Hilarious Reddit thread: eastern suburbs residents roast themselves

That’s like five Maroubras away! A photographer who has mistakenly captioned a work site at the foot of the Anzac Bridge as “western Sydney” has sparked a comical viral thread roasting eastern suburbs residents.

Even before Covid you wouldn’t catch a self-respecting resident of the east on the west side of the CBD.

A hilarious online thread roasting the eastern suburbs bubble is going viral – and locals are the ones poking fun at themselves.

It all started with an innocent photo of a dormant construction site at the foot of the Anzac Bridge taken by AFP wire photographer Saeed Khan last week that he innocently captioned “heavy machinery at a construction site in western Sydney”.

The image and offending caption were used by news sites including The Guardian.

The good people of Reddit unearthed the image and re-captioned it: Tell me you live in the Eastern Suburbs without saying where you live.

It very quickly descended into an argument about who was true east.

“You laugh, but I know some people who seriously think that the west starts after Anzac Pde! Can you believe it? Idiots! Everyone knows Carrington Rd is the cut-off line. Sheesh,” said one commenter.

“Mate, Arden St is the real cut off,” said another.

Others made self-deprecating jokes about their own eastern suburbs biases.

What do you think – was this photo takenon the west side? (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)

“People joke, I grew up in Waverley and back in the day very rarely crossed over Anzac Parade. Before anyone could drive it was common to say (as a joke) ‘man that’s like five Maroubras away’,” wrote one Redditor.

“I remember a mum of a school friend was in all seriousness describing Pyrmont and the fish markets as ‘too far west’ for her to travel to. Randwick Racecourse is as far south as she’d travel, and only for fundraisers she ‘just must attend dahling’,” explained one user.

“When I was renting in Double Bay I had a flatmate who grew up in Vaucluse, whole family, all relatives lived in Vaucluse or Bondi. One day he says ‘what‘s across the Harbour Bridge?’ We were like come on mate you must be taking the p***, you’ve never taken a holiday in Sawtell or Port Macquarie? Nope, all holidays overseas. So then we asked, ‘how far west have you been?’ ‘I think I went to Glebe one time’,” was another side splitting anecdote.

There was also a strong push to recognise the people of the inner east.

“Inner East is definitely a thing, usually refers to Darlinghurst, Paddington and Potts Point kind of area,” declared one person.

One local was basically all of us in her assessment of the situation.

“I didn’t realise what was wrong with the photo until I read the comments. I don’t always conform to the eastern suburbs stereotype but when I do … … damn I’m sorry,” she wrote.