Let us ironically reappraise hipsters

 

If any of you people actually discussed music outside of gay-ass internet circle jerks where people are weeping salt tears at the closure of Idolator (and I personally am mourning their intricate brand of “Silversun Pickups are touring, I bet that’ll be good” high-end content), you’d learn something quite interesting. For the outside world, “indie” and “hipster” are interchangeable terms. Tell someone that you like The Indie Rock, and regardless of whether or not you’re popping The Pains of Being Pure at Heart or the fucking Old 97s, dollars-to-donuts this person will have now pegged you as a hipster. 

It’s an interesting enough phenomenon: the common reason pop kids gave for hating the indie at the start of the pro-pop hissyfit from the start of this decade was that indie kids were somehow scared of popularity or of appearing cool, that they didn’t “try”, and now the most tryingest of subcultures as become, to the wider world, synonymous with indie. Hey, that makes you think, huh?

But no, I have a point here written down in “filler newspaper column” formatting and wordcount: has the time come to ironically reappraise hipsters? Hipsters try. This is the best thing about them. Hipsters make a damn effort: with their clothes, with their club nights, with their hair, with their approach to anything. It’s like the old feeling you get that if a man is actually holding down a job and feeding his family, you can’t hate on him. He’s making an effort. Hipsters are the blue collar grafters of contemporary subculture.

Hipster girls are usually cute. Hipsters have given us lots of Asian girls to feel creepily racist about fancying. Hipsters are single-handedly keeping the non-awful tattoo market afloat, fighting a losing battle against pseudo-deep bar skanks with dolphins on their ankle, and rockabilly revivalist douchebags with what looks like Alberto Vargas’s playschool scribbling inked onto their arm.

Have you heard non-hipster metal recently? Like, seriously sat down and listened to some of that fucking “THE SOULS OF THE IMPURE SHALL BE SET ADRIFT ON THE SHORES OF VALHALLA” bullshit that’s coming out of all those Northern European countries with no blacks or solvent banks? Fuck me that’s awful. There’s a reason that the only metal bands well-adjusted types like ourselves have heard of are Lamb of God and Mastodon. Sure, hipsters did kind of ruin rap music, but if they hadn’t have then Kanye would have just done it on his own, so you can’t pin the blame for that totally on them.

Beer in hipster bars is usually cheaper. Hipsters keep in shape, a rarity in these times of obesity. Hipsters, unlike Ghurkhas, never bitch or moan about the treatment they get. Hipsters do not get enough credit. At all. The next time you see a hipster, give him a hug, some dap, maybe even give him a bite of your New York Deli toasted wrap from Pret. Let him know you appreciate him. Because he’s making the world a better place for all of you.