Stuff Hipsters Hate (19 page)
Read Stuff Hipsters Hate Online
Authors: Brenna Ehrlich,Andrea Bartz
Take, for example, a band called “The Skills”
22
—an appropriately nebulous name that could have various interpretations. Let’s imagine that The Skills comprises three young men, Trevor, Parker and Billy, who supplement their income by doing freelance web design, copy-editing and bartending, respectively. On the weekends, they play friends’ loft parties, functions that they lure their associates to with the promise of coke.
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—an appropriately nebulous name that could have various interpretations. Let’s imagine that The Skills comprises three young men, Trevor, Parker and Billy, who supplement their income by doing freelance web design, copy-editing and bartending, respectively. On the weekends, they play friends’ loft parties, functions that they lure their associates to with the promise of coke.
Now let us suppose that a small group of kids sees them play at one of these parties, locates their MySpace page and listens to their jams on repeat. These fans continue to go to their shows as The Skills book bigger and bigger venues—Pete’s Candy Store, Cake Shop, Brooklyn Bowl, Bowery Ballroom—until their album hits Pitchfork and gets a glowing review. A hot feeling of jealousy invades the diehard listeners’ chests when they hear their favorite song
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at local coffee shops. The trendsetters listen to the disc less and less frequently, and when their friends put it on at parties they can only mutter bitterly, “God, I knew about these guys when the only people in the audience were me and the fucking bartender.” After “Darkness Sleeps So Softly on Your Windowsill” finds its way onto a commercial for the next insipid Apple product, our ahead-of-the-curve music snobs thoroughly loathe The Skills, whose members have quit their menial jobs since reaching “the Big Time.” [See
Figure 9
.]
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at local coffee shops. The trendsetters listen to the disc less and less frequently, and when their friends put it on at parties they can only mutter bitterly, “God, I knew about these guys when the only people in the audience were me and the fucking bartender.” After “Darkness Sleeps So Softly on Your Windowsill” finds its way onto a commercial for the next insipid Apple product, our ahead-of-the-curve music snobs thoroughly loathe The Skills, whose members have quit their menial jobs since reaching “the Big Time.” [See
Figure 9
.]
Figure 9
: Venues and How They Relate to Coolness
: Venues and How They Relate to Coolness
a. Playing accordion on the L platform: Pathetic, but admirable
b. Playing a friend’s loft party: No one’s listening, but less pathetic
c. Opening for a CMJ band at an illegal music venue: Respectable
d. Playing at an illegal music venue: Cool (bonus points if the cops break it up)
e. Playing a show at one of Brooklyn’s more popular venues: Cool, unless it costs more than $5
f. Actually playing at CMJ or Pitchfork: Pretty fucking cool
g. Playing Bonaroo: We’re glad you’re touring, but, seriously, fucking
Bonaroo
?
h. Playing a show in Manhattan: Seriously, you expect me to cross the bridge to see you play the same three fucking songs you played at CMJ? And at Brooklyn Bowl? And in that totally emo video on Pitchfork?
i. Playing from the speakers at a local bar: Don’t you go to this bar? Isn’t this embarrassing for you? Oh wait, you’re on fucking tour. Too good for BK, huh?
j. Playing from the speakers at American Eagle: I don’t go to American Eagle, but if I did, I would be fucking livid.
Hipsters are exclusive, jealous beasts. You may think they would wish only success on bands (and authors and indie film producers) they admire and adore—after all, in many cases the artists clinging to these dreams are their close friends or, oftentimes, themselves. But in reality hipsters will summarily dismiss someone or something they once held dear when said thing “sells out.” Why? Again, hipsters are “interested in new and unconventional patterns.” Once a band
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has been adopted by mainstream society, it is no longer “unconventional” nor “new.” It is accepted, integrated into the world that the hipster is striving to escape by scrabbling toward the horizon of artistic expression.
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has been adopted by mainstream society, it is no longer “unconventional” nor “new.” It is accepted, integrated into the world that the hipster is striving to escape by scrabbling toward the horizon of artistic expression.
This process is actually necessary for society to create novel and varied forms of entertainment. If there weren’t some subset of the population as continuously disappointed, eternally fickle and intrinsically ADD-afflicted as the residents of the hipster realm, the entertainment sphere would constantly be replete with moldering cultural geriatrics pumping out one tired product after the next.
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The sad byproduct, however, is that the hipster exists as a perpetual malcontent, and hanging out with such a terminally unimpressed specimen is like passing an evening with Hamlet: lots of whining and more than a few suicide attempts.
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The sad byproduct, however, is that the hipster exists as a perpetual malcontent, and hanging out with such a terminally unimpressed specimen is like passing an evening with Hamlet: lots of whining and more than a few suicide attempts.
