Painfully Earnest Hipsters Spouting Nonsense

The saving grace of hipsters is their self-conscious irony in actually advocating FOR anything.

This video is hilarious because it shows why hipsters need to be ironic. It's because when it comes to actual policy questions, their (unfinished) humanities majors didn't really teach them how to think about policy questions.


It appears that they are upset that a pipeline carrying "fracked gas" will pass under the New York.  Dude.  If there is a gas leak, the fact that it is fracked will be the LEAST of your problems.  And the video about being able to light your faucet on fire?  That's because of the proximity of a well to a gas deposit in the ground.  It's not likely that proximity to a gas PIPELINE is going to allow gas to travel through the gas pipe, through the ground, through the water pipe, and into your kitchen in that sweet minimalist loft you are subletting in Williamsburg.

Even if the gas is that magical evil called "fracked."

I watched it twice, and I'm still not totally convinced it isn't a hoax.  But the self-righteous indignation, if it is faked, is pure genius.  And if it is "real" (note hipster air quotes), then ....wow.

Nod to Anonyman, who--though he has faults--has never, ever been called a "hipster."

How to live without irony

I guess we are having a little "How to live without [FILL IN BLANK]" meme here at KPC.  This morning, it was how to live without pain (and the claim that you need it).

Because the EYM just linked to a truly fantastic piece in NYT on "How to Live Without Irony," on hipsterism.  (Spoiler alert:  doing without irony may be even harder than doing without pain...)

The EYM's own connection to hipsterdom is conflicted:  he understands things I miss, but he has a custom sticker for his computer that says "No Factories, No MacBook Pros!"  (If you have to ask, go ask a hipster, in a coffee shop, about the sticker on his MacBook Pro that says, "No Farms, No Food!")

An excerpt.  But it's all good.  I'm not sure how much of it is ironic.  Which is of course precisely why it is good.


Born in 1977, at the tail end of Generation X, I came of age in the 1990s, a decade that, bracketed neatly by two architectural crumblings — of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the Twin Towers in 2001 — now seems relatively irony-free. The grunge movement was serious in its aesthetics and its attitude, with a combative stance against authority, which the punk movement had also embraced. In my perhaps over-nostalgic memory, feminism reached an unprecedented peak, environmentalist concerns gained widespread attention, questions of race were more openly addressed: all of these stirrings contained within them the same electricity and euphoria touching generations that witness a centennial or millennial changeover.

ATSRTWT

UPDATE:  I should note, for context, that to calibrate hipsterhood you need only look to Kindred or Garrett (neither of whom use their actual first names).  Of course, each would deny his hipster credentials.  Proving he IS a hipster, because that's what they do.

Tofe, on the other hand:  Actually NOT a hipster.  But he can hang with them, a sort of "hipster hag" deal.

The Fixie Index: The Hipsterest Places in America

The Fixie Index. Is YOUR town hip?

I can't imagine riding a bike like that. Literally cannot imagine doing it, or wanting to. I mean, just read this. Or this, a fixie in action (though, if he didn't see her, not sure why the lack of brakes is a problem...)

Not for me. Proving (as if proof were required) that I am NOT a hipster. This is not exactly a "stop the presses" announcement, I realize.

Ok, now vinyl is no longer cool

Why?

Because Target now sells turntables!

Really.

Ouch.

But I bet they won't carry this turntable:

More info is here, and no I don't own a piece of the company nor was I solicited to write about them, nor given any inducement to write about them. At KPC, we KIR (keep it real).

The EYM Speaks

The EYM Speaks on Hipness

The article begins on p. 110. Interesting, actually.

New Christmas tunes from Sufjan!!

People, the best Christmas music collection ever is Sufjan Stevens' 5 cd set, "Songs for Christmas".

There is supposedly another disc recorded but not released done with members of The National.

Here is a link to two new songs from that unreleased disc.

Self-recommending.

Here is a link to more Sufjany stuff.

NB. I will be ripping Mr. Stevens pretty good in the next day or so, but the Christmas stuff is terrific.