Some guy will post a picture of a pretty standard looking pepperoni pizza and say: "Imagine not living in new york." And then there's the whole bodega discourse, which is also funny. "For you non-new yorkers, let me explain: a bodega is not a corner store. It's a place where you can buy gatorade, toilet paper, AND eggs." Thank you sir for explaining that to a slack-jawed yokel such as myself.
I think the problem is twitter lmao. TikTok is full of NYC slander at this point (like to the point of I'd make this post complaining about how overdone it is - NYC isn't more dirty and crowded than a lot of cities in the world Americans are just spoiled who want suburb level sprawl at all times)
That's part of it, but I would say more than anything it is because NY is itself pretty pampered and important, so shitting on it is fun. Plenty of people who live in smaller, but still huge cities hate New York as much as anyone. What's the point of living in a city if you dont hate everything about all other cities, and also hate your own city too?
Compared to overcrowded and underdeveloped large cities like Manila or Jakarta? Sure.
Compared to other major "rich" cities? I'm struggling to think of as dirty as NYC. I hear Rome is pretty bad but haven't been there.
I think the point is that NYC is the richest city on Earth by some metrics and still can't get its shit together. It's a microcosm of America as a whole.