While perusing the shelves of the University Bookstore in search of lighthearted and meaningless entertainment, I came across a self-help guide entitled, "The Hipster Handbook." Intrigued by its cyan color and the silhouetted depiction of fashionable young adults on the cover, I decided to purchase it as a joke (only not really).
Inside, the book shed light on the world of Hipsters, a rare and deliberately endangered subculture of trendsetting, Dostoyevsky-toting, postpostpostmodern Chai drinkers who form their identity through obscure music and a pretentious vocabulary. Basically, the entire college population.
I hid the book in my deck campy-chic woven Target bag, smuggling it home like a dirty magazine. Once safely behind a locked door, I read up on Hipster vernacular (the word "deck" has replaced "cool"), the proper handshakes, and the subgroups of a class too cool for classification.
I later looked at the copyright to find that the book had been published in 2002, when trucker hats and The White Stripes had not yet hit the mainstream (thus becoming the Hipster Anti-Christ). But I figured it was for the best - I'm usually a bit slow on the uptake. Besides, I read that a major component of being a Hipster is to possess a biting sense of irony. Chomp.
The guide also stated that a deck fashion piece applicable to all Hipster subgroups was the Large and Unflattering Pair of Glasses. I was delighted to read this - I had just found a delectable pair of Hipster sunglasses on the bathroom floor of the Marriott. Kind of like the time I found a fifty dollar bill on the floor of McDonald's during my grandmother's wake. The wake wasn't in McDonald's; it was down the street. But that's another story.
I admit that I bought the book partially out of desperation. I've tried to be suave and sassy before, but either I've lost interest, walked into a pole, or become very self-conscious about my upper lip hair in the middle of a socio-political conversation.
In fact, just yesterday I was sharing my deck gem of a guide with a Spectrum associate. We deckly squealed, "That's us! That's us!" with each description of a Hipster. Then she fell down the stairs and sprained her ankle. I laughed at her misfortune, twisted my neck in doing so, and had to walk around like Quasimodo for the rest of the day (note: not Hip).
I've always been impressed with the people who have their own authentic style, this undeniable charisma about them. Acting shocking and impulsive, or perhaps sullen and unshakably reflective, they'd impress me in ways that were just irritating with other people. They mixed ragged clothes with dashes of chic modernism. They clenched some unpronounceable burning French cancer between their teeth and let their cars cross the dotted line as if they were immortal. And just when it started to catch on, they'd move onto something else. They were the type of people not applicable to Hipster Handbook classifications. Or so I thought.
My Uncle Bruce had a friend who knew Allen Ginsberg (a deck Beat poet, for you unenlightened jerries). He said that Ginsberg had to send his laundry home to his mother because he didn't know how to operate a washing machine (the irony!!1).
It made me think in a deeply philosophical and column-concluding way: behind the spangled accessories and layers of unwashed hair, we all want the same thing - security, a sense of belonging, clean laundry. Everyone is just looking for a different way to keep up with his or her constantly evolving identity, a sense of style both outward and in.
I still like The White Stripes.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
