Stuff Hipsters Hate (13 page)
Read Stuff Hipsters Hate Online
Authors: Brenna Ehrlich,Andrea Bartz
The Acceptability of Emblazoning Something with the Word “Brooklyn”
Although hipsters claim to hate where they live, they are fiercely protective of their borough, which is why you will NEVER see a hipster sporting any article of clothing emblazoned with the word “Brooklyn.” Especially since such things are often designed to look super “urban”—what with funky splashes of paint and silhouettes of the BK bridge, and, worst of all, exclamation points. And, to add insult to injury, Brooklyn apparel is often found encasing the bulging bodies of NYC tourists, people who—in the average hipster’s opinion—have no right to even set
foot
on Bedford. Still, ironically enough, hipsters often don shirts carrying the names of said tourists’ hometowns and even, sometimes, said tourists’ high school baseball teams.
foot
on Bedford. Still, ironically enough, hipsters often don shirts carrying the names of said tourists’ hometowns and even, sometimes, said tourists’ high school baseball teams.
ASTRID:
Oh, man—I gotta get the fuck outta Dodge. The oppressive air of this teeming metropolis is really starting to wear the treads of my soul thin.
Oh, man—I gotta get the fuck outta Dodge. The oppressive air of this teeming metropolis is really starting to wear the treads of my soul thin.
JOAN:
Oh, yeah. I know. Yesterday the bus driver yelled at me because I fell asleep listening to that really chill Low album and I ended up back at the fucking bus yard or wherever the fuck buses come from.
Oh, yeah. I know. Yesterday the bus driver yelled at me because I fell asleep listening to that really chill Low album and I ended up back at the fucking bus yard or wherever the fuck buses come from.
ASTRID:
That’s nothing, dude. I was picking up my CSA downtown and was like, struggling down the street trying not to, like, drop sprouts and shit all over the sidewalk and my skirt split in the back and the whole fucking street got a real good look at my red underoos. Did anyone stop to help me? No. And that was a fucking brand-new skirt. I bought it at Salvation Army last week.
That’s nothing, dude. I was picking up my CSA downtown and was like, struggling down the street trying not to, like, drop sprouts and shit all over the sidewalk and my skirt split in the back and the whole fucking street got a real good look at my red underoos. Did anyone stop to help me? No. And that was a fucking brand-new skirt. I bought it at Salvation Army last week.
JOAN:
We should take a trip this weekend or something, you know, get away from all this fucking concrete and see something new.
We should take a trip this weekend or something, you know, get away from all this fucking concrete and see something new.
ASTRID:
I know. I think we should go out to, like, fucking Berlin or something. Live in a squat and smoke foreign cigarettes and cook beans over a Bunsen burner, shoveling them onto crusty stale bread to satiate our hunger after hours of traipsing across the blighted city.
I know. I think we should go out to, like, fucking Berlin or something. Live in a squat and smoke foreign cigarettes and cook beans over a Bunsen burner, shoveling them onto crusty stale bread to satiate our hunger after hours of traipsing across the blighted city.
JOAN:
Oh, I was thinking we could borrow Mark’s car and drive to Portland. Dean’s marching band is playing a protest this weekend.
ASTRID:
That works.
Oh, I was thinking we could borrow Mark’s car and drive to Portland. Dean’s marching band is playing a protest this weekend.
ASTRID:
That works.
Let’s take a quick jaunt around your suburb’s sparkling beacon of hipsters’ three least favorite C’s: Commercialization, Capitalism and Crate & Barrel. Past the huge marble slab boasting the complex’s pompous yet nature-based name (Beechwood Square, Old Orchard, Stonestown Galleria) is a veritable palace of glass and chrome, fluorescent lights, price tags, poseurs and screaming children. Note the pimply teenagers, hanging in packs and sulking into their Orange Juliuses. Take in the overweight women in sweatpants arguing over the price of an additional tub of frosting at the Cinnabon counter. Coast past the Abercrombie, with its boar head, awful blasted frat music and stench of cologne. Avoid the food-splattered six-year-olds screeching and tearing from the toy store to the candy store for refueling. Spot the painfully unattractive middleschoolers fondling earrings and cheap baubles in Claire’s. Narrowly avoid the kiosk douchebags yelling accusatory questions about your cell phone like creepy catcallers in Spanish Harlem. And take a pause here, brave traveler, in front of Hot Topic. This, my friend, is why hipsters hate the mall.
