Five Ways L.A. Locals Knew Right Away That the Olympics Closing Ceremony Was Filmed in Long Beach, Not Venice

Hey, NBC. Real Angelinos can tell Long Beach and Venice Beach are apart.

Even though Los Angeles’ hosting of the 2028 Olympics was established in 2017, news networks and media outlets proved yesterday that they still can’t tell the difference between two notable seaside cities in Los Angeles. 

During Sunday’s closing ceremony in Paris, the Olympic flag was passed on to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. In celebration, Bass handed the flag over to Hollywood icon, Scientology demigod, and dude-who-never-misses-the-chance-to-remind-you-that-he-does-his-own-stunts, Tom Cruise.

Leave it to Cruise to cut an efficient way through international traffic by jumping from the roof of the Stade de France, mid-ceremony and later jumping off an airplane, only to arrive at the next Olympic destination, Los Angeles, and promptly turning the O’s in the Hollywood sign into the Olympic rings.

But for many, the real kicker of the ceremony was when the camera panned to a mini concert in Long Beach, featuring locally grown A-Listers like Snoop Dogg, Billie Eilish, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Still, the telecast commentators referred to the scene as “Venice,” the beachside city in the opposite direction from Long Beach, where we’d last seen Cruise and his bike.

Many other news outlets repeated the mistake. Even the official French language Olympic account tweeted out, “The Olympic flag on Venice Beach!”

A user even went viral on TikTok for a video of her screaming at her TV captioned, “This is Long Beach erasure”

However, anyone who knows the difference between a breakwater and an artificial oil island could tell there was some geographic confusion. Here are five ways everyone could see that it wasn’t Venice Snoop was serenading from an L.A. native’s perspective.

1. Snoop Dogg Put On For The LBC Right Away 

As if it weren't a dead giveaway enough that Snoop Dogg came in screaming, “Long Beach City, what it do,” some news outlet still got it wrong. The rapper, possibly the greatest thing to hit the Olympics prior to the advent of the Australian “breakdancer,” never fails to remind the world that he is from Long Beach, welcomed the Olympic games to his city by singing songs like ‘Drop it Like it’s Hot’ and ‘The Next Episode’ with Dr. Dre. The very appearance of Snoop let us know we were in the LBC, not Venice.

2. Long Beach Has Fake “Oil” Islands

You’ve probably seen those islands off near the distance when biking through Long Beach’s 7.5-mile shoreline bike path. They were a dead giveaway on camera, providing a backdrop and some of those familiar cargo ships we identify with the Port. They don’t exist in Venice in any shape or form, only in Long Beach. They were built in 1965 by a nearby oil field known as the Astronaut Islands, and they were named in honor of American astronauts who lost their lives in the service of NASA. Since then, they’ve become the unofficial identifiers of being on any of the Long Beach beaches. Well, that and the neverending line of cargo ships waiting to unload in the port next door.  

3. Rosie’s Dog Beach

Maybe Snoop Dogg and the fake palm trees weren’t enough of a sign. Still, the scenery with that particular view of the Pacific Ocean and water the color of the Caribbean was a giveaway for being home to Rosie’s Dog Beach, L.A. County’s only legit dog beach. Although Venice Beach is far more recognizable to an international audience, with its row of artists, freaks, and shops, it's Rosie’s Dog Beach that holds a special place in the hearts of dog-obsessed locals, as opposed to the non-dog friendly beach that is Venice, known for giving tickets if your dog is in anywhere on the actual beach.  

4. No Surf, Brah 

Look at the shoreline closely, and you’ll see that there isn’t even the slightest outline of a wave at least 30 feet into the ocean. You all can thank Long Beach’s breakwater for killing any surfing action since 1949. There were talks until the pandemic to remove the breakwater and make Long Beach return to its roots, being known as the “Waikiki of Southern California” again. Still, like many things in life, those plans were immediately abandoned after a study showed how much it would cost to remove the breakwater.  

5. Long Beach Doesn’t Have Those Kinds of Palm Trees 

Any Angelino could tell you that those palm trees on NBC were not from Long Beach and were not remotely accurate. L.A.'s most common palm trees are Canary Island date palms and Washingtonians. The ones on T.V. yesterday had coconuts hanging from them! Ours are usually straight and scraping the sky, not curved and truncated.

Users on X were quick to roll out with the jokes.