"Portland is a city where young people go to retire."
Fred Armisen declared this - in song form - in the opening scene of the sketch comedy show Portlandia in January 2011. The show satirised the city on the US West Coast for its "hipster" culture - a city that gave unicyclists the right of way, where people brewed kombucha before it became mainstream, and whose slogan was literally "Keep Portland Weird".
Four years later, with the city in the throes of rapid gentrification, beloved Portland magazine Willamette Week declared to its readers that this moment in 2011 was officially the day "Old Portland", the one that was fun, bohemian and "weird", died.
If the "Old Portland" was seen as a liberal utopia, then the "New Portland", in 2020, is characterised by civil rights protests, violent clashes between far-right and anti-fascist groups, and images of federal agents indiscriminately bundling protesters into unmarked vehicles. While Old Portlanders may have discussed their vegan cheese side-businesses, New Portlanders bond over how many times they've been tear-gassed.
But this change wasn't as much of a leap as it may seem on the surface.
While the Portlandia stereotype endured for almost a decade, the reality for Portlanders themselves was very different. In the 2010s, wealthy outsiders relocated themselves and their businesses to the city in the hopes of capitalising on its "cool", while East Coast publications repeated the show's joke about Portland being "a retirement community for the young". The city's residents were frequently caricatured as the kind of people who use "cacao" as a safe word.
The cast of Portlandia - Kyle MacLachlan, Fred Armisen, Carrie Brownstein and Jonathan Krisel - in 2013
At the same time, Portlanders struggled to afford rents that were increasing at one of the fastest rates in the country; beloved local shops were being pushed out in favour of chains and high-rise apartment blocks; and the small businesses parodied on Portlandia, such as the feminist bookshop In Other Words, hit out at the show and everything it represented. Locals explicitly blamed the show for hastening unwanted development in the city. By the time the series ended in 2018, few Portlanders looked back fondly on its influence.
For people of colour in Portland in particular, there was something egregious about the city's "Portlandia" reputation. The show - and subsequent portrayals of the city in national media - seemed to whitewash life in what was already an extremely white city.
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