Breaking News! A new phenomenon that you’ve probably never heard of is rocking the nation: Hipster Shaming.
In this country — like other issues of immigration reform, climate change, and The Great Recession — widespread antipathy and contempt for hipsters is quickly becoming an omnipresent national crisis. Such a targeted cultural standpoint is bound to manifest itself as a critical issue for debate in the following years as it develops into a defiling stigma on the American archetype, once representing freedom of religion, speech, and style.
Hipster harassment is sure to reach its boiling point soon as the number of hipsters continues to grow: college kids everywhere are graduating with useless degrees in things like pinhole photography, pre-colonial African art history, and vegan nutrition — leaving them no choice but to move to New York, buy seven hundred scarves, and start work at the nearest underground coffee shop. With no where else to turn, these troubled kids find solidarity in subverting powerful pop culture and other forms of governmental oppression. Hipsterism is just an adapted method of survival.
And yet, the word “hipster” has acquired a sort of dirty quality as a title to be scorned and met with distaste and shame. Conservatives across the board cry out to penniless yuppy baristas who just want to make it big someday: “Shave already and buy some pants in the right size!” Furthermore, the characteristic unusualness of hipster taste and lifestyle, touted by its proponents to just about anyone who will begrudgingly listen, inspire marvelous mockeries like this one.
No doubt such absurd stereotypes come from a deep curiosity and fascination with the hipster’s bizarre nature and collection of interests. And everyone on this planet understands the irresistible neatness of a perfectly curled handlebar mustache (I’m sure I’m not the only fangirl to approach a complete stranger at a music festival just to snap a pic with his celeb-quality facial hair). Maybe what we all really need is just a better understanding of exactly what a hipster is. And so I offer a modest attempt to shed some light on the situation.
I start my quest by consulting Dictionary.com:
The only sense I can attribute to the first point is lost within the antiquated and inherently uncool context of our parents’ generation of lava lamps, middle parts, and blazers paired with turtle necks.
God knows what a hepcat is.
The third point, however, is probably the most useful. Hipsters are “alienat[ed]” from “social activities and relationships.” Sounds a lot like poor little Rudolph who wasn’t allowed to play those reindeer games because of his special red nose…
Like Rudolph, hipsters are just poor lonely souls who need a bit of TLC from the rest of us. We might even discover how special they are. No matter how stupid their “ironic” hats look, hipsters have the best taste in music. They may own an inhuman number of over-sized flannels, but hipsters always know where to get the best organic produce.
As a culture, we all stand to gain quite a bit from the welcoming of our unique comrades into our circle of friends. Take some time, then, to really familiarize yourself with their way of living and their interests. This blog and this chart may be of some use to you in your studies moving forward.
So, in the end, what can we glean from this enlightenment of sorts? Just remember: people without prescriptions in their glasses have feelings too, and deserve to have their rights respected — just like the rest of us blind, unoriginal schmucks.
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Making this short this time..!! Like…