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No one paid them to say this. These Boston influencers just really love their city.
We asked Boston's top content creators what they love most about their city — that they aren't paid to promote.
Boston’s influencers aren’t just showing off the city online. They’re living it.
In its November issue, Boston magazine released its list of the top influencers and content creators representing Boston, including gluten-free foodies, comedians, fashion vloggers, and everything in between.
We asked those influencers what they love most about their city — no sponsorships, just pure hometown affection. From tucked-away coffee shops to Celtics pride, here’s what they said.
What’s your favorite thing about Boston that you aren’t paid to promote?
Boston’s local charm
“I moved away from Boston for about four years after college. I moved to a different city and it just didn’t compare. I was a year into living in a different city, and I was like, ‘I just need to get back to Boston.’ It’s clean, it’s beautiful. It’s small enough that it’s walkable, but big enough that you can always be doing something new, so I’m biased but I think Boston’s the best city.” — Molly Curley
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“Honestly, scenery. Aesthetic, liminal scenery. I think there’s a lot of nooks and crannies that are really just cool to look at. Different times of day, too — nighttime, evening, daytime, whatever it is. I don’t know how anybody could get paid to promote cool little alleyways and walkways and little piers by the water but … that would be my favorite, personally.” — Marc Lewis
“My favorite thing about Boston that I’m not paid to promote is the neighborhood of the North End. I just absolutely eat, sleep, and breathe the North End. The culture, the people, the food, just how old-school and historic it is. The fact that the roads were literally built for horse and carriage and they haven’t changed and it just creates so much chaos and hilarious moments. I just absolutely love that neighborhood through and through.” — Maggie
The people
“Bostonians get a really bad rep for being assholes, but I think we’re just direct, and there’s a big difference. Bostonians are actually loving, caring, genuine people, and when people are not used to it, they mistake it as people just being rude. But, you know, I think we prefer being direct than beating around the bush.” — Brayan Mesa
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“One thing that I just love about Boston is just the people who I’m able to meet every single day. Walking out [of] my house and seeing everybody walking with their smiles and their happy faces, it’s something that I really, truly appreciate about Boston … You hear Boston and you think, colleges, universities, racism, but there’s so much that Boston has to offer other than that, like the creative scene, the creative people, the creative atmospheres, and just everything in between.” — Moses Sibley
“I genuinely love how — especially if you start to go out a little bit just outside of the city — how much the city is actually a real melting pot of so many different cultures. And I don’t just say that as someone from another country who immigrated here … There is such a genuine wholesomeness to driving through neighborhoods and seeing how these different pockets of people have impacted the neighborhoods that they grew up in, and I genuinely love that aspect of Boston. I’m sure there’s immigrants in every major city, but something about the way that it is here, it just really tickles my brain in a way that I can’t describe.” — Luiz Fernandes
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“I love the small town-ness of it and the fact that I can bring people here and walk around, walk into a shop and recognize people. They’re all like, ‘How do you know everybody?’ And it’s like, ‘Because I just have lived here my whole life.’ It doesn’t have anything to do with the social media of it all … if you don’t know somebody, you can be like, ‘Oh, what town are you from? Oh, you’re from Methuen? Do you know so and so, so and so?’ … We’re all connected, and that’s pretty cool.” — Matt Shearer
A food scene worth bragging about
“Definitely the all-you-can-eat spots. I love Hot Pot Buffet right in Chinatown. It’s me and my girlfriend’s move after we come home from a flight. We take the Silver Line, get to South Station, walk over. It’s $40 all-you-can-eat hot pot, it’s a pretty good deal.” — Joe Fenti
“Coffee. I love how everyone puts so much love into coffee shops around here. When I go to other places … in different cities, there’s really cute coffee shops, but here, I just think there’s such charm and history. Especially in different corners of Boston where people have really made a stamp for themselves in creating a unique experience that you really can’t find anywhere else.” — Brian Pu Ruiz
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“I think that Boston has some of the best speakeasies for a city, and I think it’s funny how people don’t really know about them … Whether you’re going to Hecate downtown or Birds of Paradise out in Brighton, there are some really good hidden cocktail bars.” — Julia Belkin
“I love that — and I think people don’t realize that — Boston, the food scene here, really has such culturally diverse foods. It does take a little bit more of a trek to get outside of the main city areas like downtown, and there’s plenty of food in other parts of Boston. So, Dorchester, Mission Hill — I think all the good food scenes [are] there and it just takes a little bit more of a travel to get there, but it’s totally worth it.” — Vivian
“I get very lucky doing the food [reviews] that I get to touch in on a lot of different cultures. I was just talking to someone out there about Dorchester a bit, about how you can go to an Irish pub, get Vietnamese food, find Caribbean food. Just the diversity that’s all throughout the city I think is probably my favorite part that I don’t get paid to promote.” — Keonte Henson
Title Town pride
“My favorite thing about Boston that I’m not paid to promote — yet, hopefully — is the Boston Celtics. I’m a huge Celtics fan. I’ve loved them my whole life. Isaiah Thomas was my pinnacle short guy who plays basketball, was nasty at it. I was short, I played basketball, I wasn’t nasty at it unfortunately, but I also wore No. 4 in basketball because of Isaiah.” — Phil
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“Can I say the Celtics? Is that allowable? That is my, that is my deep soul obsession. But, otherwise … I just like that Boston is a city that feels like a small town. I like the little intimacy of Boston. And the Boston Celtics.” — Brian Moller
“My favorite thing about Boston would probably be Fenway Park. I have never worked with Fenway Park, but definitely would be an awesome collab. I’m a huge Red Sox fan and it’s just such a magical part of the summertime in Boston.” — Jacci Kokos
Under-appreciated local gems
“My favorite thing about Boston that I’m not paid to promote is definitely the Athenaeum. I absolutely love the private library in Beacon Hill. I love the community, I love the events, I love using it as my office. I think it’s kind of a hidden gem. Most people know about it but it’s off the beaten path and it’s such a beautiful spot.” — Kate Weiser
“There’s such an untapped, unhighlighted, unemphasized part of the city that is the Boston music scene. There’s such an important part of the creative part of the city that I just feel like is underrepresented. I work at a grocery store, that’s my day job, and there are so many creative people that I get to work with that do the “basic jobs” in Boston that help people who do fancier jobs … we’re ringing you up and helping you pick out eggs. But then we’re also performing for you after we get off of work. I think that the Boston music scene really deserves to be more front and center and more talked about.” — Emi McSwain
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“I really like the history, honestly, which is kind of a nerdy answer but every time I walk downtown or in Back Bay there’s just so many places — if you pay attention — there’s so many places where famous people have lived or really interesting things have happened, beyond the … usual Revolutionary War stuff that everybody knows. I love doing a deeper dive into that and trying to appreciate that as I’m going around the city.” — Katie Stryjewski
Audience engagement co-op Annika Sunkara contributed to this report.
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