12 Strange Secrets Portland OR Will Never Explain to Outsiders

Living in Portland sure looks like a lot of fun.

Okay, the rainy weather might be extra crappy some of the time, but there are so many interesting and fun things to do and experience to make up for it. Just like any other city in the world, there are certain things that you can only understand if you live there.

Portland, you are a little bit extra, though! (And I LOVE it!)

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The Portland Vibe

Catch the vibe, man! People living in Portland get me. They live to think outside the box. They find eclectic (you say "weird" but I say eclectic and creative) solutions to everyday problems, just like me. Solutions like a group of friends cooling off on a hot day by jumping into a Peninsula Park fountain of water whilst dressed like Fruit of the Loom characters. True story.

Okay, well maybe that last part is not like me. I'm too chicken to do all of that.

Portland’s vibe is very chill, very modern, very laid back, independent, creative, and eclectic, yet very sophisticated. (All the things that I love!)

In my opinion, that iconic mural, Keep Portland Weird, is like a beacon sign to all the weird people in the world to come live there (It’s like a Batman signal in the sky).

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Even if you can’t afford to live in Portland, if you consider yourself a “weirdo” then you probably secretly wish you could (either Portland, or New York City maybe, ha).

The television show Portlandia has given mainstream America a satirized version of what it’s like to live in Portland, but I am willing to wager a ton of money that some of the odd characters portrayed on the show by Carrie Brownstein (an actual Portland local) and SNL’s Fred Armisen, are based on real people found in the city.

See the gallery below of things only people living in Portland would understand, but while you're here, take for example, there's a particular element of Portland society that is the pickle lifestyle.

UGH: THE DOWNSIDES OF LIVING IN PORTLAND

Unfortunately because of its coolness and originality, Portland has been recently bulldozed by wannabe hipsters with pockets full of cash who have gentrified everything and caused the rents to get jacked up. Or so I've been told by locals.

But wait, there's more. The locals also say that:

These obnoxious hipsters renamed traditional Portland neighborhoods into these horrid “cutesy” names like the "Alphabet District" for the northwest side of town.
Greedy landlords have no problem charging $1200+ for a tiny and plain 2-bedroom apartment.
The huge element of unhoused tent campers (the very large homeless population in Portland) is quite shocking and sad to see.
Occasionally on a Saturday morning, you’ll see or hear about sporadic protest fisticuffs that have broken out in the streets betwixt self-identified vigilante white supremacists and the anarchists who hate them.
People living in Oregon have to pay an individual state income tax. Ugh.
Also, expect graffiti in places you’d rather not see.

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