The Broken Richmond Social Scene

Posted by: Tony – Jul 09, 2010

In the last ten years Richmond has evolved into a college town. Sure, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU)has been here for forty years, and the University of Richmond has been here longer, they were not central to the culture here. VCU is now one of the largest public universities in the state and as a result it has physically grown too, buying up property and steadily expanding both campuses. VCU has become the unifying factor in the social circles of Richmond. It, like all colleges, brings together people from all walks of life and more importantly different areas of Virginia.

Go to a party, ask someone if they’re at VCU and the follow up question is to ask where they’re from. They are most likely from one of three places – Northern Virginia, Virginia Beach or Roanoke. If they have stayed in school you’ll go on to ask them what their major is, and this is when they find a way out of the conversation, or you do. Because you or them are at this party with your three closest friends, and you were maybe introduced by one of those friends, but no one it seems is interested in getting beyond those friends. And those friends, they’re friends that they’ve had since middle school.

After moving here I found it difficult to meet like minded people, which I found particularly strange in a place that claims to be so open-minded. It became apparent that open-minded didn’t mean accepting, it mean agreeing to certain ideologies to which I didn’t fit. What does someone do that’s not just here for the party? Or Art school? Or Vegan? Or Straightedge?

You float between the different scenes always remaining an outsider.

When another friend moved here from DC, she found meeting people to be difficult as well. DC is a transient town – new people are in and out every day. Richmond is not. It’s stagnant. The people don’t change. The scenery may, but generally the people love to live as they have forever. Many come here for school, they get a job at a diner or coffee shop, and they graduate and they stay. There’s no mistake, and there’s nothing quite as comfortable as a group house in Oregon Hill with your closest friends to convince you to stay, despite the declining job market.

People grow up here, and they stay here. They indulge in Southern charm and river weekends. Cheap rent and cheap beer keep the parties going and these students continue to go to parties with the same friends well after graduation. Peter Pan Syndrome, as some call it, encourages Richmond and her inhabitants to be young forever – to remain the same forever. And they will, with their three closest friends.

It’s their ideology. Where choices are important, it’s better to agree than to disagree. Being supportive of their artistic persuasion isn’t enough if you identify too much with the mainstream, or what they consider the mainstream. Richmond’s sense of rebellion is rooted in it’s Confederate history – fight the system, but don’t acknowledge that past. The rebellion is torn between the DIY ethics and the conservative every-man-for-himself ethics. Both are present and both are well represented, but the former is politically absent.

For example, Food Not Bombs is a wonderful gathering of like minded people that prepare a meal with food that they’ve found dumpster diving. It’s anti-waste and it promotes a socialized idea that there is enough to go around and that each human, each earthling should have enough to survive. But this isn’t an idea that could gain political representation, and those that participate aren’t organized enough to fully make a change.

Richmond maintains these romantic ideas, but each person has their own and instead of appreciating the differences, the stereotypical Southern hypocrisy comes out and turns people away from those that aren’t similar enough to them.

Tolerance is spoken but not practiced.

DISCLAIMER:: The opinions expressed in this article do not represent RVA but are the opinions of the author.

by Amanda Pittman