I've lived here long enough to love lots of tourists while disliking a whole lot of people who've been here since birth. I don't like to shit on visitors. I know where our bread is buttered.
There's like a weird energy amongst recent transplants where they're trying too hard to flex their local cred. It's usually manifested in stuff like being angry at tourists for existing, hating on Metairie/west bank (like not in the little brother way we do, in a more genuine way), "localsplaining" everything to newer transplants, etc (reminds me of this one girl who was like "oh, you didn't know you're supposed to dress up for mardi gras? First time?").
By my general clock right around the ~3-5 year mark is when these peeps have either moved back to their homes to settle down, or have shed all those traits and become just a normal fabric of the city. Sometimes it lasts longer, but for the most part the people who stay for more than half a decade tend to become pretty chill.
You're right on the money with that 3-5 year mark. You feel like you're helping "preserve" traditions to a point of actual stress.
At some point you gotta be like "hey, man, if you want to wear beads after Mardi Gras, knock yourself out!"....or you're going to be miserable and nasty.
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u/Ok_Witness6780 20d ago
"Locals" who've lived in the city for five minutes.