Slacker Capital of the World (Austin nickname)

Richard Linklater’s 1991 film Slacker showed one day in the life of the offbeat characters of Austin, Texas. A “slacker” is someone who does not follow the corporate track with his or her career, living an unconventional lifestyle. The city of Austin quickly became branded as the “Slacker Capital of the World.”
   
Austin is the capital of Texas and is more popularly known as the “Live Music Capital of the World.” 
 
 
Wikipedia: Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital of the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of Travis County. Situated in Central Texas, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 16th-largest in the United States of America, as well as the third fastest growing large city in the nation from 2000 to 2006. As of the 2006 U.S. Census estimate, Austin has a population of 709,893. The city is the cultural and economic center of the Greater Austin metropolitan area with a population of about 1.6 million people.
 
Austin was selected as the No. 1 Best Big City in “Best Places to Live” by Money magazine in 2006, and the “Greenest City in America” by MSN. Also, according to CNN Headline News and travel and leisure Austin ranks #2 on the list of cities with the best people referring to the personalities and attributes of the citizens. Austin was also voted America’s #1 College Town by the Travel Channel. Austin was ranked the 5th safest city in part because annually, there are fewer than 3 people murdered per 100,000 people.
 
Residents of Austin are known as “Austinites,” and include a mix of university professors, students, politicians, lobbyists, musicians, state employees, high-tech workers, blue-collar workers, and white-collar workers. The main campus of the University of Texas is located in Austin. The city is home to enough large sites of major technology corporations to have earned it the nickname “Silicon Hills.” Austin’s official slogan promotes the city as “The Live Music Capital of the World”, a reference to its status as home to many musicians and music venues. In recent years, many Austinites have also adopted the unofficial slogan “Keep Austin Weird”; this refers partly to the eclectic and progressive lifestyle of many Austin residents, but is also the slogan for a campaign to preserve smaller local businesses and resist excessive commercialization.
 
Wikipedia: Richard Linklater 
Richard Stuart Linklater (born July 30, 1960) is an Academy Award-nominated American film director and screenwriter.
(...)
To this end Linklater created Detour Filmproduction (an homage to the 1945 low budget film noir by Edgar G. Ulmer), and subsequently made Slacker for only $23,000. The film is an aimless day in the life of the city of Austin, Texas showcasing its more eccentric characters.
(...)
Many of Linklater’s films take place in one day, a technique that has gained popularity in recent years. Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Tape, Before Sunrise, and Before Sunset are examples of this method.
   
Internet Movie Database
Plot summary for
Slacker (1991)
Presents a day in the life in Austin, Texas among its social outcasts and misfits, predominantly the twenty-something set, using a series of linear vignettes. These characters, who in some manner just don’t fit into the establishment norms, move seamlessly from one scene to the next, randomly coming and going into one another’s lives. Highlights include a UFO buff who adamantly insists that the U.S. has been on the moon since the 1950s, a woman who produces a glass slide purportedly of Madonna’s pap smear, and an old anarchist who sympathetically shares his philosophy of life with a robber. Written by Rick Gregory {rag.apa@email.apa.org}
   
13 September 1991, Sacramento (CA) Bee, “‘Slacker’ talks fast, goes nowhere,” pg. TK22:
... playing its first slacker a guy fresh off the bus and newly arrived in Austin, Texas, which apparently is the Slacker Capital of the World.
 
14 March 1996, Los Angeles (CA) Times, Business, pg. D2:
Austin has ambitions, as one speaker put it, to transform itself from the “slacker capital of the world” into the world’s leading center of multimedia ...
 
Google Groups: rec.sport.football.college
Newsgroups: rec.sport.football.college
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Ralph Kennedy)
Date: 1998/01/15
Subject: Re: All-RSFC Award Nominations
 
—Ralph Kennedy, College Station dethrones Austin as slacker capital, film at 11
   
Google Groups: alt.gossip.celebrities
Newsgroups: alt.gossip.celebrities
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (PUSSSYKATT)
Date: 1998/05/03
Subject: Welcome to Tinseltown, Texas
 
NY POST..By ROD DREHER
MOVIE producer Lynda Obst has made a name - and a small fortune - for herself in Hollywood, Calif.
 
So why has she built a home away from home in Texas’ hill country, just outside of Austin?
 
“It’s like my mistress,” Obst says. “I go to her whenever I can.
 
“It’s neither L.A. nor New York - nor is my life down there a reflection of my daily Dow Jones average,” she details.
 
Most tellingly, she adds: “People don’t root for each other to fail in Texas. And I definitely know I won’t run into anyone from the talent agency—CAA.”
 
WELCOME to Tinseltown, Texas, deep in the heart of the Lone Star State, famous turf for shooting such old and new classics as “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Blood Simple,” “Giant” and “Slacker,” “Paris, Texas” and “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. ”
 
The population is small but growing as more Hollywood types discover what Obst has: that Texas - and slacker capital Austin, in particular - is not only a great place to make movies, but its easygoing lifestyle and sophisticated film culture make it a great place for movie people to make a life for themselves.
 
Google Groups: alt.slack
Newsgroups: alt.slack
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Kolombangara)
Date: 2000/05/04
Subject: Re: WWXD?
   
“Austin is as hot as hell is”
On an uninsured & unlicenced car in Austin.
 
Austin: The slacker capital of the world.
 
18 March 2002, Austin (TX) American-Statesman:
That’s the only way to explain the Austin congressman’s view of his hometown, which used to be known as the slacker capital of the world but now—as ...
   
New York (NY) Times
36 Hours in Houston
By DAN HALPERN
Published: December 16, 2005
THAT’S right—you’re not from Texas. It’s O.K. According to Lyle Lovett, Texas wants you anyway. On the other hand, however, there’s long been little love returned for Houston, the state’s biggest city and the nation’s fourth largest. Houston doesn’t have a clear-cut positive reputation, like Austin (the laid-back slacker capital), or even a good nickname, like Dallas (Big D).   
 
The Total Man Package
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Yes Another “SLACKER” The Movie Sighting
Austin, Texas is the Slacker Capital of the Country if not the world. Here’s the proof. Not only was the movie “SLACKER” shot here, but I seem to have some sort Slacker Karma.
   
Alina Simone (July 13, 2006)
My So-Called Indie Rock Blog #7
I lived on this block in Hyde Park that explained why Austin was known as the slacker capital of America.
 
Austin (TX) American-Statesman—Austin Movie Blog
Would you date a slacker?
By Sarah Lindner | Tuesday, June 12, 2007, 03:53 PM
In “Knocked Up”, an ambitious woman (Katherine Heigl) finds herself in a relationship with a slacker guy (Seth Rogen). How realistic is this? Is it something that happens here in Austin, the slacker capital? 
 
Austin, Texas—City-Data Forum
southwest 1230
10-12-2007, 07:58 PM
Austin - Slacker Capital of the world?
Is Austin the slacker capital of the world?
 
Deric Bownds’ Mindblog
Friday, May 02, 2008
Despair, Inc.
Out of good ‘ol Austin Texas (the original slacker capital), this foil to today’s first post (see below), a great site of demotivational materials - just the antidote one needs to the happiness and corporate motivation industry.