Five Tourism Slogans for Buffalo That Would’ve Been Better Than “For Real”

Buffalo, NY is the kind of underrated city that produces a devout and loyal following from its residents. Perhaps, it happens as a defense mechanism after Buffalo residents just get tired of hearing people crap on their city, its terrible weather and hard-luck sports franchises.

Whatever the reason, the people in upstate New York love their city. And in its defense, it isn’t as bad as you would assume. Subjectively speaking, the city is great…at least in the summer months, anyways.

Did you know that Buffalo is one of the few cities in America with a park by Frederick Law Olmsted and a house by Frank Lloyd Wright? It’s true!

And aside from their famous namesake wings, Buffalo is brimming with culinary bar food delights like the chicken finger sub and beef of weck.

But when your city is struggling to fight against the preconceived notion that is is not a very good city, the least your tourism board could do is come up with a slogan that makes people say, “You know I’ve never considered Buffalo, maybe it’s not so bad.” Instead of one that just makes people laugh and go, “Yup, Buffalo can’t even get a good tourism slogan.”

Tourism slogans are generally corny to begin with, so the bar is already set very, very low. But Buffalo’s is a real head-scratcher. It came up with this: “Buffalo. For Real.” (And sadly, yes, that’s for real).

As the Buffalo News made aware in the wake of the announcement, the new slogan prompted backlash from the local community and armchair critics who mocked it on Twitter with alternatives like “Buffalo: The ‘MySpace’ of Cities.”

‘To me, it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know what is ‘real.’ Is there ‘unreal Buffalo’?”‘ Arun K. Jain, chairman of the marketing department at the University at Buffalo, told the Buffalo News.

Again, if you’re a city fighting an uphill battle and preconceived notions you’ve got to come up with a slogan to attract positive attention, perhaps grab a few Internet headlines, and just generally drop an awesome bomb on the world.

Here are five alternative slogans that would have worked much better, because we love the city and want to see it succeed.

1. Buffalo: Because Detroit and Cleveland Are Worse

2. Buffalo: We Poop Rainbow Comets

3. Buffalo: Our Wings Aren’t The Only Thing That’s Hot (except in the winter)

4. Buffalo: Free of terrorists (since 2009)

5. Buffalo: Shit just got real, son.

Adage also put together a compendium of other cities with equally absurd tourism slogans.