WWAHD?

Beware The Hipster I have a warning to issue to you way beings as well:

The Hipster. Dun….dun…dunnnnnnnnnnnnn!

If you don’t know what a hipster is, then you have been spared the vision of every failed fad since the dawn of man. Not only are Hipsters amalgamations of clashing coifs, cataract-inducing color schemes and badly designed useless eyewear, the worst part is—

--The affluence of these kids’ parents. Yes, being a hipster is a handicapped way of saying, “I’m a bohemian! on my parent’s dime because I am a pretentious prick who thinks they know what struggle is.” I don’t get it.

A hipster in their natural habitat—something apparently “not mainstream”, like a crack house that serves coffee and free-shitty-wifi, or a book reading of Ted Kasczynski’s Unabomber Manifesto while playing MGMT and passing the communal Pabst Blue Ribbon. While desiring to understand this Hipster culture, I needed to immerse myself into this subculture of a subculture, but I had to figure out how to go about it.

Step 1: Go to Goodwill, and American Apparel®.

When I observed this unique hunt for the perfect paisley print that was two times bigger than my already curvy figure (basically trash bag status), I overheard two girls talking about—well, this is what I gathered—bands. Not just any bands, but bands with the weirdest damn names:

Hipster Girl 1: “Well, like, I mean, you have to listen to them. They burned their own vinyl, on top of another vinyl”

Me:( Listening through the rack of musty old-lady clothes) They can do that?

Hipster Girl 2: “No way. You haven’t heard about Scratching-The-Man’s-Back-With-Iron-Wool I bet?” She has a smirk of, I am better than you, bitch.

Hipster Girl 1: (Surprise) “I totally love that group!”

            Hipster Girl 2: “I made it up. But that’s what I would want my band to be called. STMBWIW. Yeah. That would be pretty rad.”

            Hipster Girl 1: (Blushes and is flustered) “Well whatever. I think I am thinking of another band with a long name like that.” Awkward pause. “So, wanna go hit up the record store? I have my new record player my mom got me from Urban Outfitters ®?”

            Hipster Girl 2: “That sounds good. We should grab some soy-chai before we go to your house though. I am going to need the caffeine before tonight where we go to that house party with fake mustaches:

Hipster Girl 1: “Oh yeah! I can’t forget my monocle either.”

That little exchange redoubled my efforts to look for the especially paisley prints. I crossed my fingers hoping the collar would have lace, or something like that.

After an hour, I carried a bag full of old-lady garb that I would make “fashionable” with some homemade belt made out of electrical wire or something because it would be considered a maverick art form.

At American Apparel® I balked at the amount of Hipsters, hoarding and planning their next raid of fads to combine. I watched them with a keen eye and picked out what they had chosen. Some gold leggings, cloth flats and some headband-y thing I would wear with my grotesquely large paisley-printed grandma shirt.

Cashier: “That’s going to be 98.56$”

I was shocked. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I broke my cover.

Suddenly, all the Hipsters, through their lense-less Nerd glasses stared at me. Oh No! They’ve spotted me.

I booked it out of there. The gold leggings would have to be put on hold indefinitely.

Step 2: Putting the Look Together

           

Spend three hours in the bathroom teasing your non-greasy, but-greased out hair. Make sure your make up is either really bold, or nonexistent, but you still have to wear some makeup. When that is all said and done, your hair and all that effort needs to have a large floppy hat placed over it. In my case, I teased the shit out of my hair, brushed it down and repeated the process about twelve times and then added the headband down.

            Lastly, draw the infamous mustaches on the inside of your dominant hands’ fingers for facebook photos.

Step 3: Give a “I-don’t-give-a-shit-attitude-because-I’m-hot-shit-attitude”

            When your hasbeen friends, or those less educated in obscurity than you greet you with a smile and a wave, make sure not to make eye contact, and shrug with an indifferent: “Hey.” Then proceed (if outside) to pull out a cheap pack of cigarettes and light one because you are so not-mainstream and need to de-stress from the socio-normative interaction.

            (I didn’t do any of that considering my friends were very far away from me and wouldn’t see me caught dead in this look; but that’s the interaction I usually get from Hipsters—but that’s what I would do if the scenario came to fruition).

            Make sure if you do fully dive into Hipsterville, that you negate everything mainstream that your peer is talking about and say, “ugh, that’s so mainstream.”

            When your parents yell at you about spending money on crappy-but-expensive-clothes, retort with: “You wouldn’t understand!” Then proceed to smoke your next de-stress cigarette, and text your friends that your parents are so out of the loop and don’t understand my feelings and your differences that make you unique. They are just a part of a blind society!

           

Step 4: Go to a Hipster’s House Party

So, I went to a Hipster-oriented party. Obscure music and some electronic accordion blasted through the house. The house’s band played and sang about radioactive pandas as an allegory to the deadness of society. Cigarette smoke wafted throughout the rooms.

Dressed in my camouflage, as a way to be one with the Hipster, I had to restrain myself from talking as well as fake-drink my handed PBR beer in order not to blow my cover. I watched sexually-comfortable (but very insecure) guys, who dressed themselves in shredded jean shorty-shorts with obscenely colorful deep-plunge v-neck (no doubt about it, 30$ American Apparel®) talking about, you guessed it, obscure bands and movies. They wore their Hipster Shades at night talked about the mainstream—insert overly pseudo-political and economic conspiracy here—problem.

I laughed. And then the two Hipsters looked at me.

Hipster guy 1: “What’s so funny?”

Me: Oh shit! What do I say? I frantically think of something unremarkable. “Psh. I know.”—I restrained from showing emotion and just looking pissed off.—“Mainstream society is just so mainstream. It’s hard for me to under-fucking-stand.” I cross my fingers, waiting for backlash, or my cover to be blown.

Hipster guy 2: “Man, she is totally”—almost as if it was in slow motion—“right.” I was relieved and the conversation continued between the two Hipsters.

Me: Jesus, that was close.

The night ended with a bunch of guys and girls, who were so comfortable with themselves, sleeping in various positions with each other, hammered from a PBR and cigarette overdose. There may have been other contraband, but I stand in the main room of the party, intently studying this subculture.

          

            Final Thoughts:

          

            So my experience with the Hipster cult resulted in me getting asked for my number by some Hipster guys, hoping to connect with a female-Hipster to talk about their struggle with growing up. I gave them the suicide-help-line number, hoping that that when they needed a reality check: that would be it.

           I would kill myself if I were a Hipster.

           So, please, Hipster Culture…..

           Just die already.

           And to Hipsters:

           Get a job and get clothes that fit you and aren’t made of out plastic bags, or paisley prints that even my grandmother wouldn’t wear.

Sincerely,

The Rest of Society

The Moral of the Story:

Keep all blunt objects away from society in the 

presence of a Hipster.

           End.