The Dark Side of Boston
- Carl McCoy
- Apr 19
- 11 min read
10 Reasons Why I’m Leaving Beantown
I’ll be leaving Boston in a little while. We’ve been living here since 2011, and I also went to college here; in all, I’ve spent about 22 years of my life in this city. It’s no doubt one of America’s great cities, but it’s fair to say that it has some significant drawbacks as well. Everyone knows the iconic motifs of Boston: the Green Monster, the fiercely loyal sports fans, the Freedom Trail, Clam Chowder, the mystique of Harvard – but for this piece, I wanted to delve a bit deeper, and see if I couldn’t find some hidden nuances that inform the culture and character of the region. Here are 10 takeaways from my 22 years here – and after reading this, you’ll understand why I’m leaving.
One caveat – I don’t want this to be (too much of) a diatribe, and I also want to add that I’ve met many very kind people here in Boston – for which I’m grateful. You can, of course, not resonate with a region but still appreciate many of the people that you’ve met in that region. Even so, I do think there are some points worth making here, based on my 22 years as a resident of the city. TLDR; Avoid Beantown.
1. Secularism
According to a September 2025 Pew Research Study of US states, Massachusetts is ranked at number 45 when it comes to religiousness. New England is extremely secular, probably as a reaction against its extreme puritan history (and a reaction against sometimes oppressive Irish Catholic upbringings). Wherever you stand on religion, spirituality, or metaphysics, there’s no question that one’s views on transcendental issues affects one’s disposition and personality. This is merely anecdotal, but I’ve met a lot of people in Boston who identity their core being only with their personality, and not with any type of underlying “soul” or “spirit.” To each their own, of course, but I do find that when your sense of self is completely wrapped up in your ego (and not a deeper spiritual dimension), you tend to live in a relatively harsh world of ego fulfillment, competition, and zero-sum games, and that internal disposition gets projected outward into the collective psyche of the region. And it’s fair to say that you can feel a certain secular humanistic cynicism in the Boston region, which can sometimes border on self-righteous condescension. I suspect this is part of the reason why the drivers are so aggressive – they’re living in a jungle world of egos, competition, and self-protection, devoid of a higher purpose or cosmic interconnection. Everything is so literal and granular here because there’s no spiritual backdrop – thus the phrase, “It is what it is” is so popular here in Boston, I’ve actually seen it as a bumper sticker in Brighton. It’s no exaggeration to say that as a spiritually minded person, I’ve actually felt suspicion bordering on hostility towards spiritual mindedness in this area. Living in Boston, it’s easy to forget that 81 percent of Americans believe in God, according to a Gallup Poll (down from 87-92 percent back in 2013).
2. Inertness bordering on stagnancy
There is a stability in Boston that comes from its long and rich history, along with the stabilizing influence of its predominant industries that exist mostly outside of the caprices of the business cycle: health care, education, biotech, and government. But this stability can sometimes lead to stagnancy. Driving around Metrowest (Newton, Wellesley, Wayland), a friend from Brooklyn remarked about the houses that they had a very permanent vibe, as if to say, “We’re here, and we’ve been here for generations, and we’re not ever going to leave.” And I think that’s true of so many things in Boston. It’s like the entire city has a tenured professorship, and they have no plans to ever leave, or even change the way they’re doing things. I often contemplate this as the (more than) century-old steam pipe radiator begins to clang in my apartment. I notice this as I walk along Cleveland Circle, and watch the green line trolley car “T” operators move the tracks with an iron rod that seems cut directly from the 1920s. Have we not devised a better way of moving the rails in the past 100 years? Maybe MIT could help design something? Boston is proud to host the oldest of everything: the oldest church, the oldest roads, the oldest baseball park, the oldest college, the oldest oyster house, etc. – but with that seniority, there comes a stodginess and resistance to change that permeates the atmosphere of the city. While Boston aspires to compete with Silicon Valley in terms of innovation, it’s no accident that Mark Zuckerberg began Facebook in Boston, but quickly relocated its headquarters to Silicon Valley. For all its aspirations to innovation, Boston will never compete with Northern California in terms of fresh and uncluttered thinking simply because the air here is so dense and heavy with its centuries of tradition and intransigence. The hero of Boston is Paul Revere, whereas the hero of San Francisco is Steve Jobs.
