History Main / SmallTownBoredom

* ''Series/ThePeripheral2022'': PlayedForDrama. Flynne has been trapped in the WretchedHive that is Clanton for her entire life, having to take care of her sick mother and provide for the family while her brother Burton was in the Marines. Her [[TimeTravel trips to 2099 London have been such an amazing source of escapism that she doesn't even care [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul that the headset which enables this is harming her]], she just wants to keep going.

* "Subdivisions" by Music/{{Rush}}.

* "Big wheels in the Moonlight" by Dan Seals.

* ''Anime/{{Shiki}}'': Megumi expresses this at the start of the series, hoping to go travel to the big city from her rural village as she finds it boring. [[spoiler: Ironically after she becomes a vampire, she's denied going to the city by her master and never leaves her village alive once she attempt to do so when things hit the fan. At most she gets a DyingDream of finally going to Tokyo upon being staked in the manga.]]

* In ''Film/ElviraMistressOfTheDark1988'', Elvira arrives to the pretty dull small town of Falwell, where the only hub of social life is a bowling alley and the sole movie theater only shows G-rated films. [[BlitheSpirit Elvira's arrival]] shakes around their boring status quo, and the local teens quickly grow fond of her because she brings entertainment to their lives.
* In ''Film/{{Footloose}}'', the whole plot is kicked by Ren moving from Chicago to the small town of Beaumont, where his frustration with how boring and dull small town life is drives him to shake things around.

* In ''Film/TheHalfOfIt'', Ellie is a Chinese American high school girl growing up in Squahamish, a small rural town. She clearly hates being stuck there. Aside from maintaining perfect grades and playing the guitar, she spends most of her free time performing her father's job at the train station running a secret essay writing cheating scheme to make money on the side.

* ''Film/RawDeal1986''. Mark Kaminsky's wife is suffering badly from this, after her husband was thrown out of the FBI and now makes his living as a small town sheriff, where all she can do is discuss cows with the other farmer's wives. She gets drunk and throws a cake at him.

** Frank Churchill grew up in a secluded BigFancyHouse and once he's adult, he's travelling in England (e.g. he visits Weymouth, a popular spa town) and he has a great desire to travel abroad.

* ''Literature/{{Pale}}'': Avery is a born wayfarer, driven in part by her disillusionment with her small hometown of Kennet. She finds her way in the Paths, a set of [[SuperSargassoSea lost places just outside of reality]], where she can go on quests and meet others from all over Canada who are walking similar journey.

* In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'', this is Petyr Baelish's backstory in a nutshell. His family keep is on the smallest of the Fingers (peninsulars on the eastern coast), technically being petty lords beholden to the Lords of the Eyrie and... they aren't exactly highly populous. Most people in the Seven Kingdoms won't ever think about them much, beyond "pirates and invasions from Essos very occasionally land there". About the most you can do on any of them is fish and look after goats or sheep. He went from ''that'' to the capital of the Riverlands (a bustling Danelaw {{Expy}} and trade hub), [[BigFancyCastle Riverrun]], and back though no real fault of his own as a kid, thanks to a debt Lord Hoster Tully felt he owed Petyr's father. There, the young boy rubbed shoulders with the likes of Tullys and Lannisters -- and received his rather mean-spirited nickname, to boot. However, Hoster withdrew Petyr's invite the minute he realised just how [[MadLove badly smitten]] [[{{Yandere}} Lysa]] was with the young nobody from a fishing hamlet not even beholden to Riverrun. No wonder [[MeaningfulName Littlefinger]] has issues.

** [[spoiler: Milah]] is often seen at the town's tavern and is bored of being a wife and a mother, so she [[spoiler: fakes being kidnapped by Captain Hook to run away with him and his crew]], abandoning her husband and young child. But when [[spoiler: Rumpelstiltskin]] finds out the deception, it does not end well for her.

** "Kerosene" by is a particularly dark example. It's about someone who decides the only cure for his boredom is a combination of sex and fire.

* While the song itself isn't about it, but the song "White Kids Love Hip-Hop" by [[Creator/MCChris mc chris]] has a spoken-word monologue by [[WesternAnimation/TheBrakShow Andy Merril]] along these lines.

