public infrastructure spending, mass unemployment and political oppression will be accepted as givens (even exotic) and consumed as part of a search for difference. Melbourne white people will even expect coffee growing nations - some of the poorest countries on Earth, to have excellent (Italian) espresso coffee. It's sort of like expecting the nation of Ghana to be the world's main consumer of gourmet chocolate, when many Ghanians don't even get a full meal a day. But white Melburnians aren't the only ones who confuse the geographies of production with those of consumption, so why single them out? Because white Melburnians see coffee as necessary for life when in fact it's a luxury item. And because many of them are studying international development degrees.

Innovative fast food chains

Considering the fried onion only became a staple at Australian barbecues in the 21st century, you can understand the long and successful history fast food chains have enjoyed in this country. They were able to stand apart from the rest of the market by not carbonising the meat and serving condiments other than tomato sauce and tomato sauce. So ever since their takeover of airport lounges, highway off ramps, petrol stations, shopping centres, suburban thoroughfares, freeways, stadiums, schools and universities, it would be safe to assume the spread of fast food chains in our society has reached critical mass. But there is one place left for them to colonise: the graffitied laneways and cycle-friendly streets of white Melbourne.

A clustering of fast food chains can be observed at the borders of white Melbourne, like insurgents clamoring at the gates of the Green Zone. Bell Street Maccas, Pizza Hut and PizzaMaster on the corner of Smith and Victoria, the KFC on Chapel Street, Prahran. To move beyond their natural habitat (which is overrun by competing species) they've had to evolve. Innovative fast food chains are the most adaptive of their kind, characterised by a lack of drive-through, the addition of drinks and even alcohol served in very adult-like glass bottles, and semi-exotic condiments like aioli and guacamole. Their staff are allowed some flexibility in the choice of head wear instead of the standard issue cap, and they usually address all their male customers with the informal 'man' or 'dude'. Some of the stores come with literary references and apostrophes where none should exist, but their most appealing feature is a refreshing self-awareness that they're just fast food chains. Thanks to such innovations, Melbourne white people can now eat fast food without shame and in daylight hours.

Toto's Africa

Originally I was going to write about how white Melburnians have an ironic appreciation of this song. I was then going to mention how the absurdity of the line about 'blessing the rains down in Africa' somehow makes the ironic sing-a-longs more enjoyable, because surely Melbourne white people would never sing a song just for the fun of it. But have you noticed how the loud cheering it receives at house parties is kind of real? And have you ever noticed how good it feels to sing the chorus out loud? It's the white Melburnian equivalent of Livin' on a Prayer! So the truth is white Melburnians love Toto's Africa because it's an awesome song.

Meeting at Melbourne Central instead of Flinders Street

Melbourne white people gave up on Flinders Street Station in 2004 when Transport opened at Federation Square. They will never go back. The goths and punks, the evangelical Christians (every Friday night), the overwhelming police presence, the short skirts and muscle tops, the lack of bike parking areas, the "Metro Safety Announcements", the cold, the alienating architectural form and the proximity to Crown Casino, make Flinders Street the station for the wrong types of white Melburnians.

Melbourne Central Station (hereafter MCS) is a lot better. It's inside so you don't have to worry about the cold, and it's close to the state library so you can update your status about how you're studying at the library. There's even a giant clock so white Melburnians can still meet under one and not feel like they are betraying the spirit of their city.

But what the preference of MCS over Flinders Street demonstrates is the alternative geographies white Melburnians use when navigating their city. In the white Melburnian mind, the southern border of the city is Bourke Street, its western perimeter is Elizabeth Street\Royal Parade, its eastern side ends at Punt Road, and it's bounded by Alexandra Parade in the north. Imagining the city of Melbourne in this way incorporates Fitzroy and Carlton into the CBD, relegating Flinders Street to the status of a suburban train station and eliminating King Street from the discussion. White Melburnians are trying to recreate Melbourne in their own image.

Quirky lists

One of the best ways to judge a person's character in the internet age is by reading the lists they write in online profiles. For those of you who are new to the international network ('internet', for short), this was not always so. In the nineties, getting-to-know-you question-and-answer lists circulating via electronic mail ('e-mail') on the intra-planetary lattice, or 'worldwide web', were mostly concerned with whether or not you ate the stems of broccoli. Hence their ability to convey to the reader the character of the person responding to the questions was quite limited. Because of social networking sites and web logs ('blogs'), more accurate assessments of character, such as delineating between wrong and right types of white Melburnians, are now possible. The wrong type of white Melburnian takes the act of list writing literally. To them it is just a list, not a work of art. Lists of interests displayed on the web profiles of the wrong types normally look something like this:

Hot showers
Watching movies
Going fishing with my Dad
Sleeping in
Sickies
Catching up with friends

There's nothing wrong with this list of interests except that it's just a list of interests. Therefore it could not have been written by the right type of Melbourne white person, whose list of interests look more like this:

The donuts at Footscray station
Karaoke
Making lists
Frankston savers
Breakfast burritos
Marieke Hardy
World's End Press
Palindromes
Going off on tangents
Schadenfreude
Bad puns

White Melburnians believe a list of interests should be used to reflect intellect, cleverness, self-deprecation, humour, worldliness and competence. If you are about to write your own list of interests, remember that one of the most important features to convey is cleverness, but done in a cautious way so as not to totally overwhelm the reader with how clever you are. This is best accomplished by inserting into the list something self-referential like 'awesome alliterations'. The trick of list writing is to make the whole construction of the list appear effortless but expend a great deal of effort to accomplish this - which is a central feature of white Melburnian culture.