pumps and a bump. a few years ago, my friend introduced me to the idea of "hipsters." who or what is a hipster you ask? the definition off of the hipster handbook says that a hipster is "one who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term 'cool'; a hipster would instead say 'deck.') the hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. a hipster ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat."



another definition is: "(hipsters are) people in their late-teens to mid-20s who attempt to grow a personality by blindy adhering to counterculture, if nothing more than to be fashionable. usually seen sporting grungy clothes as if to say, 'oh wow, i'm a unique individual with a quirky sense of style.' and listening to boatloads of indy-rock garbage. usually attempts to appear offbeat, yet trendy and cultured to compensate for lack of redeeming social value."



or "someone, usually a teenager or 20something, who adheres to a counterculture ranging from indy-rockers to neo-hippies to skaters. they tend to define themselves by the music they listen to, and the outlandish clothes they wear. hipsters are opposed to other countercultures like goths, metal-heads, and gangstas, and they also avoid preps, eurotrash, white trash, and jocks."



as explained to me, a hipster the next stage of evolution for an indie person. i'm not sure if being a hipster means adhering to a particular genre of music, but i feel like this must be so -- i doubt hip hop hipsters exist and if they do, they have a different name. as far as i can figure, a hipster is a snob of the highest order -- always a great thing in my book. the motivation behind being a hipster is to be the zag when others are zigs. and this credo is more important than actually having off-beat tastes. as soon as enough people get on a certain bandwagon, the hipsters are the ones pulling the cord and getting off at the next stop. after reading kundera, i believe that hipsters must be the ultimate "adders."

"in our world, where there are more and more faces, more and more alike, it is difficult for an individual to reinforce the originality of the self and to become convinced of its inimitable uniqueness. there are two methods of cultivating the uniqueness of self: the method of addition and the method of subtraction.



agnes subtracts from her self everything that is exterior and borrowed, in order to come closer to her sheer essence (even with the risk that zero lurks at the bottom of the subtraction). laura's method is precisely the opposite: in order to maker her self ever more visible, perceivable, seizable, sizable, she keeps adding to it more and more attributes and she attempts to identify herself with them (with the risk that the essence of self may be buried by the additional attributes)."

-milan kundera, immortality

because hipsters take their tastes so personally -- identifying themselves with their likes and dislikes -- it's an affront to their self worth if people deemed unworthy or tasteless suddenly like what they like. an accessible example if you will. since i have no hipster bands to reference i will pretend that n*sync was once hipster. in this scenario, n*sync was an undiscovered gem of a band. "oh, you listen to jt and the gang too? you must be cool enough to hang out with me." but as soon as n*sync blew up, the hipsters had to leave the room because being associated with the common masses was just too unbearable a thought.



i'm not sure i can personally subscribe to this philosophy but i sure do respect it. it takes a certain will power to give up things that you like just because it's been tainted. then again, it can be argued that hipsters never actually like anything, they just like things because of what they represent. how great is that? they've taken the physical world of likes and dislikes into the metaphysical realm. i love hipsters. they're so philosophical and deep.



i want a token hipster in my life but i don't know any. so how do i meet one? where do they hang out? what do they look like? what's the speakeasy password? can i fit a hipster into a pokeball? apparently hipsters dress well and have a kooky sense of style. i'm not sure where the line is between being kookily dressed and looking like crap but i'm sure i'll know it when i see it.



when i approach a hipster-ish looking person, i'll ask them "so, are you a hipster?" if they say "why yes, yes i am." then immediately they are exposed as fake hipsters. a true hipster would never associate themselves with such an inclusive and general term right? thus the great irony in being a hipster. you are independent but easily categorized. you are part of a powerful taste mafia but can never consciously associate with it. this is the greatest club in the world. "i'm so in i'm out!" i want to be a hipster. because hipsters are cool and i want to be cool too. oh wait, i meant deck, i want to be deck too. do hipsters accept apprentices or something? is there a summer camp or evening class i can join? or at least a reality show i can watch?