Long Post: One or two nights a week skip the standard tech House Of Prime Rib and Corgi Cafe circle jerks and go to shows at any of the smaller venues, buy merch, tell your friends about the bands you see, stream their music, go to art shows, buy art from smaller artists you never heard of, post the art on your socials and tag the artists, go to mom+pop restaurants. Convince people you work with to go with you to all of these things, have meetings at dive bars or in the back bar of a venue or at art shows. Restaurant/Show/Gallery hop on nights with multiple events, find a place you like to land at the end of those nights and repeat that Throw a house party, hire 2 local bands and 2 local DJs to play music, invite everyone you know and give away cheap booze/na drinks, do it every couple months if you have the bandwidth Donate money (tax write off) or buy memberships at galleries, go to NightLife at CalAcademy on Thursdays, I can go one forever and I’m happy to, but the real answer is to engage yourself and your community and your money actively in things you want to see more of I’ve been doing all of these things in SF for 30 years and you’d be surprised how much the cost of one HOPR or Omakase dinner could instead help propel someone who is struggling to pay rent to be inspired to keep making things. When that person is inspired they inspire others and on and on and it builds That’s what builds a scene Outside of that just be a part of your community. Get to know your baristas, servers, bartenders, neighbors etc and embrace the actual culture without trying to impose your own first and foremost. You bring yours with you and that’s good, (I’m from NY originally) but be curious, get to know what’s here. It’s a beautiful city with a rich history in every aspect