Whoa. W-H-O-A. A hipster? I don’t think so, I thought. I’m not a hipster. I responded quickly and, I thought, successfully: “I don’t think so. I can’t remember ever wearing Elvis Costello glasses or carrying my books in a satchel. I do not own jeans that are too tight, and this past summer I definitely did not cut off those too-tight jeans to make too-tight too-short jean shorts. A hipster I most definitely am not.” Got her, I thought. She then followed up her atomic bomb with a hand grenade right in my face.
“Methinks he doth protest too much. Just because you don’t wear the hipster uniform doesn’t mean you’re not a hipster. Matt, you’re like the most “hip” person I know, and it’s always the hippest hipsters who are so unaware that they deny the painstakingly obvious.”
“I am not,” I said, “I hate Animal Collective.”
“Whatever.” Then she left for class. Left me there to stew in my thoughts. Was I really a hipster? Was I the kind of guy who would drop hip pop culture references like Count Chocula into his daily conversation? Was I (gulp) Juno? No, I can’t be. I, the most outspoken critic of hipsterness, irony, and coolness for coolness’s sake? I couldn’t be, could I?
What followed was an afternoon of self-discovery and self-analysis. Where do I begin? I thought. What really is a hipster? If I was one, a hipster obviously must be something more than the cigarette smoking, corduroy wearing, PBR drinking bearded men and nose ringed ladies that shuffle around college campuses. A deeper investigation was needed. Hipsters define themselves through what they like, and not who they are. right? So I needed to start with what I like. The iTunes was my first stop.
The music that was on my playlists had to tell me something. God forbid I have some kind of…indie rock. As I surveyed my playlists, relief set in as I didn’t find much in the way of stereotypical hip music. Sure I had some jazz, some 80′s Brit pop, an Elliot Smith album or two, but my top 25 most-played were essentially all 90′s rock. Victory! I know, I know — hipsters do like the retro chic, but Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, and The Wu-Tang Clan are hardly the 13th floor elevators or even The Smiths. My breathing softened and my mind was calmed. Take that Katie. I bet you only said that because you’re secretly listening to Wolf Parade behind my back.
Just to be safe I decided to gather more evidence; I turned to the movies. I have a big DVD collection. I’m a movie buff and a movie fan, so I own a lot of them. So what? Oh no, Hipsters do like movies. My choices of which movies to bring to school and which ones to leave at home must say something about my personality. The fact that they are arranged on the shelf in a certain order, an order which I take care in maintaining, also must say something about me. I don’t know what, but something. The right side of my shelf is full of kung-fu and horror films. Genre films are not necessarily the classic hipster food, but nevertheless, I looked further. Beside these lay the most telling aspects of my film preferences, the indie films. Oh God, I pray there’s nothing…quirky.
All the regulars made an appearance: PTA, Soderberg, Kevin Smith, David Gordon Green, Tarantino, movies like The Talented Mr. Ripley, Sling Blade, Shallow Grave, Seven, Pi. I had to think. What movies did I leave at home? What movies were I subconsciously or consciously afraid for people to see on my shelves? U571, Enemy at the Gates, Get Shorty, The Birdcage, Crimson Tide, The Rock, Face/Off? My palms started to sweat. I looked back towards my shelf.
Not only did I have a plethora of hip movies, something in my unconscious forced me to pick the more obscure of certain filmmakers’ oeuvre. Jackie Brown over Pulp Fiction, Pi over Requiem for a Dream, Undertow over All the Real Girls, Shallow Grave over Trainspotting? Why God, why? A Werner Herzog DVD collection? NOOOOOOOO!
My knees buckled and I fell to the floor. Unlike my musical tastes, my movie choices went past the peak of hipster Everest and straight into the hipster stratosphere. I lay on my floor for a long time, just thinking. Then slowly I drifted off into a deep sleep only to be plagued by nightmares of ironic mustaches, Jodorowsky movies, and Zooey Deschanel.
I am a hipster. It’s taken a lot of soul searching and a visit to the AA Wikipedia page to go through their 12-step program for me to admit it, but it’s true. It feels good to admit it and I encourage all my fellow self-loathing hipsters to embrace their hipsterness. Because it is only after we admit it to our friends and ourselves that we will stop pissing so many people off. I have adapted the following rules from AA. These 12 (well, eight) steps are helping me; maybe they can help you, too.
- We admit we are powerless over our own self indulgence in the world of the “cool” and our lives have become strangled in quirkiness, leaving us unable to enjoy (insert Michael Bay movie title here).
- We believe in David Byrne but also in Taylor Swift and she can help restore our sanity.
- We make a searching and fearless purging of the ironic in our iTunes (baby steps).
- We reveal our hipsterness to our friends, and accept the taunting that will follow.
- We allow our defects (long overdue re-appreciation of The Bends) to be cleansed from us.
- We make a list of all persons we made feel bad because they didn’t know an indie/garage/punk rock band, and tell them we’re sorry.
- We admit when we pretended to like an arty movie when we would really have rather been watching (insert Bruce Willis movie title here).
- We put pop-culture in its rightful place, below an appreciation of almost everything else.
I encourage all those who want to come out of the hipster closet to do so (because it’s not like people don’t know anyway). Hopefully I can continue my own healing process. Perhaps I’ll buy a bottle of wine, rent a Wes Anderson movie, and drift away to the smooth sounds of The Arcade Fire.
Matthew Strickland is a senior at Drexel University. He studies English and Philosophy, and is anticipated to graduate in March of 2010.
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I’m so proud of you for accepting the true nature of your hipster-ness! While reading this however, I came to the realization that you are in fact so hip, you are actually beyond a “hipster”. Like with mental illness, those who are in fact crazy, do not understand that they have a problem, or see the world in a severely skewed view. By simply challenging, understanding, and finally embracing your ironic beliefs you have taken a step forward to transcend any signs of hipsteria.
So, for the time being, you are no longer considered a hipster. That is until embracing your hipster lifestyle becomes the hip thing to do. Hopefully this date will not come before 2012.
Love it! hahahah now you have to write one about dating someone who is “O, so mainstream!”
tj said it best. those that admit they are hipsters are not in fact hipsters. def comparable to mental illness in this regard.
Jerome, you clearly have spent a large amount of time dissecting hipsterness, so much so I have to wonder if you too are a hipster. Please refer to the well respected 8 step program to confirm.