The first rule of being a hipster is that you never, EVER admit out loud that you are hipster. If you say that you are hipster, then you are very clearly NOT hipster. Because then you are admitting to liking that identity, which means that you try to embrace that identity, which violates rule number two of being hipster: never {let it appear that you} try to do anything. Trying too hard (TTH*) is the antithesis of all things hip.
So how is it that anyone in this world can even BE hipster? The minute someone puts the idea out there that you might be living an alternative, crunchy, yet effortlessly glamorous (as in: aesthetically perfect) lifestyle, you become aware of the label (whether it is accurate or not) and it begins to factor into your expressions of identity henceforth. Meaning that you are trying… and therefore, not hipster.
With all of this being said – let’s just call it a long disclaimer – apparently, I sometimes embody the characteristics my friends most often associate with hipsters (see what I just did there?). Like any other label, there are definitely ways that I do - and don’t – identify with it. So in true Emily (an probably not-so-hipster) fashion, I decided to make a list.
Ways in which I can be considered hipster:
1. I got Instagram last summer, a full 9 months before Facebook bought it and almost a year before everyone and their mom decided that recording what they ate every day in all its sepia-tinged glory was a good idea (for the record: it’s not.) That means that I discovered a trend before you (+4 points) and my usage of it dropped significantly as soon as you started using it (+5 points)
tilt shift! amaro filter! self-takens in a modern art museum!
2. I like over-sized wool sweaters. In my defense, I’ve always liked wool sweaters, mostly because I have decidedly poor circulation and am constantly cold. When I was 7, my grandmother knit me a matching sweater and skirt, which I wore with cable-knit tights as well. So really, I was just running around in one giant head-to-toe sweater. The sweaters are less a fashion statement and more a functional necessity at this point. But apparently they give the aura of hipster, especially when you bargain with shop owners to get them for $5 because you can mend the giant holes yourself, or when you wear your grandfather’s old sweaters, or when you treat them as average weekend-night attire to bars…
casual sweater for joceline’s birthday last october…
3. I have a Holga camera, which is actually super-fun** to use with double- and triple-exposure. It’s the first manual camera I have owned, and it’s fun and orange! But man-oh-man does this puppy make things look all fuzzy and vintage and hip.
holgavision! hipstervision!
4. I like old things. Examples include: my old 18th-century apartment, old {vintage} clothing, old family furniture, old thrift stores, old people.
vintage dress! not smiling in photos! black & white!
5. I like to reinvent things/DIY (scroll to the second one). See also: Crafty.
vintage sewing machine table!
6. I have diverse music tastes. Apparently listening to songs that have accompanying music videos like this isn’t super mainstream…
7. Sometimes my sister and I make our own videos.
blurred scenery (really, it’s just the cracks in Gracie’s phone screen) and not smiling at the camera – tell-tale hipster video, according to Denise
8. Rather than have cable (it took me 6 months to even get a tv), I prefer to watch my extensive VHS collection, do 1000-piece puzzles, and decoupage. (This might also just make me an old woman. Or a geriatric hipster.)
9. I had an obscure humanities major (African American Studies) that I somehow managed to turn into a job at a museum no one had ever heard of until February.
Reasons I’m Not Hipster:
1. I reference things like *Betches and use phrases like “super-fun” (as seen above). I also like to use a lot of exclamation points. Enthusiasm about things? So NOT hipster.
2. I have this insane obsession with The Bachelor. And Chris Harrison. Remember that bingo chart I mentioned?
the REAL reason I turn on a tv every Monday night.
3. I still have a ton of prep in my system, thanks to U.Va.
the great mysteries of life: is this a button-up, or a button-down?! #uvaproblems
4. I’m much more concerned with celebrity gossip and social-circle gossip than trying to find the most obscure new song to share with my friends pretentiously discover first.
5. I don’t recycle.
6. I don’t wear over-sized glasses… unless they are sunglasses and mimic MK&A Olsen.
bug-eyed is the new fabulous.
7. I reference things like Mary Kate and Ashley.
So, you tell me… hipster, or not? The world may never know…
