In the fine tradition of the Houston. It’s Worth It. campaign, here’s another well-disguised civic marketing effort meant to drum up a certain Bayou City pride of place. And, uh, by the way — it comes to us from Austin. There, designer and illustrator Kammi Russel has put together a helpful, mostly typographical infographic spelling out a few of the many reasons not to move to her adopted hometown.
“Austin Sucks. Please Don’t Move Here. These are some reasons why,” it reads at the top. Among the dire warnings of the Texas capital’s failings conveyed therein: “No major league sports,” and “People talk about kale all the time.” Plus this gem: “Good luck finding a boyfriend. This is the adult never-never land. Men stay children until their late 30s. Then they date one of the 158 people who moved here today. I hope your dog is rescued . . . because you will be alone.”
Helpfully for hapless Houston boosters, it concludes with this observation: “Dallas and Houston are amazing . . . you should move there.“
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A 24-in.-by-36-in. print of the graphic is available directly from Russel via her Etsy shop, along with a few of the artist’s other fine works, such as her smaller and more demure “We Should Just Sit in a Room and Get Drunk” poster.
Disclosure: ttweak, originators of the “Houston. It’s Worth It.” campaign, is a Swamplot advertiser.
Image: Kammi Russel
Looks like being fit is a bad thing? Who is this marketed towards?
Its hipster sarcasm. To them, its really cool to be ironic about everything.
The funniest part about this is how nicely it fits into the trend of people who moved to Austin being enraged by all the new people that moved to Austin after them
This is pretty embarrassing, actually.
I think this is satire from a pro-Austin group… personally I think Houston should come up with something similar to keep people out of here.
@Purdue – towards the 90% of the general population that isn’t fit.
Is this the “Keep Houston Fat” campaign?
As a recent Houstonian and former Austinite, I can say that Austin will always be home and a place I “frolicked”. It is a great engine for technology, place to eat trailer food, drink at bars with porches, and enjoy college sports. But, Houston is the big city that’s happening, and this “ad” is the precise reason why Austin will be the Boston of Texas and never the thriving metropolis of the state. It is “selective” in who they want and rarely looks beyond anything that isn’t “Austin”. Houston is a place where arts thrive, not just live music. It is a place foreigners immigrate to live and not to just get educated. Houston is where diversity, cuisine, and commerce occurs. I never felt more white than in the urban core of Austin and could never find a good selection of cuisine from Asia, Africa or Europe there. Austin is a great place and love visiting it, but it’s Austin, the Boston of Texas.
If you can’t appreciate the tongue in cheek humor of this, I don’t know what to say.
What is the Houston of Massachusetts?
New York City
@Progg
I guess the Houston of the Northeast is New York, if you believe the analogy. More of a business town, dirtier, more immigrants, more traffic, smaller college kid population as a proportion of the whole metro area (compared to either Austin or Boston). But I’d be hard pressed to call Boston “laid back”.
what sucks is the format of this graphic. does putting little pictures and different text colors, sizes, and orientations really contribute anything to this mediocre content?
This is hilarious! forethought – you get my vote for comment of the day. Well said.
Spiteful: “Infographics” are the hip thing today. Hell, I saw an infographic type ‘thing’ while watching NFL. They were compairing two QB”s or something in an infographic type way. And there are some stupid Ford commercials of that style.
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I’ll wait it out
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(and god, if the ‘hash tag’, “@’s, and all the other twitter BS could go away that would be awesome. GET OFF MY LAWN!)
I like how she just threw in “Texas Football” on the side there. Now that IS funny.
This was definitely made for and by Austinites in the “we’re full, go away” movement, as someone else mentioned. I am sad that someone thought someone pro-Houston would actually make this.
“The 26-year-old got the inspiration for the image last week when a graphic from Complete Web Resources laying out reasons why Austin was an attractive destination made the rounds online.
