Thursday, October 23, 2008

All Hail the King of the Hipsters

Knees were weak and I was already getting pugnacious with a cute butch over the coffee pitcher. Just another Sunday morning, paying others to cook food that is no better than what your lazy entitled ass could have done in your own kitchen. But fuck it, this is America, and we’ve learned how to not be so hard on ourselves.

After eating like a starving raccoon, I steered our conversation in the direction of an interesting article I recently read, titled; “Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization”

To quickly sum up this article, I’d say: Hipsters are kids who hate everyone for being just like them (this happens in all scenes). But, the Hipster is the first “counter culture” that will not acknowledge themselves. The word Hipster is only used with disdain or in a self-deprecating manor. They will deny belonging to such a group, but at the same time wearing clearly stereotypical fashion elements of a Hipster. This “counter-culture” is a dead end because the Hipster’s “self-involved and isolated maintenance does nothing to feed cultural evolution.”

This article raises a lot of great points, and I started conjuring up my own questions: How long can you define yourself by somebody else’s art? Is tattoo removal the new rebellious thing to do? Cause, it’s definitely no-longer rebellious to get them. How long can you go out on the scene dressed like an ironic jack-ass, before you eventually become that jack-ass? Did our parents really raise us to put fashion over food? Whatever happened to color-coordination? Why isn’t it cool to be a Hipster?

Wait a minute. Oh shit I can see it now. If nobody wants to be a Hipster, then why couldn’t I be “King of the Hipsters”? It’s perfect. Here is this group of people that could be doing something more creative than taking terabytes of crappy digital pictures of each other, but no one will stand up and take the reins. I could take the crown unchallenged. Who would dare fight me?

The kicker here is that your true hipsters would never join me. They’d scoff and have another cigarette and scoff/cough some more, inside secretly despising me and this burst of brilliance.
I may not have the best credentials for the job. I actually grew up on a farm. I’ve been a part of the working class. I have true Hill-Billy in my blood. My parents haven’t paid for anything since high school. And I can’t stand those shitty sunglasses, or those fucking bandannas (Go rob a train!).

Jesus, calm down. You’ll never win over the constituent if you belittle them like that. Maybe these stray cats could be herded with high voltage cattle prods and a trail of cheap sunglasses. What would I do with such a following??
Hold on. Back up the tape.

If the true hipsters would never join me, then how could I be the true King of the Hipsters? There is a paradox here. If one of the core elements of being a true hipster requires that you cannot acknowledge that you are a hipster, but then you are in fact a true hipster. So if I claim to be the King of the Hipsters, would I no longer be a TRUE hipster? Would anyone that follows me as king, just be a hipster poser? Would there be some horrible rip in fashion-space-time continuum that gives everyone terrible haircuts from the 80s and pubic hair from the 50’s? Messing around with paradoxes can bring all sorts of trouble. Trouble I don’t need with a hangover like this.

Wait, I see the angle now. This is like a tax loophole. Sure, by proclaiming to be King of the Hipsters, you automatically are exempt from being judged as a true hipster by the powers that be. At the same time, you can continue doing the hipster clichés you enjoy, since you publically and proudly carry yourself as King of the Hipsters. That’s the American spirit!

So that means I can still upload party pictures to Facebook and expand my social network with the patriotic mentality of quantity over quality. Yes, I can keep adding more friends, whose last names I never knew anyway. So much to do and so little time, I better get to work.

Right … just a minute. I haven’t checked MySpace in a week.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Golly. This post so feeds the cultural evolution. The poster must be so evolved.

Unknown said...

Damn, that comment like that is about as aloof as all the kids at this dance party I was at last night. And Sweet Jesus, there are no emoticons to guide my interpretation.

Genuine compliment, or sinister condescension?

I will express my free will to interpret it as a dose of genuine compliment, for this King of the Hipsters knows he has no clothes on. And that can be the most dangerous wardrobe of all.