The ‘SLOprah’ effect

In November, San Luis Obispo was named the happiest town in America. Months later, on Jan. 26, Oprah Winfrey featured a segment on San Luis Obispo on her TV show. Now, students and San Luis Obispo residents can’t help but talk about their happy town.

Since the airing of the segment, San Luis Obispo’s tourism website has seen a nearly 800 percent increase in traffic, a phenomenon now referred to as the “Oprah Effect,” said Lindsey Miller, the marketing director at the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce. she said this is the kind of publicity the town needed.

“For so long we’ve tried to share the story of San Luis Obispo,” she said. “And this really puts us on the map. It’s really special.”

Miller’s hope is to increase tourism and make San Luis Obispo a destination.

“My hope now is that people will go a little further north than Santa Barbara and a little further south than Monterey,” she said.

San Luis Obispo was originally featured in Thrive, a book by Dan Buettner that studied the happiest populations around the world. Buettner attributed the town’s happiness to its clean environment, welcoming downtown area and abundance of outdoor activities. He cites studies of San Luis Obispo residents being more likely to smile and be joyful than to be sad and experience depression.

Buettner was originally drawn to San Luis Obispo by Gallup polls on well-being, which measure emotional health in the nation. In a five-year span, the town ranked highest in emotional health for three years.

Oprah picked up on San Luis Obispo’s attractions and sent correspondant Jenny McCarthy to create a three-minute segment in which she interviewed mayor Jan Marx, rode the streets of San Luis Obispo with a member of Cal Poly’s Wheelmen and dined creekside with locals.

Along with the segment on “The Oprah Show,” Buettner and San Luis Obispo have been featured in Parade magazine, on Yahoo! Travel, “Good Morning America” and DeltaSky. Miller said Buettner also recorded a segment with Dr. Oz.

Some worry this “Oprah Effect” will attract more tourists and take away from the hometown vibe of San Luis Obispo. However, most Cal Poly students aren’t concerned with this kind of dramatic shift.

Political science sophomore Briana Berry said it’s important for San Luis Obispo to welcome any increase in tourism in order to prove that it really is the happiest place in America.

“Would the happiest place in America be disappointed about tourists?” she said. “I don’t think so.”

An increase in tourism could potentially help the local economy.

Social sciences sophomore Connie Ng said an increase in tourism could only mean good things for local businesses.

“If the tourists come through when school is out, it can only be beneficial for the merchants around town,” she said. “Because when students are gone, San Luis Obispo is kind of a ghost town.”

However, English freshman Liam Hedriana said part of the reason San Luis Obispo is such a happy place is because of the tight-knit community that is the 45,000 person town.

“If there are more tourists, we’ll lose that,” he said. “And I don’t want that.”

Not only do students feel optimistic about San Luis Obispo’s economy, but about the future of the town as a whole.

English freshman Paige Isaacson said increased media attention would increase San Luis Obispo’s diversity.

“We live in a pretty homogeneous town,” she said. “Maybe all this will inspire people of different backgrounds to come to San Luis Obispo and diversify our campus.”

Aside from controversy of the “Oprah Effect,” many Cal Poly students feel proud of their town, and the recent hype has reassured them that they made the right decision in attending the university.

“When I saw the segment on Oprah, it just made me feel more confident that I’m in a great place,” Berry said. “It makes a lot of sense that they picked SLO.”

While many sing praises to San Luis Obispo’s new fame, Ng questions the validity of the recognition.

“I don’t think they surveyed all the right people,” she said. “They talked to residents rather than students, they didn’t talk to anyone who lived on campus.”

In fact, Cal Poly and its students were only mentioned in reference to the low crime rate. Miller said the Oprah film crew did some work on campus and talked to many students, but it all got cut during editing.

“It’s really a bummer because the students are what make this town vibrant and lively,” she said. “Without them San Luis Obispo would be pretty sleepy.”

In San Luis Obispo, weather, environment and natural beauty were big winners in the eyes of students.

“It’s summer in January,” Hedriana said. “You can go surfing whenever you want, how can you not be happy?”

Hedriana’s thoughts were echoed throughout theUU plaza Monday afternoon as students said they were “stoked” to live in the happiest town in America.

“What’s not to be happy about?” Berry said. “This is a pretty fantastic place to live.”