Rage 2:1 Hipsteria

The word “hipster” gets bandied around a lot by folks, and I’m as much to blame as the rest of you.  But in the hallowed (and paraphrased) words of Apu Nahasapeemapetulan “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”   Or rather, maybe I’m confused.

In maligning the movie Juno, or more particularly the screenwriter Diablo Cody, people slam her dialogue by calling it “hipster”.   In every definition of the word “hipster” I understand or have heard, it would be difficult not to liberally whitewash Ms. Cody with such a classification.  But before you go brandishing that paintbrush, I ask you to look deep into the mirrors of yourselves.  Because this it the pot calling the kettle hipster.

I may be wrong about the term “hipster”, so I think I need clarification.  I used to live in Allston, MA, just below Harvard, and butting west up against the city.  When walking to and from my apartment to the laundromat, lugging a laundry bag over my shoulders, I would often play the game “Hipster or Mexican?” guessing who which person it would be striding past me as I grunted and sweated my way to the quarter wash.  I could almost always guess properly. 

This is my understood description of a hipster:  Hipsters are usually thin, and most will either be vegetarian, vegans or rabid anti-vegetarians.  They tend to have unwashed hair in some sort of fauxhawk/emo swoop.  They usually wear mostly black, often purchased from thrift stores.  They tend to wear thick black geek specs, have tattoos or piercings, and usually wear Converse or Vans.  They only discuss movies, art, film, or books.  They hate everything that’s popular, even if at one time they claimed to like it.  They often drink fancy coffees or teas, and most smoke cigarettes.  They will not shop corporate.  They shun anything that’s popular, unless it’s older or Japanese, then they will embrace it with an uncanny fervor.  They hate anything that’s cool, and that makes them cool, except they would never call themselves cool.   They work retail or shitty jobs, usually for the corporations they hate.  They are for the most part college educated, liberal arts degrees paid for by their parents.  They never have much money, so they drink PBR, because it’s funny to drink a working man’s beer.  They only watch obscure cult films and listen to bands nobody has ever heard of. 

There are two important classifications of hipster.  One, they are intellectually and culturally superior to you, and need to demonstrate that on a constant and derisive basis.  And two, they refuse to be called hipster.

If a hipster likes something it is because a) it is someone you have never heard of and thus they are better than you for knowing about it, or b) it’s ironically cool.  Things like “The Golden Girls” or “My Little Pony” or anything else ironed on to a T-shirt and sold on the internet.  If a hipster doesn’t like something, a) everyone else must like it now, b) and they will shit on you for being a sheep and thus proving their intellectual superiority.

This constant complaint is often bitchy or snarky.  Like you’re an idiot for having a thought different than theirs.  Everyone is an idiot to a hipster.   And god damn do they hate their own.

For I time, I’m pretty sure I was a hipster.  I still have the square frame glasses, two ear hoops, and a tattoo on my lower calf.  I was never thin, but I wore thrift store clothes and hoodies.  I carry a messenger bag full of writing that I would break out over diner food.  My bag had patches safety pinned to it.  And as evident by this blog, I hate everything, and deride people who think differently. 

But I think I’ve gone past the hipster effete into my own brand of personal “Go Fuck Yourself”.  I do care what other people think of me, and I refuse to be a non-conformist solely for the purpose of making people think I’m awesome.  I’m awesome because I’m fucking awesome.  And fuck you if you think otherwise.  I will stove in your head with my fucking Chuck Taylors. 

What kills me most about these people tar and feathering Diablo Cody with the cutesy “hipster-holier-than-thou” swath are just as guilty of it themselves.  But instead of praising the fact that one of their own managed to break through the ranks, they’re more content on giving her the back of their hand.  The one holding the cigarette, not the latte.  They’re annoyed by the fact that everyone likes it. 

Of course nobody talks like the characters in Juno.  Capturing teenage dialogue is like bottling lightening.  Fast Times at Ridgemont High had Cameron Crowe pretending to be a high school student to get an ear for it.  At the time it was dead on.  Nowadays, yeah right.  Dawson’s Creek got mocked for having kids talk TOO intelligently.  Watch MTV.  Teenagers can actually be eloquent and well-spoken and intelligent.  But for the most part, they tend to pepper everything with either profanity or um/like/whatever.  

Yeah, Diablo Cody has become her own brand name.  She’s sold herself.  But isn’t that the point?  Can’t we be happy for once, goddammit?  Do we have to keep cutting each other when we’re sick of cutting ourselves?  The answer is NO, NO, and YES.

I can appreciate people crapping on Diablo Cody for overstylizing her dialogue.  And yes, Juno had a fucking hamburger phone.  And she stole furniture and smoked a pipe.  Not a one-hitter, a fucking tobacco pipe.  For every nuance like that, there was something even greater.  For every “That eggo is preggo” there was the “I’m the Cautionary Whale”.  C’mon, tell me you missed that she was wearing a fucking Slinky shirt when she was pregnant.  You know what else rolls down stairs and over your neighbor’s dog?  Pregnant women who can’t afford abortions.  That’s fucking hilarious.

The hipster culture annoys me.  I want to punch pretentious people in the face.  These little fucks who presume that because they’re in their twenties and they’ve seen four movies with subtitles that they are fucking Jean-Luc Goddard.  Smarmy is hard to swallow, because it comes with this narcissistic sense that you are somehow entitled to your opinion because everyone else is stupid.  Grow up, you fuckers.  There’s nothing wrong with fighting for something you believe in, and having passionate feelings.  But for Unclefucker’s sake.  Stop creating a culture where nothing feels good and everyone is stupid for disagreeing with you. 

Maybe I’m wrong though.  I’m being a hipsterocryte myself.  So correct me.  Because unlike most of the great unwashed, I’m willing to accept the fact that I might actually be fucking wrong.