Hipsters are not only ruining Williamburg, they’re seeping out into the rest of Brooklyn (as their trust fund money runs out) and the rest of New York City. I even heard there was a hipster on Long Island. That’s muscle-head Guido territory! What is a hipster you might ask? The best, and most accurate, definition comes from the Time magazine (July 2009), “Hipsters are the friends who sneer when you cop to liking Coldplay. They’re the people who wear t-shirts silk-screened with quotes from movies you’ve never heard of and the only ones in America who still think Pabst Blue Ribbon is a good beer. They sport cowboy hats and berets and think Kanye West stole their sunglasses. Everything about them is exactingly constructed to give off the vibe that they just don’t care.”
A hipster is also a living and breathing version of irony. They’re hell bent on not conforming to society, just like their beatnik and hippie parents, yet they all dress and act the same. They also listen to the same obscure music (that’s obscure for a reason…), wearing black frame glasses half the size of their heads, pants too skinny to function in, and an ugly sweater from their mom’s closet. Well, it’s not their mom’s sweater. They just purchased it at Beacon’s Closet in Brooklyn from someone else’s mother.
What makes them so hated (but believe me there are plenty of reasons) is that nothing is of their own. It’s as if every other cultural style threw up on them -including beat, hippie, punk, grunge, alternative, and indie. They stole from everyone else and everything that was cool and claimed it as their own. But of course they will never admit that, nor will they admit what they “stole” was ever cool to begin with. So you can see why just about everyone else on the planet tends to hate them.
Suddenly I’m deemed a hipster because I like Apple products and because I go to craft beer bars, some of which are in Brooklyn. I can’t wear a plaid shirt without feeling self conscious when I walk the streets of Brooklyn at night. No, I enjoy Apple products because Steve Jobs knew how to create a functioning computer. I like craft beer because my taste buds tell me it’s good and it’s alcohol with integrity (because I can’t afford expense wine…). And I like plaid shirts as a throwback to the grunge era, a time of awesome music for rock.
Hipsters have added nothing new or cool to the scene. Instead, they’re killing it and killing Brooklyn too. They’re spreading farther than Bedford Avenue and it worries me. I’m hoping it’s a passing phase like every other era. Maybe one day they’ll wake up, get a real job, and wear a suit and tie like the rest of us and on that day I can hang out in Brooklyn again without fear of cultural assault.
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