Dear Toronto: It’s Time To Stop Being So Defensive
If you live in Toronto (or increasingly so in North America) you may have noticed the emergence of Toronto. Or at the very least anyone who’s even remotely from Toronto (looking at you Mississauga) advertising the emergence of Toronto. From piling into the non-stop train to melancholy that is the Drake bandwagon inspired “6ix” to the co-opted from Detroit “Toronto vs. Everybody” movement and pointing out official statistics generated by official publications. Like a persistent Jehovah’s witness, people from Toronto would very much like you to learn about Toronto. I think it’s about time to stop defending ourselves and time to start embracing our identity.
To be perfectly honest, this little rant (that may at parts be borderline vitriolic) was sparked by a variety of things, but mostly it’s the insistence of us (people from Toronto) to tell, nay yell, to the world that “Toronto is great.” Usually that starts with some sort of asinine nickname for the city like the six or T-Dot (which I am still more sympathetic towards) in the past. Then we go through your regular numbers of being “like New York north” or “Drake.” We’ve gone as far as to accredit Aubrey Graham with the rising “coolness” factor of our city, although if you’re arguing that I would argue that you very much have no idea on what the definition of cool is. Here’s the most important thing about being cool, it’s not telling everyone who will listen how cool you are as we so often tend to do in this city.
In our defense, we do have reason to be a little bit defensive and self conscious. After all it’s not so long ago that both Toronto and Canada were in the world’s blind spot. We’ve endured on, but admittedly we hardly have the historical appeal of a Paris or a Rome or the eternal lie of “you can be everything you ever want to” of a Los Angeles. We definitely don’t have the “who asked you what you think” cool exterior of a New York. There is no drawn out or collective history of contextual relevance. Just like Canada has been relegated to America North so does Toronto get considered “New York North” or more aptly “New York without all of the stuff.” A good friend (and a much better writer than I) recently (like, this week) framed this phenomenon in the world of luxury and fashion, a typical societal metronome of relevance, but it can easily be applied across the board.
This lack of historically established “cool” however, simply adds an element of plasticity to the city’s identity, one that has become (or should become) the defining characteristic of our own personal brand of coolness. This sense of fluidity and adaptability is at the core of what makes Toronto so special and cool. You can stroll down any suburban street and hear 15 different languages being spoken within the span of five minutes. You can have authentic Peruvian breakfast, Guyanese brunch and a Ukrainian dinner if you wanted to, all within a span of one day (and without driving for more than 20 minutes either way). If you want to find something in Toronto from another part of the world, you can.
This is represented in our neighborhoods, streets, attitudes. The best part of Toronto is that its embraced its malleable and inclusive nature in many ways, from small to big. The ability of a city to balance multiple cultures and also carve out it’s own very distinct one out of them is special. Trying to put an overarching stamp on it is toxic to this kind of identity of made us who we are. We’re not 6ix, we’re the plenty. Too many to count. We need to stop trying to assimilate the very thing that makes us distinguished.
More so, we’ve been able to create cultural relevance out of multiculturalism. Our artists, our writers, our chefs and bartenders have gone far to embrace this instead of rejecting it. In the past, people used to say that Toronto was “unsure of its identity,” but I would argue that we were just fitting all of the mosaic pieces together just the right way.
We were cool before Drake, relevant before Rob Ford, but in our own special pockets of reality. Often invisible to the outside world, but always embracing of it and of our place within it. And that’s what made Toronto so special. Why would we beat against that with the “vs. Everybody” rhetoric. Especially since we never had the adversity and the downfall of Detroit, the original owner of the bold claim. What did we every have to struggle against? Free healthcare? Friendly sidewalk passer bys? Melancholy break up raps of a someone who’s never had a complex relationship with a woman that lasted longer than two weeks and one voicemail? Why are we inventing struggles for ourselves.
Every great city has that one defining characteristic that you just realize. Whether it’s the glamour and appeal of LA or that high-end debonair posturing of New York or the fashion and arts hub of Paris. There is history there that emerges from a very identifiable, very distinct starting point. Toronto’s defining characteristic is that we don’t have one. And how fitting for a city to embrace the modern age of short attention spans, cultural snapshots and nostalgic touch points that last no longer than a carton of milk.
In a world where everyone’s defining characteristic seems to be a distinct absence of identity, Toronto may just be the perfect city to embrace it. Unsure on the surface, but strong, vibrant and defined in its own sense once you get to know it, if only you dare take a second look.
Take care out there.
