On an excursion to downtown L.A., we came across this hipster outside a coffee house, reading Nausea.
It was like seeing a panda in its own habitat, only better. I know it looks posed, but I swear to god he is real!
Downtown Los Angeles has a burgeoning ‘arts district’, i.e. a run-down industrial neighborhood crammed with organic cafes and tiny shops selling vintage Americana. Young people wander around looking drab and gender-challenged. There’s a lot of third-wave coffee and it is delicious.
While admiring my photo of the hipster this evening, I realized that it might be more accurate to call him a millennial.
I think there’s a real difference but I’m still working it out.
Hipsters like to have fun, for one thing, but millennials are sourpusses.
Millennials don’t want to acquire furniture or children, and they all work in tech or spend all their time on Instagram.
They are married to their iPhones and Androids and they seem to enjoy irony without actually having a sense of humor. They reject traditional politics but they hate Israel.
According to one pundit, they have ruined 47 institutions and industries. They don’t use napkins or eat cereal.
God, who needs them, right?
Reading an essay about them tonight, I had to learn a new word: Precarity.
Precarity is a precarious existence, lacking in predictability, job security, material or psychological welfare. The social class defined by this condition has been termed the precariat.
Apparently, we should think of millennials as a generation forced to live pared-down lives, victims of the broken economy rather than brats who disdain their parents’ furniture.
And likewise, they’ve been given a bad rap by “self-hating Boomers.”
Hahahaha!
At least millennials have crated an awful new jargon full of terms like ‘toxic-masculinity’ and ‘virtue-signalling’. If they keep up the word-coinage, I may learn to like them!
Or at least forgive them.
I live near one of the hipster / millennial Capitols of the world. Austin,Tx. Here are my observations.
I see these people as smug, disrespectful, intolerant of anyone who is not from or lives in Austin (or fill in the blank), self absorbed and spoiled. They expect huge salaries when they graduate from college,yet they, especially the “men”, want to hang on to their cargo shorts, rei footwear, ironic t shirts, baseball caps and skateboards. They like to frequent expensive hipster restaurants for tasting menus ( another thing I find gross and overdone)’ drink mescal like its the newest and greatest, and read unheard of books. Oh, don’t forget having the latest Apple electronics. I’ve seen them, know them and find them uninspiring, sullen and boring. Nuff said.
That dude’s shirt is Gitman Brothers for Opening Ceremony, an example of another horrible aspect of this generation: all their expensive clothes are collaborations.
They know too much about pop culture and know too little about life.
I think we can finally bury “hipster” as a useful epithet if it’s now defined literally the same way the Khmer Rouge defined “intellectual.”
Tired of all of it.
Beards, unicycles, black out poetry books.
Suspenders, flat caps, breeches.
The serious facial expressions, and serious always talking to someone seriously.
So. Boring. So stupid.
Fauxllectuals
I’m with Kellie, so very tired of this burlesque Charlie Chaplin renaissance.