Your Crummy Hometown Just Got A Glow Up On TikTok

We can’t all be from Sydney or Melbourne. Some of us are from places that’ll never be featured in Lonely Planet; and must instead contend with ‘bustling town centres’ that emit existential dread and supermarkets that close at 2pm. On a Saturday.

While I’ve certainly made my peace with this fact, others are seeking justice for their hometowns through coordinated disinformation campaigns on TikTok. Readers, why would anyone wish to send a fellow human being to the Brisbane suburb of Logan unless you were trying to reenact the premise of The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, but in reverse?

“It’s just a random city in Australia, why do you go so bonkers about it?” asks a hypothetical everyman at the start of the video as a camera zooms into Logan via Google Earth. A cinematic soundtrack accompanies an explosive montage of lush tropical lagoons and vivid neon cityscapes, footage unfortunately taken from places other than Logan. Life is cruel.

Fellow outer-Brisbane suburb Ipswich has also received a glow up in a similar montage, with the ubiquitous Ipswich City mall making an all too brief appearance between shots of windswept mountains and lush meadows. Maybe it is a crime that only a lucky few have experienced the cultural delights of Ipswich, the only Australian city I’m aware of that has resorted to establishing an ‘Odour Abatement Taskforce’ to tackle the city-wide stench of shit. 

Judging by the comments, the misinformation seems to be already having an effect on wanderlust-stricken viewers. “Ipswich looks way better than Sydney,” one user declares. If only… 

Not content with falsifying the reality of our idle Australian urban nests with scenes of far-flung wonders of the world, one user also tried to contend that the sleepy community of Townsville was the basis for the fictional city from the cult animated series The Powerpuff Girls, which despite being an incredibly righteous concept, is, tragically, false.

I love the internet.