I'm Tired of Hipsters! Can I Get An Amen?!

They’re everywhere you go these days, especially if you live in a metropolitan area. You can see them on street corners dressed in skinny jeans and clunky glasses, or in a bar sucking down PBR. Odds are good that they have more than a few tatts and an asymmetrical haircut. Ask what they’re listening to on their iPod, and they’ll undoubtedly spout off a string of band names that you’ve never heard of.

In general, I’ve got nothing against individual hipsters. While many of them are pretentious douchebags, I’m confident that most of them are fine human beings. But goddammit, I fucking hate almost everything they’re about. If you’ve got 20 minutes, read this definition of what a hipster is, and perhaps you’ll see why.

Now ain’t that a bunch of pretentious bullshit? If there is a hierarchy of douches, then this definition was clearly written by the Ultimate Supreme Douche. The fact that the guy needs over 800 words to define “hipster” pretty much says it all.

Look, my hipster friends, I get it. Mainstream culture is, in general, meant for mindless, conformist sheeple. But guess what? By being a hipster you’re still conforming; you’re just conforming to a more obscure aesthetic. But when you get down to brass tacks, conformity is conformity.

I’ve got a couple of tatts and would probably have a sleeve if I could afford it, but I’m not about to go broke covering myself in ink. I’m well educated and proud of it, but I make an earnest effort not to act superior. My taste in music is diverse, and I have to admit to deriving pleasure from knowing a band before others catch on, but I’m not going to mock you if you’ve never heard of Dr. Dog, MF DOOM, or Aṣa.

But here’s the thing. I also affect a ridiculously high voice when I talk to animals. My sense of fashion is practically non-existent; I wear baggy, comfortable jeans (that don’t sag so that my ass hangs out) and the same five shirts every week. My relatively vast music collection, while containing the aforementioned Dr. Dog and MF DOOM, also contains artists like Aqua and Justin Timberlake. And as you can see by my handle [I go by the name of Gryffindork on the website this was originally published on], I’m a huge Harry Potter geek. In other words, I’m a huge fucking dork.

But you know what? I own that shit. I don’t care about my wardrobe because I’m poor and spending money on clothes is not a priority. I may sound like an idiot around animals, but they love me, and that’s all that matters to me. Just like every meal can’t be a nutritious gourmet meal, I don’t require that everything I listen to have deep artistic merit; sometimes I just want something with no nutritional value (like a song about a Dick In a Box). And if you’re a Harry Potter hater, I’ve got three words for you: eat a dick. If you weren’t too cool to read the books, you might actually enjoy them.

Which is my main point, really. If you do or don’t do something simply because it’ll affect your social stock, then I’m sorry, you’re a poser. You’re allowing the attitudes and beliefs of others to control your actions, which is the very definition of conformity.

If you’ve seen me then you know I’m just a touch darker than an albino. Convention suggests I should listen to stuff like rock (and I do), but despite the fact that my favorite group is The Beatles, I fucking love hip-hop. DOOM is my favorite MC. I think Lil Wayne is the best rapper alive. I think it’s a shame that more people don’t know who Z-Ro is. And I love discovering shit like “Shake This” by Royce Da 5’9” or “The Truth” by Jake One, Freeway, and Brother Ali (or maybe they're not obscure; I wouldn’t know, since I don’t listen to the radio or watch MTV). The point is, if I bowed to convention I’d never listen to this stuff. But I like it. So I do.

Maybe I’m coming off as preachy. Maybe you think I sound like one of the douches I’m professing to hate. The great thing is, I don’t care. I couldn’t care less what you think of me. Hip-hop has a motto that we should all be trying to live by: keep it real. Don’t pretend to like something just because other people do. If you like something geeky, enjoy it to the fullest extent. If you dig disco, then do the Shuffle, dammit. And if the hipster aesthetic is truly your thing, then ignore me and do your thing. Just remember that knowing obscure bands doesn’t make you a better person or mean that you have better taste than others; it just means you stumbled upon something most people haven’t. Above all, do whatever is right for you, and fuck the haters when they make themselves known.

And that’s real, bitches.