* Music/StevieWonder's "Living For the City" from ''Music/{{Innervisions}}'' tells the story of various people living in poverty who are "living just enough for the city". However the song, especially the album version, implies that the city isn't much better than their current lives.

* In ''Podcast/UnwellPodcast'', Lily Harper saw Mount Absalom as too small and boring as a teenager, and has similar feelings when returning as an adult.

* Uranium, Saskatchewan of ''Theatre/RideTheCyclone'' is a shrinking, insignificant little mining town in northern Canada, home to the main characters who all die in the first fifteen minutes of the show. Noel worked a miserable job at the Taco Bell in the mall because he wanted to save up enough money to move to France, Mischa wanted to become a famous rapper and move back to Ukraine [[spoiler: to be with his online girlfriend]], and Ocean wanted to leave Uranium so she could make a difference in the world. The only member of the choir who ever expressed any fondness for Uranium was Constance, and she was teased mercilessly by her classmates for liking their hometown. Several lines in "Sailing Through Space" reference their fears that they'll never leave the hometown -- a tragic irony because all six of them die (and five remain dead) without having gotten the chance to move away.

* Overall, the Western world has undergone (at the very least) one major cycle of this over the last two hundred years or so. When the industrial revolution came, many people left behind their small towns and villages for jobs in the city. Sure, they had NoOSHACompliance, you lived on the WrongSideOfTheTracks, but it still beat being stuck in a dead-end agricultural job, same as your ancestors all the way back to the Stone Age. Later on, the Railroad, the Streetcar, the bicycle, and then the Automobile enabled people to move "further out" and still work in industrial jobs, which would one day result in "drive till you qualify" suburbs in some places. Jobs would also move out and ultimately people would live in one place, work in another, play in yet another and drive everywhere. Some jobs even allowed working from home. Ultimately all the effects of this trope hit hard, and starting some time in the 1980s, 1990s, and picking up steam with the great recession, more and more people - particularly young, childless folk, are flocking back to cities.

-->-- '''Music/{{Journey}}''', "Don't Stop Believin'"

* ''Film/RawDeal''. Mark Kaminsky's wife is suffering badly from this, after her husband was thrown out of the FBI and now makes his living as a small town sheriff, where all she can do is discuss cows with the other farmer's wives. She gets drunk and throws a cake at him.

* On ''Series/GilmoreGirls,'' small town sweetheart Rory has dreams of escaping Stars Hollow to become an overseas correspondent. Subverted in the fact she actually loves her small town, but she wants to explore beyond it. Played straighter with Jess, who moves FromNewYorkToNowhere to live with his uncle, makes it clear he thinks Stars Hollow is lame, and pulls pranks to alleviate his boredom.

-->''Bobby told Lucy the world ain't round\\

Lucy you know the world must be flat\\
'Cause when people leave town they never come back''

-->''Bobby told Lucy the world ain't round//
Drops off sharp at the edge of town//
Lucy you know the world must be flat//

'Cause when people leave town they never come back

* "Small Town Saturday Night" by Hal Ketchum.

* Luke Skywalker in ''Franchise/StarWars'' Episode IV: ''Film/ANewHope'' who's stuck in his family's moisture farm on the planet Tatooine.

'''Luke:''' Well, if there's a bright center in the universe, you're on the planet it's farthest from.

** This, however, is against L. Frank Baum’s Dorothy from his books, who was completely content with living in Kansas.

--> Aw man, there's nothing to do in this stupid town. Rope swing's busted, stinkin' cops always kicking me out of the park, manager of the 7-11 always saying 'Get off my curb, you good-for-nothings!'. All the girls already know I'm a bad kisser so they won't come anywhere near me. I dunno how many times I've been to T.G.I.F; a kid can eat an Onion Bloom only so many times. Bowling's boring, the skating rink's been taken over by twelve-year-olds. There ain't no good movies out. Blockbuster never has any good games in. I don't want to play [[StarWars Bombad Racing!]] I mean, what the heck is that? I'm sick of all my records but any time I go to the record store, I forget what I want to get! And there ain't nothing on TV! Not a stupid thing! There ain't nothing to do but take naps, and wait patiently for death!"