Every now and then there will be some article about how the traffic in Atlanta is amongst the worst in the country or the world, or an article about how the housing market within the city proper is gradually climbing into San Francisco-like ascensions. And then inevitably, like people flocking to the supermarkets for milk, bread and toilet paper at the news of oncoming snow, there will always be someone whether it’s through Twitter or any social media outlet, or in a comments section who says “go home, Atlanta’s full” or something of the like.
But then on the eve of the Super Bowl, which is being played in Atlanta this year, the city actually did become full; to the point where even the local NBC news outlet had no choice but to drop a headline that, Atlanta was full. The meme became reality to where it had to not just be acknowledged by the media, but integrate it into the headlines. And to prove that Atlanta was full, 11 Alive provided time-lapse video evidence of the clusterfuck of humanity that converged into Downtown Atlanta.
It looked like a more ghetto version of Shinjuku Station whenever the lights turned green and suddenly hundreds of people would cross the streets, filling up every inch of space in the process.
Frankly, when I knew that the Super Bowl was coming to Atlanta, not that I have a tremendous amount of business in the city anymore now that I’ve moved back out to the ‘burbs, but I knew that anything within two weeks of the Super Bowl was a definite no-fly zone for going remotely anywhere near the city if it could absolutely be helped. And seeing video evidence of just how full Atlanta became, just a night prior to the Super Bowl justified everything I thought was going to be the case, and made me very glad that I no longer worked or lived remotely anywhere within city proper limits.
Needless to say, it’s still hilarious to me that the meme became reality, even if it just reached critical mass on one of the numerous nights in which people flooded the city. But it’s official, Atlanta was full; now everyone go home.