‘When I posted that I got a lot of responses from friends telling me to stop trying to get people to move here,†she said. “That got me thinking and I love Austin, but I thought this was a funny way to have a take on it.'”
Too funny. And Austin has a serious water problem. Not so cool & hip when you have H2O rationing. Suck on that Austin.
Aren’t folks moving to Austin aspired by its scenery and employment prospects? That’s my problemo with the “ad” is that it– although alluding to Houston strengths– doesn’t combat opportunity, cost of living and general attraction. All of which Houston offers over Austin. I would also tacitly “allude” to Houston’s very diverse educational scene.. let’s fraternize with the enemy, no? And in Houston let’s not forget to exemplify tortas, tamales-a-dozen in foil for $6, *world class* museum, theatre, *and* medical districts, and being closer to the coast than in the Woodlands (here I come Airline Seafood!). Not to mention tons of meaningful tech/health/accounting/legal/factory- jobs abound. Maybe just pointing out that a scan of each’s Craig’s Listings should differ so vastly is enough a clue.
Wonderful! I love this effort. Keep Austin small…er…ish….
And Austin only had 24 murders in 2013, to Houston’s 214.
Austin: come for the tacos, stay because you didn’t get killed. It’s pathetic, I know. When will we grow up?
Keep Houston Ugly
I lived in Austin briefly many years ago and even back then I was an “old dude”. I look back now and think about how people treated me as if I was an old thing and I think “I WAS 32!”…seriously, I was 32 years old and may have well had been 62!.
Austin does suck for all her reasons and more. I have never been to Austin that I have not been stuck in nightmare traffic. There has to be some kind of mafia thing going on with White Blvd because it’s literally been under construction for 25 years.
The last bit of charm and their sacred “weird” was played out long ago.
Houston and Dallas much better. I’m afraid Houston is quickly becoming Austinized though. I don’t know about Dallas.
Really cute and funny poster though.
Forethought, NYC isn’t in Massachusetts.
On the subject of the poster itself, doesn’t Houston have high traffic and high humidity?
I guess the sarcasm was lost. I was mainly thinking Amtrak Corridor.
Keep Austin 135 miles from here.
I’ve never been murdered in Houston. Not even once.
I didn’t know Austin had humidity. Where does it come from – that “lake” of theirs?
And 100 plus temps…that’s only during the daytime, correct?
When I moved to Houston, all my friends back east said, “Oh, but you need to check out AUSTIN! It’s so COOL! It’s so GREAT!” So I was excited to visit it for the first time. My first impression has been born out by every subsequent visit over the years: Yes, it’s a pleasant little college town. Why does everyone keep telling me how “weird” it is? It feels like every other little city. If it’s “weird” then so are Providence, RI, New Haven, CT, Albany, NY, and Raleigh, NC. What’s this live music capital thing? It feels like Kenmore Square (Boston) on a Friday night – nothing wrong with that, but BFD. Oh look, everyone’s underemployed because they’re convinced they’ll melt if they move to an actual major metro area. Why are they still telling me it’s “weird?” Why are they rude enough to think talking about why they hate Houston in a casual conversation? OK, please stop telling me how weird and cool it is. Why aren’t there better restaurants? OK, really, enough with the “Weird! Weird!” thing. Oh, you have bike trails? Um, that’s unique. Seriously, stop with the “weird” stuff already, it’s getting tragic.
The hills are really nice though.
Whenever I go to Austin I always hear the native Houstonian transplants bitch about all the Californians moving in and F-ing up the Austin way of life. And every other person in Austin seems to be a Houston transplant.
Glad you lived to type another day; but then, Houston isn’t nearly so “gritty” as it used to be … In fact, it has to be said, this idea that Houston and Austin are poles apart is frighteningly parochial, if not plain asinine.
The thing about bats sounds like Houston. Houston also has an abundance of tacos and cyclists (both of which are amazing.) Houston is also more humid than Austin. I guess this person doesn’t know anything about Houston OR Austin.