TEST SUBJECT: Nicole Capó, GWU Senior
BACKGROUND: One Urban Dictionary definition of "Hipster" is --
Aged indie kids, hipsters still maintain the air of snobbery, still shop at Salvation Army, and still have a completely astonishing array of knowledge when it comes to obscure music, pop-culture non-sequitors, and political sneers (...) Can be recognized by books like "A Clockwork Orange", "Everything is Illuminated", or obscure philosophy books, by authors akin to Dostoevsky.
Another is --
Someone who listens to bands you've never heard of, wears ironic tee-shirts, and believes they are better than you.
Essentially, hipsters are trendy young folk who know they are trendy young folk. They emanate (originally) from New York and California, they wear flannel, and they caused Polaroid to bring back its instant film. My favorite way to describe what hipsters are like is also one of my favorite jokes:
How many hipsters does it take to change a lightbulb?
It's an obscure number. You probably haven't heard of it.
PROBLEMS BEING ADDRESSED: With a growing amount of hipster friends, I suddenly find myself attending parties where the playlist involves Grizzly Bear and The xx. I've developed a craving for PBR and Miller High Life and am enamored of dive bars, high-waisted skirts, and food items I can't pronounce the names of. Was this just an inevitable development of my adventurous personality, or is being hipster.. addictive?
APPROACH TAKEN: Give in to my hipster cravings. Try obscure beers in shady bars, shop at Urban Outfitters (a place I avoided for most of my college career), spend hours looking for vintage items on eBay, and pray for high-contrast, slightly blurry disposable camera pictures of myself to appear on Facebook.
PROBLEMS EXPERIENCED: Being a hipster is not as cheap as it seems. While hipsters pretend to be über cool (the use of a "ü" just won me about 100 hipster points) by shopping in thrift stores and buying cheap beer and cigarettes, it's all for show. Turning hipster has put a serious dent in my bank account. Urban Outfitters is expensive. Trying strange new beers from weird countries in fancy bars? Expensive. Hipsters like to spend, spend, spend, and I don't have those kinds of funds.
THINGS YOU WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY: Nothing. My hipster friends are great. Granted, it is vastly entertaining to poke fun at their ridiculousness sometimes, but they're also great people with great taste and serious opinions on a wide range of topics. I've expanded my culinary interests with them, finally discovered that I hate hoppy beers and love wheat beers, and even started riding a bicycle (the most exercise I've gotten in years). Being a hipster may not be cheap all of the time, but I've enjoyed it all the same. Even now, I'm sitting in my living room watching this great TV show I never would have watched normally. Want to know what it is?
It's an obscure show. You probably haven't heard of it before.
-Nicole Capó
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