Hmmm, until I looked closely based on this thread, I too read it as Socialistan. That says more about us than the author, who named is Socal... because "LA is definitely the center of gravity for this cluster."

Not really. "Social" is a word, the entire article is about a social network, and it's seen probably a hundred times a day. "SoCal", especially when not internally capitalized, is not something most people encounter every day.

We see it more because we see it more, and "li" in a sans seriffed font is very difficult to correctly parse, so we read it as we see it at a glance, which defaults to a word we know.

edit: socali socali social socali social social socali social (read it as quickly as you read this, and tell me which there were more of)

It probably doesn't help that, while "Socal" is associated with LA in our consciousness, "socialism" is also associated with California, in the sense that California is a leftish, high-tax state. I certainly didn't agree with the appraisal of CA as socialist, but I've heard it so often that the confusion of parsing neologisms like "Socalistan" led me fairly readily to the assumption that this guy was making a political statement.