By Anna Meany
The user-submitted Urban Dictionary – credible source that it is – defines a hipster as someone who rejects mainstream culture. Hipsters alienate themselves from society by listening to indie rock, frequenting overpriced vintage stores, and engaging in facial hair commentary. In aiming toward a unique, Bohemian lifestyle, people are buying into mass-marketed individualism.
They’re the new zombies. Run for your lives! What news networks haven’t picked up on yet is a highly obscure epidemic: hipsterism. It’s highly contagious – airborne even! College students may be picking up on the arrogant vibes of campus hipsters. They seem aloof to popular culture, seeking solidarity instead. What the public isn’t aware of is the motive of a hipster. It’s a rare kind of satisfaction hipsters achieve when they spread their germs.
Homer perhaps wrote of the first hipsters. Campus hipsters are sirens, playing their sweet acoustic music on the lawn. While you’re at severe risk of becoming painfully hip, you’re in a much more fortunate position than Odysseus.
If you find yourself alone with a hipster, don’t fret! These obscure tips could save your little mainstream self.
Avoid herds of hipsters. They could hipster-attack you, and you wouldn’t even mind because they look so cool doing it. While they often broodingly walk alone, they can travel in packs for protection and general comfort. In the event that you do find yourself surrounded, don’t stare! They know that scarf looks good with those TOMS shoes. Instead, casually pull an Urban Outfitters receipt out of your pocket and mention that you saw Miley Cyrus shopping there too. I’m sure that would make them laugh.
This brings up an interesting point. Hipsters are simultaneously the most eco-friendly and the most materialistic group of people you’ll ever meet.
“Shopping spree at Urban Outfitters? I’m down! I’ll take my bike there because I feel guilty burning so much fuel.”
Bicycles are so hip. This ideology coincides with smoking. Clearly, smoking cigarettes is the viable outlet for troubled hipsters. Littering the ground with butts and polluting the air with chemicals is like taking a giant dump on society. Apparently it’s a very easy way to make friends. Just pull out a pack of cigarettes and offer them to the bunch.
Complain that The Black Keys are selling out.
“They gave their music to ‘Twilight’ – gag. Jewelry commercials and ‘Gossip Girl’ too. God, they’re such sellouts.”
Hipsters cling to this kind of conversation, simply because they can gripe about how mainstream culture ruins everything. Ambiguous titles like “the man” are commonly used. Mention that you saw The Black Keys at Forecastle, Louisville’s own music festival, a year before they charted at No. 1 on iTunes.
Here are a few conversational topics that hipsters will respond well to:
1. Hipster-hate. Hipsters love to smash fellow hipsters, claiming they try too hard. Have a good laugh at the stereotype that they all conform so closely to.
2. Mention you’re trying to grow out an ironically disgusting handlebar mustache. That will surely open the floodgates to bottomless hipster chatter.
3. Make up a band from England. Of course they’ve heard of them.
If you follow these instructions, you will surely be able to avoid the claws of a hipster. But there’s really only one way to avoid hipsterism – pretending to be one. It’s worked well for me so far.
