Hipsters are douchebags

Appaling to all five senses (decency, style, humor, accomplishment, and ethics), I can no longer abide hipsters. Those who know me have heard my diatribes against modern hippies (useless, ignorant, selfish and an insult to the social movements of the 60s), but the modern hipster is quickly replacing them as Aardvark’s Hated Enemy #1.

My biggest pet peeve is the misuse of the word ‘ironic’. I’ll admit to being in high school and college during the 90s. I’ll admit to giving Alanis Morissete a few props. But that stopped with that “Ironic” song that didn’t include one irony in it. As for hipsters, every time I hear or see something done ‘ironically’ I throw up in my mouth a little. Doing something that makes you look like a jackass, even if you know you look like a jackass, does not make you trendy. It makes you a jackass. You see, irony requires a perspective from someone not directly involved in the ironic action, i.e. a viewer or audience. The only irony in someone doing something ‘ironically’ is from the perspective of someone like myself, who knows the definition, and can say ‘that guy wearing a trucker cap because he thinks truckers are jackasses is truly the jackass.’

Back when I was kicking heels at ska shows, as the scene was slowly dying from the inundation of pink-haired Gwen clones and kids who first saw the BossTones on MTV, those of us who were old enough to shave and remember better times would comment on the shittiness of people who adopted a cultural identity based on image alone. Much like the kids who bought their concert t-shirts online instead of at a concert (here’s a tip: neither Rancid nor the Misfits are together anymore – a sure sign of a trendy fuck), hipsters lack substance. Everything they have is appropriated from other scenes, and have been stripped of their meaning. Pre-faded t-shirts, Buddy Holly glasses, and fucking tweed indicate a lack of understanding of the world rivaled only their uselessness.

Back when ‘alternative’ was getting popular, I coined the phrase ‘conformity to nonconformity.’ I was struck by an advertisement in Spin magazine (the leaders in nonconformist conformity) with a giant picture of some guy with piercings all over his face. The caption read ‘EXPRESS YOUR INDIVIDUALITY.’ In other words, in order to be an indivvidual, you have to be just like this guy. So the idea of doing things just because they’re ‘different’ is absurd to me, especially when everyone is doing the same thing. These hipster assholes are the worse than corporate execs in their shallowness and image-based ethic.

All these things I can almost forgive. What I can’t forgive is how that attitude carries over into the rest of the culture. When a word like ‘meh’ finds its way into the dictionary, you can bet a hipster is the cause of it. They revel in finding things that are impractical, meaningless, or purposeless and trying to convince everyone else how important they are. Psychologically, this is just an extension of themselves. Filled with their own uselessness, they yearn for meaning. The only way they can find that meaning is by manufacturing it in other useless things. And those poor, pathetic bastards are the ones making their scratch online, so those are the inane views that make it into the news stories looking for something ‘cutting edge.’ Idiots.

(A side note: Because the above video is a short version of the commercial and left out the line about the beret, here’s another video…)