“It’s not just because the fucking jackhammer wakes me up at 11:30 a.m. when I’m desperately trying to recover from last night’s epic whiskey-and-cocaine bender, or because the construction workers (who woke up around the time I was trying to pass out in the general vicinity of my bed) persist in yelling shit at me like, ‘Hey! Puss in boots!’ when I’m kickin’ it out of my building in the morning in my holey shor t-jor ts and Fryes. It’s because of what the work zones
represent
—the complete and total consumption of the dying earth by bricks, steel, mortar and Formica counters. Looming towers of corporate evil casting the tenements of old in the shadowy chill of a cultural whitewash. It’s all a whited sepulcher, man. A whited fucking sepulcher. All the palimpsest in the world ain’t gonna create nothing but a city that is intrinsically designed to crumble into the sea. But, yeah, mostly it’s because it’s
so fucking loud
. I need, like, industrial strength Vicodin to snooze through that bullshit.”
represent
—the complete and total consumption of the dying earth by bricks, steel, mortar and Formica counters. Looming towers of corporate evil casting the tenements of old in the shadowy chill of a cultural whitewash. It’s all a whited sepulcher, man. A whited fucking sepulcher. All the palimpsest in the world ain’t gonna create nothing but a city that is intrinsically designed to crumble into the sea. But, yeah, mostly it’s because it’s
so fucking loud
. I need, like, industrial strength Vicodin to snooze through that bullshit.”
—Stella G., 24, restaurant hostess and fiction writer
Doesn’t matter if they live in Brooklyn. Doesn’t matter if they live in Iowa. Hipsters hate where they live for one of two reasons:
a.
There are too many hipsters, or
b.
There are not enough hipsters.
Unlike Goldilocks, they can never get the porridge
just right
.
just right
.
Therefore, even the hippest of hipsters will gripe about their ’hood, even whilst strolling through McCarren or dragging their fixie about the sidewalks. The only solution, they decide, to their housing dilemma is to move to the fucking mountains. Build a cabin with no ’lectricity and rough it—even though the most experience these kids have had with camping was that trip to the park grounds last weekend when everyone tripped on acid and Dan and Ratter got naked and ran into the road, and Betsy got so drunk they had to take her to the ER. Ah, nature.
“While visiting home is mostly a dark and depressing experience, one trip to the thrift shop at St. Jude’s really lifts my spirits. I fucking love this place. There’s the faint smell of vintage, the clueless old volunteer clerks in sweatpants clucking around and slapping $4 price tags on Ferragamo ankle boots, the grocery baskets from the ’80s piled by the door, 8-tracks, cracked china and, in the very back, the fucking Elysium of consignment clothing.
You wouldn’t believe the shit I’ve got from here, and people constantly comment on it, and I’m all, ‘Oh, small-town Virginia’ and they look disappointed and attempt to find the same style at UrbO for about 900 percent what I paid. Standing here with my empty basket and no one around but middle-aged moms in snow boots, I seriously come close to feeling a stirring of the ventricles. Ah, Jesus. I’m almost
happy
.
happy
.
Wait. Who the fuck is that? Who the fuck is that over there by the window? In the sparkly sweater? And the—Christ, those are skinny jeans. OhfuckhellpleaseJesusGodno. Definitely a 20-something with admittedly OK taste pulling out a—noooo, is that a sea foam green vest with beading at the collar? Put it back! How did you hear about this place! Why are you touching my (future) shit! What the fuck—fucking poseur with your tacky, tacky, while-at-the-same-time-super-expensive Native American-inspired earrings—don’t you know this shit is for
poor
people? Like me. Dude, I had to give up lattes for a week to afford this middling shopping spree, and now I’m cranky, super hungo and you’re touching my vest. Jesus, this is like a fucking social injustice.”
poor
people? Like me. Dude, I had to give up lattes for a week to afford this middling shopping spree, and now I’m cranky, super hungo and you’re touching my vest. Jesus, this is like a fucking social injustice.”
—Deliah L., 29, Apple Genius and barista
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