Yeah, hipsters may Torrent with the best of them, but they
hate
purchasing digital music. If they had their druthers, we would never have moved beyond vinyl—something they will tell you repeatedly as they flip through their stack of worn records, searching for the perfect LP with which to seduce you whilst drinking sickly sweet wine from teacups. Still, in true hypocritical hipster fashion, homeboy totally has an iPod (complete with big-ass, brightly colored headphones), which is basically welded to his head at all times. How else can he compose the soundtrack of his life—listlessly riding home from Red Hook, The National wailing into his embittered ears about how Ada has left it all up in the air? But everyone knows that such exquisite pain sounds much better when scratched out of a 10-inch sheet of plastic.
hate
purchasing digital music. If they had their druthers, we would never have moved beyond vinyl—something they will tell you repeatedly as they flip through their stack of worn records, searching for the perfect LP with which to seduce you whilst drinking sickly sweet wine from teacups. Still, in true hypocritical hipster fashion, homeboy totally has an iPod (complete with big-ass, brightly colored headphones), which is basically welded to his head at all times. How else can he compose the soundtrack of his life—listlessly riding home from Red Hook, The National wailing into his embittered ears about how Ada has left it all up in the air? But everyone knows that such exquisite pain sounds much better when scratched out of a 10-inch sheet of plastic.
J. D. Salinger’s
The Catcher in the Rye
is one of the most mystifying additions to the hipster’s canon of hatred. After all, Holden Caulfield is the
original
hipster—one might even expect him to be their poster boy. Perhaps the similarities are too much to handle. Perhaps their hatred springs from the fact that we were all forced to read said book in high school, and any mention of high school unearths a plethora of scarring memories. Or perhaps it’s just because Holden ends up in an asylum in the end (“Hey, we’re
eccentric
, not batshit
insane
…”). Either way, this is a curious state of affairs considering how many traits Holden and hipsters share. Observe:
The Catcher in the Rye
is one of the most mystifying additions to the hipster’s canon of hatred. After all, Holden Caulfield is the
original
hipster—one might even expect him to be their poster boy. Perhaps the similarities are too much to handle. Perhaps their hatred springs from the fact that we were all forced to read said book in high school, and any mention of high school unearths a plethora of scarring memories. Or perhaps it’s just because Holden ends up in an asylum in the end (“Hey, we’re
eccentric
, not batshit
insane
…”). Either way, this is a curious state of affairs considering how many traits Holden and hipsters share. Observe:
1. He is a talented and intelligent artistic soul who hasn’t lived up to his full potential and doesn’t know exactly what to do with his life.
That’s the textbook definition of a hipster. I bet Holden grew up to be a freelance programmer and guerilla installation artist (after he flew the cuckoo’s nest, that is).2. He generally pans anyone who shows an interest in athletics (I don’t buy that he
left those fencing foils on the subway “by accident”…).
Hipsters don’t really engage in any sports except those that children enjoy, and they shun any form of musculature (see page 94).3. He doesn’t feel any compulsion to ascribe to conventional fashion mores—witness the red hunting cap, which he wears in his own very special way.
We’ve already seen hipsters sporting said hat when the weather turns chill, and sometimes even on decidedly mild days when an outfit needs that extra punch.4. He hates “phonies.”
See: Everyone who doesn’t live in one’s hipster ghetto and many people who do.5. He frequently romanticizes the opposite sex, fixating on one small charming aspect of a woman’s manner (She keeps all her kings in the back!), but never musters up the courage to go after that particular girl. Instead, he calls up the broad who says “grand” (which drives him insane) and ends up in a dramatic, meltdown fight with her.
Which is why the entire hipster race will either die out or settle for a “phony” and move to Park Slope.
MISSED CONNECTION: I was reading a dog-eared copy of Middlemarch, you were clutching a lump of cold, unyielding metal…- w4m - 29 (L train)
Date: 2010-06-17, 3:15AM EDTReply To This PostI’m sorry… are you reading a book or surfing the web or playing fucking FarmVille or some such shit? How the hell am I supposed to know? I mean, I thought you were kinda cute when you got on at the Halsey stop with your uke strapped to your back. I find tiny instruments so fucking hot. But… then you took out that particular tiny instrument (no man, get your mind outta the fucking gutter). Jesus! How much does that fucking thing cost? Like five hundred fucking dollars? That’s, like, two months rent, man! God, I don’t spend more than $10 on anything. (Except my iPhone. And my MacBook Pro. But that’s it. Also, this kick-ass pair of vintage boots. Oh, and these headphones. But sound quality is fucking important.) I mean, dude, I could tell you that I was the chick reading a dog-eared copy of Middlemarch, but how the fuck am I supposed to describe you? The homeboy who appears to have a musical soul, but for whom words are merely pixels and electronic ink? No, bro, I don’t think I want to find you after all. I’m just gonna surf my way over to the m4w section and see if that dude who was reading The Sorrows of Young Werther outside of El Beit has posted anything for me, the chick who still digs going to the library. Dude was rocking a motherfucking typewriter, man.• it’s NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interestsPostingID: 1633299829
Irrespective of how good it is. Hipsters have been listening to these guys for years, and they like their old stuff better. Observe:
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