Several prominent conservative media personalities visiting San Francisco for the Super Bowl have expressed shock and confusion after discovering the city is not, in fact, a post-apocalyptic hellscape ruled by feral homeless people and Nancy Pelosi.
ESPN host Pat McAfee, who has spent years absorbing vivid descriptions of San Francisco as a lawless wasteland where people fight over scraps of avocado toast, admitted on his show that he was "so surprised" to find the city had buildings, hills, and people who were running instead of fleeing from roving gangs of anarchists.
"What we thought we were walking into here was, uh, a dump," McAfee told his audience while standing in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, which he'd been assured had collapsed years ago. "We were told this place is a shithole. But it turns out there are like, restaurants? And they're open? During business hours?"
The revelation has sent shockwaves through the conservative podcast world, where many personalities are now questioning everything they've been told.
"I haven't seen a single person being hunted for sport," complained Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, who spent the week eating what he described as "unreasonably good" burritos. "I was told there would be roving bands of antifa supersoldiers. The most threatening thing I encountered was a barista who spelled my name wrong."
49ers tight end George Kittle tried to explain to McAfee that San Francisco has always been beautiful, but McAfee appeared genuinely baffled by the concept that conservative media might have been exaggerating for political purposes.
"But Fox News showed me a loop of one guy pooping on a sidewalk in 2019," McAfee protested weakly.
Local residents have greeted the conservative awakening with a mixture of amusement and exhaustion.
"Every few months, someone from the Midwest visits and acts like they've discovered Atlantis," said longtime resident Jennifer Chen. "Yes, we have problems. No, we're not currently being governed by a council of drug-addled tech CEOs who make human sacrifices to the god of wokeness. That's only on Tuesdays."
Not everyone has been convinced. Boston radio hosts Michael Felger and Tony Massarotti doubled down this week, insisting San Francisco is still a "zombie apocalypse" despite not having actually visited the city since 1987.
"I don't care what these people say they saw with their own eyes," Felger insisted. "I have a narrative to maintain and, frankly, I'm in too deep now."
Sources later reported that several conservative media figures were frantically deleting old tweets about San Francisco while simultaneously posting that they "always knew it was a beautiful city" and had only been engaging in "obvious satire" for the past five years.