Hipsters are everywhere these days, you can tell by the sea of plaid and fake eyewear. (Question when being a hipster becomes mainstream are you still a hipster? I think I just crushed their world.) There are jokes on many a sitcom, most recently 2 Broke Girls, where the main characters exploited hipsters by having a 90s horse party with a cover charge after they saw hipsters having a 80s party at a laundromat. Not to mention they are pretty ubiquitous at a number of cosmopolitan bars with their cheap nasty beer, most likely PBR, in hand. Why drink a crappy beer? I don’t think I would pay that price to be “ironic.”
Image courtesy of the Modern Vagabond.
I really enjoyed the Happy Endings episode that compared hipsters to Zombies, which are also extremely “in” right now. That premiere of The Walking Dead was awesome, but I digress. Happy Endings made perfect fun of them, including a bit about how to be and dress like one: they don’t like anything but putting everything and everyone else down. They follow that mantra like zombies. Penny met her hipster boyfriend while wearing her laundry day clothes (ugly sweatshirt and sweatpants, I believe) which the hipster thought were her everyday clothes. Turns out his sloppy clothes were his everyday attire and he freaked when Penny showed up wearing something fashionable. Not to mention the zombie like stalk the hipsters made to Dave’s food truck at the end of the episode. In the end, it was too much work for Penny to keep up the hipster lifestyle.
The Urban Dictionary provides a lengthy definition of a hipster which includes “a subculture of men and women typically in their 20′s and 30′s that value independent thinking, counter-culture, progressive politics, an appreciation of art and indie-rock, creativity, intelligence, and witty banter.” By that definition I qualify as one. Value independent thinking: Check. Against mainstream: check. Progressive politics: check. Appreciation of art: check, no check for indie rock. Value witty banter, intelligence and creativity: Gold Star. And yet I don’t think I would fit into a room of true hipsters…..I would be like Penny on Happy Endings who finds herself the outcast for being excited about a 90s prom theme party. 
From observing the hipsters in their natural habits, I have found that there are several rules to being a hipster. And rules or effort, don’t sound hipster-y to me.
1. You must love food trucks
2. If you are a dude, you wear a plaid shirt or goofy t shirts that would get you beat up in high school.
3. For music to acceptable to your ears, it must have either clapping or whistling or both.
4. You can’t really like anything, it must be ironic and/or dumb.
5. You have to try to look like you aren’t trying/don’t care
It seems like too much work to be a hipster, plus I like to smile, like things and def would never wear a plaid shirt or one with a wolf on it.
Related articles
- Subculture: “Hipsters” (fashionmakesitpossible.wordpress.com)
- The Weekly Ten: My Hipster Halloween (collegecandy.com)
- What do hipsters wear (wiki.answers.com)
- Hipster (celebs.icanhascheezburger.com)
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