My petty gripe: stop cringing at your city, Sydneysiders – you have no idea how good you have it​on January 12, 2025 at 2:00 pm

Don’t tell me ‘this city is so boring’ until you’ve been a teenager in rural Australia, feeling like the whole world is happening somewhere elseMore summer essentialsRead more petty gripesI cannot stand whinging. I, of course, I never whinge. I just have some very specific, correct complaints about how the world could be better.The specific type of whinging that disproportionately irritates me, a petty gripe if you will, is when people who grew up in Sydney complain about Sydney.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading…Don’t tell me ‘this city is so boring’ until you’ve been a teenager in rural Australia, feeling like the whole world is happening somewhere elseMore summer essentialsRead more petty gripesI cannot stand whinging. I, of course, I never whinge. I just have some very specific, correct complaints about how the world could be better.The specific type of whinging that disproportionately irritates me, a petty gripe if you will, is when people who grew up in Sydney complain about Sydney.Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads Continue reading…   

I cannot stand whinging. I, of course, I never whinge. I just have some very specific, correct complaints about how the world could be better.

The specific type of whinging that disproportionately irritates me, a petty gripe if you will, is when people who grew up in Sydney complain about Sydney.

They don’t usually complain about the housing crisis or that there are too many hills to chicly ride a bike around; their complaints are more along the lines of cultural cringe. “Sydney is so embarrassing” or “Oh my God! That [insert panellist/book being published/TV show] would never happen overseas” or “This city is so boring”.

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Do they really think mediocre books, mediocre plays, mediocre art are not being made overseas? Do they really think everything made here is mediocre? It shows a startling lack of curiosity.

I think it can be useful to compare creative output and how that is fostered (for example, in Ireland so many resources are poured into developing writers). But the general “Other countries would never …” whine contributes nothing.

And do not talk to me about being bored until you’ve been a teenager living in a house deep in rural Australia, 11km from the nearest town, before smartphones were invented, knowing the whole world is happening somewhere else, and you can’t even get past the end of your driveway.

Do you know how lucky you are to be able to see plays? Hear the author of a book you loved talk? Have more than one restaurant to go to? Swim in the ocean in your own city?

Even when I’m being ordered inside a pub at 10pm on a perfect balmy Friday evening; when I’m screamed at by a furious driver for daring to cross the road on a pedestrian crossing; while I’m raising my kids in the two-bedroom apartment my double-income household can afford; I still think “Sydney is AMAZING” the moment I hear a moan from someone who grew up here.

* Please note that people who grew up in Sydney are not allowed to police how I complain about where I grew up.