Hipster Culture

One night during my sophomore year of college my friend Joe decided to shave his beard. His hair grew incredibly fast, so it would only be a matter of days before his shaggy appearance reappeared. Regardless, he decided to be clean shaved for one reason or another.

In my cramped dorm room bathroom, he got out the razor and did what most guys do while removing a ton of facial hair - he made designs. Patterns. He wanted to see just how bad his facial hair could look. In the end, we decided his Fun Manchu was the best and he should clearly leave it on for a day, showing it of to all of his classmates. Joe never turned down a challenge.

The next day, he and I walked across campus, to the furthest building from our dorm, together. He received awkward glances and responded with nervous laughter. In our Article and Essay class, our wonderful, teacher who never held anything back (she once revealed to us that she contracted an STD during college), asked him if his razor broke. We all laughed. Two classes and hundreds of looks later, he finally shaved off the facial hair.

Here's the thing. A friend of mine from college is currently sporting the same facial hair monstrosity, only he isn't wearing it as a dare or a victim of a broken razor, no, he's wearing it because it's ironic he told me.

Ironic?

I don't get this hipster culture nowadays. Ugly facial hair, or clothing even, is considered cool because it's ironic. Maybe i'm just not getting the irony of the situation. I think it all started with the beards. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the beards. Certain guys can pull them off really well, so I was completely okay with this trend. I even prefer scruff sometimes to a clean face. Somehow, the beard turned into the mustache. How the mustache ever became cool (outside of Halloween costumes, rapists, and my father circa 1980), I never understood. That, of course, grew to the strange, yet incredibly popular facial hair of today. And the matching tight pants, of course.

(Girls aren't exempt from this hipster lifestyle, of course. There are the haircuts, the 80's inspired outfits that shouldn't be brought back, etc...etc...)

The same goes for venues.

Back in college, my friends and I frequently visited a small dive bar called Poor Paul's. It was cramped, smokey, dark, dirty and absolutely perfect. We went so often that the bouncer knew me by face and the bartender knew my drink. It was a place where we could hang out, play the games on the screen, and just talk. We didn't have to dress up or impress anyone. It was, in a strange sense, home.

It took me a while to find a similar place here. I finally fell upon one around 20 minutes from where I live. My friends and I used to go regularly until we all got 9-5s that interrupted our weeknight hangouts. Like Poor Paul's, it was small and smokey. We loved it there.

It came to my attention that apparently for the last few months it has become the popular hang out for these same facial haired hipsters. They like it because it's ironic. It's so run down, it's cool! Apparently, they've vacated it now, gone off to an even more ironic bar, one called Hoops. Clearly, the previous occupants have been run off.

There's a great line from the musical In The Heights which exemplifies that, regarding the city of Washington Heights in NY: "In five years, when this whole city's rich folks and hipsters, who's gonna miss this raggedy little business?" From my understanding Brooklyn is now the hipster capital. (Obviously, there are some exceptions). I hear Williamsburg has more indy fans than Jewish people. Go figure!

Like many trends, this one will probably go out of style within the next couple of years. It's not that I don't understand people trying to make their difference in the world, stand out as individuals, I do, believe me, I just don't get it in this sense. Since when was making yourself look as bad as possible...attractive?

Maybe I'm just getting too old.