Too Hipster to Be Hispter

Marcin Druzdel
Staff Writer

I know I’m not the only one who is disgusted by the massive surplus of gauged-ear square-glassed wannabe Victorian hippies in our stately college neighborhood. Even going out to drink in the Southside is depressing. The only kind of people that frequent Carson Street are the douche bag bros, their vapid arm candy, the train hoppers, and the hipsters. And nothing makes pretentious arrogance worse than contrasting it with the real arrogance of the alpha male.

The only thing that hipsters got right is irony. Like the irony of ironically breaking social conformity to become ironic in an ironically conformist way. I almost have to wonder if hipsterism is something that, like the Tea Party, is more astroturf than grassroots. It would not surprise me in the least if it was a concerted effort between businesses that sold square-framed glasses, crappy music, bad clothing, and coffee-based drinks whose names are best pronounced with a pretentious sneer. So my response? I feel I am too hipster to be hipster. Just hand me my coffee black, and iced so it’s cool enough to chug. I’m Asian, I can’t grow facial hair. But honestly that’s a good thing considering the three kinds of facial hair I see are the unkempt, the uniformly mowed, and the pretentiously groomed. You want obscure music? I listen to genres most of you haven’t even heard of, much less bands. I listen to metal that is not brutal for the sake of brutality. Most of it is Djent and non-scene kid metalcore, with some hardcore like old school Darkest Hour. Death metal honestly bored me after a few years. Ironically, the best place for me to find bands that haven’t “sold out” is on Facebook. These are bands like Orwell, which sold their CD in a handcrafted case that was sealed with a wax stamp, with a hand written thank you note when I bought it. Talk about old-school class. Fixed-gear bicycles are a terrible idea in a city this hilly, and as someone who has spent over $800 on a commuting bicycle from REI back home in Alaska, I felt that I had to get something even worse on large hills than a fixie. So I got a longboard, which I ride to dinner while I’m on break at work while wearing my work suit. And that opens up a whole new world of irony, because nothing throws people for a loop like someone wearing dress clothes or a tie while skating.

Framed glasses? How about not. My glasses have neither frames nor hinges, because those are just superfluous when we live in a society that has titanium for sale. I love petroleum, my less-than-sober longboarding antics would not be possible without plastic, rubber, and asphalt, but that doesn’t mean I want to wear more of it on my face than what is needed for my lenses. When I had lip rings, I did them myself with sterile needles I stole from the Army while training in California. But I got bored with them. Blatant nonconformism was not for me. I am my own person, whether or not I choose to look different on purpose. To me, the people that try too hard to go for the “different” look end up looking the same anyways.