3. Wokeness
Whatever your politics, or your stance on DEI and wokeness, there’s no denying that Boston is one of the most “woke” parts of the country. My belief is that this form of identity politics is the corollary to the granular secularism mentioned earlier; when your inner consciousness (your soul or spirit) is completely identified with the temporary mask of your current personality, then of course you care very much about what happens to that specific personality mask, and what grievances that specific personality’s tribe might remember from generations past. And everything that happens to that temporary personality seems so consequential and permanent; thus, you aggressively defend that identity, and that identity’s victim narrative. On the other hand, when you see yourself as an eternal spirit reincarnating over countless lifetimes, then you don’t get too self-absorbed with the temporary mask of being a “straight white man” or a “gay black woman” as you know that on a deeper level – you are both – and always have been. And will be once again.
4. Clannishness approaching racism
Boston sports fans are consistently ranked as being the number one most passionate sports fans in the country. And while this is no doubt a point of pride among the city’s residents, one point of this blog post is to look beyond the clean façade and go a bit deeper into the hidden nuances, whether they are good, bad, or ugly. And I suspect that the passion of the Boston sports fans stems from a fierce tribalism and clannish provincialism. The whole Ben Affleck / Dunkin Donuts meme in our culture is a throwback to Cockney England, with its strong tribalism and resistance to absorption into any mainstream American linguistic identity. “This is who we are, and we have our own way of talking, and we’re never going to change” – that’s what I hear from the Dunkin Donuts subculture. During the height of the Brady-Belichick era of New England Patriots dominance, one of the slogans that could often be seen on bumper stickers here was: “They hate us ‘cause they aint’ us” – suggesting a fierce regional loyalty that breeds hostility towards those who aren’t from here. This “us vs. them” motif permeates the cultural landscape here; I remember when senate candidate Scott Brown was running against Elizabeth Warren back in 2012, and one of his political slogans declared: “Scott Brown – He’s one of us.” It’s no surprise that this type of clannish tribalism can spill over into overt racism. The Boston Globe received a Pulitzer nomination for its 2018 report exploring the dark underbelly of racism that plagues the city: Boston. Racism. Image. Reality. - The Boston Globe. While I’m not suggesting that being a loyal Patriots fan makes you more susceptible to racism, I am suggesting that a herd mentality that elevates regional clannishness to zealotry can beget an “us vs. them” mentality that can spill over into the dark corners of racism, as it has in Boston.
5. Rudeness
Boston drivers are notoriously aggressive, and there is the unpleasant colloquialism of the “Masshole” – which captures the stereotypically rude New Englander. In the 2001 film, “Legally Blonde,” the southern Californian Elle Woods declares about her classmates at Harvard Law School, “The people here are so vile! Hardly anyone even talks to me unless it's to say something that's not nice.” Obviously, you have to be careful about stereotypes, but it’s fair to say there is strong anecdotal evidence that people in Boston are rude. Look no further than this article in the Atlantic, which suggests that the east coast is self-identified as being “temperamental” and “uninhibited.”
Witness the behavior of people in Charlestown or Brighton during a snowstorm when they dig out their cars and mark their territory with threatening notes, and you’ll see this “temperamental and uninhibited” personality rear its ugly head from under the snow.
6. Self-Deprecation
There is a distinct vibe here of self-deprecation, and I suspect it has its origins in the modesty and self-denialism of the city’s Puritan history. In NYC, by contrast, everybody dresses like a celebrity and owns their power; you’re almost expected to put your best foot forward in New York. Whereas in Boston, it’s fair to say there’s a suspicion towards people who “get too big for their britches” or “think they’re all that.” North Face is the preferred apparel here because it’s functional and middle class. When I watched Tim Urban’s hilarious and wonderful TED talk, I suspected that he was from the Boston area based on his self-deprecating style of humor. He has this attitude of, “I know – this whole self-promotion thing is ridiculous” – he even referred to himself as just some “blogger, writer, guy” when he clearly is brilliant and exceptionally talented. And sure enough, Tim Urban is from the Boston area, and studied here as well. I pick up the same vibe from Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg, both natives of the Boston area, who often project a certain, “I know this Hollywood thing is ridiculous, and I know I’m nobody special” energy which I associate with New England. But this attitude can cross over into downright self-antagonism, as nobody wants to appear as “being all that.”
I once observed a brilliant and accomplished coworker (a respected college teacher and writer whose work has been reviewed in the New York Times) refer to himself as “a nobody” – and it was no surprise to me that he was born and raised in the Boston area. This same Boston-themed anti celebrity / anti self-actualization current is annoyingly on display in Harvard Professor of Psychiatry Robert Waldinger’s extraordinarily patronizing TED talk (filmed in Brookline, MA), in which he provides an almost Norman Rockwellian homage to family values and modesty as the cornerstone of happiness, while condescendingly mocking the more NYC and LA based values of self-actualization, creativity, and the pursuit of genius. It’s interesting that he chose a particularly unflattering and inappropriate picture of Lady Gaga to symbolize the apparent shallowness of self-actualization while he smilingly ignores her obvious genius, as well as her contribution to the cultural landscape of our society. His message (delivered in a patronizingly Harvard-like manner) is that the pursuit of self-actualization or creative genius is superficial compared to the simple joys of family and community. While there is certainly merit to this message, it’s not true for everybody, and it can be a thinly veiled prescription to accept mediocrity and to label dream-chasers as shallow and superficial. It was not a surprise to me that this TED talk came right out of Brookline, MA, as there are few areas so hostile to self-actualization and celebrity culture as Boston. You’re much better off here if you adopt Tim Urban or Matt Damon’s self-deprecating vibe of “I’m nobody special.” Because being special is not what Boston is all about. It’s about merging with the collective group-think of the Red Sox, the Patriots, and being “one of us.”
