BRIGHTON has been dubbed the “Los Angeles of England” by a YouTuber that lives in the city.
On a recent episode of the Trash Taste podcast, vlogger and gamer Jacksepticeye said that he “fell in love” with Brighton during a visit to the city to see fellow content creator Felix Kjellberg - known as PewDiePie.
The YouTuber, whose real name is Sean McLoughlin, moved to Brighton from Athlone in Ireland in 2017. He has 28.6 million subscribers.
He said: “Felix lived there for a really long time and I’d heard really nice things from him.
“There were a couple of other big YouTubers there too, but I didn’t really get it. When I went there, I realised it’s like a mini LA. It’s got the same sort of structure but smaller.
“I went to visit Felix for the first time over a weekend years and years ago and then I just fell in love with it immediately.”
His comments come after Brighton and Hove partnered with Californian retreat Santa Monica for a culture swap between the two cities.
Sean had been toying with the idea of moving to Los Angeles and London, but preferred what Brighton had to offer.
He said: “I had been thinking about moving already and I thought LA was a bit too far and you have to get visas. I thought maybe London but it’s just a nightmare - the traffic is awful, there’s too many people here and it’s too busy for someone who grew up in a tiny town.
“When I went to Brighton, I was like ‘this is lovely’ - it’s small, the beach is there, and my friends are there.
“The people were just so nice and it had a really strong LGBTQ+ community there. The vegan community is huge there, so I was like ‘this is perfect, why would I live anywhere else?’”
While he said he enjoyed living in LA for a few weeks, Sean was put off the idea of moving there by the personality of those who live in the city.
He said: “You hear horror stories of people who move there and then change and become ‘Hollywood’ - I think it’s impossible not to.
“I was kind of afraid to move there in case I became this monster.”
Sean shared his love of Korean food on the Trash Taste podcast with hosts Connor Colquhoun, Joseph Bizinger and Garnt Maneetapho - who was born and raised in Brighton.
Sean spoke of Koji in York Place.
Sean said: “We have a good Korean restaurant in Brighton called Kogi - it does legit Korean food and I’m so happy that the pandemic didn’t kill it, because I was very worried.”
Garnt noted that several new restaurants from different cultures have been opening across Brighton in recent years.
He said: “I feel like in Brighton now there’s just been a lot of restaurants popping up.
“I moved out just before the pandemic and I love food culture, so now I’ve come back to Brighton there’s now every cuisine under the sun, there’s cool restaurants, so I’m like f**k yes.”
Other YouTubers that live in the city include Saffron Barker, Zoe Sugg and Jack Maynard.
One of the platform’s most popular stars, PewDiePie, also lived in the city but moved to Japan earlier this year.
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