7. Ego
Despite the pressures for collectivism here, there is still a very strong streak of ego on display in the impatient and self-important drivers who honk at you in the plazas of Wellesley and Chestnut Hill. As soon as the red light turns green, you can expect Bostonians to honk at you, because they are very important people with no time to waste. I’ve been fortunate enough to have lived on the upper east side of Manhattan, and I have to say that the egos on display there (mostly older women having lunch with their small dogs and well-dressed men in finance smoking cigarettes and dropping the F-bomb) cannot even touch the egos I’ve seen in Chestnut Hill and Wellesley. Whereas in New York, the collective ego rears its head in the industries of finance, fashion, and publishing – in Boston I’ve observed an even stronger collective ego that channels itself into the fields of medicine, higher education, and biotechnology. While Bostonians might profess to be “nobody special” – their self-deprecating presentation belies a powerful streak of self-importance. I think it’s perhaps even more pernicious here than in New York because the industries in Boston are less susceptible to the whims of the private sector, so there’s nothing to keep people’s egos in check. Everyone in Boston has tenure, so nobody can challenge them, and sometimes undeserved grandiosity sets in. In New York, if you have a big ego, it’s probably well-deserved, because you’re thriving in the most cutthroat and free-market economy in the United States (there’s no cushy tenure in fashion, finance, or publishing), whereas in Boston, you can develop an unrealistic sense of your own self-importance because nobody’s challenging you except maybe your graduate school assistants or the annual faculty review meeting. All of this leads to stodginess and misplaced arrogance, which is vividly on display at Harvard, MIT, MGH, and the restaurants of Chestnut Hill.
8. Brutal, existentialist weather
Mark Twain’s adage about New England weather still holds water today: “if you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.” The weather here is all too much of a barometer of the region’s self-described personality: “temperamental and uninhibited.” I have an (admittedly new age) intuition that there is a profound metaphysical relationship between the collective consciousness of a region and the climate of that region. No doubt the weather affects our mood, but I suspect that the direction of causation moves in the opposite direction as well. While this is completely unscientific conjecture at this point, perhaps science will bear this out as we learn more about the degree to which quantum phenomena do actually appear on the macro-scale (see the work of Cynthia Sue Larson). I’ve lived through many winters, and nowhere have I experienced such a bleak, existentialist, and cold feeling as a January in Boston. I suspect this is why we have so many pubs and donuts here; it’s comfort food and anesthetics to survive the brutal wrath of a dark, secular humanist winter in New England, with nothing to look forward to but the next Patriots playoff game.
9. Rush hour begins at 3 pm – because that’s when classes end
Boston has over 50 colleges and universities, so the entire city sometimes feels like one giant college campus. Walking around the reservoir near Chestnut Hill, I probably hear the word “semester” uttered at least a half dozen times on every walk. Granted, this is right next to Boston College, but then again, what reservoir in Boston is actually not within a stone’s throw of a nearby college? So, the traffic flows and cadence of the city move according to an academic schedule, and that means that rush hour starts early, as professors, teachers, and students rush home to get their assignments done – so you can expect 128, Rt 9, I-93 and the Mass Pike to be slammed by 3 pm.
10. It's just not that "wicked" cool
I grew up in upstate New York during the 1980s, and we were all using the word “wicked” to describe things we thought were cool, back in 1986. So, I’m sorry Boston, but this word does not belong to you. Some folks find this slang charming and fun, but to me it evokes a tired colloquialism that says more about the tribal cockneyism and clannishness of the region than anything else. So, I’m looking forward to leaving this wicked cold and stodgy region, and moving back to a place where Wicked refers to Elfaba flying on a broomstick while defying gravity - in sheer celebration of self-actualization and individuality. Farewell Beantown, I don’t hate you, but I’m proud to say I ain’t you. My tenure here is over; I'm leaving next semester.
Author's Note: AI is never used in any of my writing and never will be.
Carl McCoy, copyright 2026
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