Hipster backlash + "Scene Kid Love" part 1

THE HIPSTER ATTACK

reviewed by Shardae Jobson

Recently while I was working at my most prosperous, minimum wage job, to pass a bit of time, while cleaning up the inane books section, I picked up a small one titled Look At This F*uckin Hipster. I flipped through some pages in the middle, already very amused by the title that was a antagonistic ode to the loathed fashion microcosm, I saw that every picture inside had a denouncing comment written in comic book bubble. Every comment was tearing up the person(s) on the page to shreds, making an absolute mockery of being hipster. I immediately thought, whoever wrote this must really hate hipsters. Aside from being pure entertainment in the form of parody, I read the back of the book and read that in my hand was a collection of photos from its namesake website. Created last year of April, Joe Mande's Tumblr blog was apparently widely popular where hipsters and non-fake beatniks alike enjoyed and disliked the hilariously hostile site.

It's always interesting the sites that people find online. Being a twenty-something, with time to spare, I am fully aware of the yes, sometimes very irritating lifestyle and "fashion" labeled as hipster. What is funny is that this great need to create a website that chastises the trend actually found an audience that were bothered so much by it, they had to visit Mande's site every so often for a good laugh. While Look At This Fuckin Hipster is mainly in "good fun", I suppose it got me thinking to what else might be out there in the blogosphere that uses others for the sake of chronicling their differences and place in society, which in return could be incredibly demeaning. Luckily, forProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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ande, the hipster "movement" is such a rolling the eyes at phenonemeon that lacks any kind of current cultural substance that could be considered important in years to come, maybe Mande was on to something as he's now cashed in on a book sold at stores like Urban Outfitters which is wildly ironic.

Mande writes in the introduction that the point of the book and site was to explore these hipsters, though admittingly by saying "exploring" he meant "ridiculing" in regards to the purely attention-seeking pseudo counter-culture. He claims to not hate hipsters, but he also doesn't like them very much either. He finds them narcissistic, spoiled and a poor excuse for a movement gone horribly wrong because they are frankly devoid of any remote worthwhile addition to the scope of youth and society except for trying to look rather capricious and laid-back--and their whole existence, unfortunately for them, do not exemplify these qualities.

Since Joe Mande sees their attempts as a collective epic fail, he's book is here so that if you weren't aware before, now you can really laugh at them the next time you see them in town, and you'll have all the background information you'll need.

Mande's animosity is the latest in a small but colorful slew of books based on blogs created out of boredom and twisted interest at an ongoing trend that whether good or bad is controlling a considerable percentage of the masses like crazy. FML (Fuck My Life), Texts From Last Nights, Stuff While People Like, This Is Why Your Fat, I Can Haz Cheeseburger, even photo blogs like Last Night's Party, are all somewhat comedic ventures that gets thousands of hits a day, and publishers are taking notice by compiling the greatest of their content in order to save their publishing houses.

From their rainbow tattoos, multiple piercings, boys wearing girl's clothes, patterns and textures of clothes all worn at once, and strangely cut hair, Mande quips are humorous and he is completely fascinated by hipsters. He might not like them , but he is giving them the kind of attention they secretly idolize, so why bother give them what they want in the first place? Everyone knows hipsters don't matter the way people who adorn their outfits with touches of their personal, unique culture do, like from a Native American or African tribe, or Jewish tradition.

Mande's got some sass in saying that if your reading his book at all, it's likely your a hipster yourself and just don't know it yet, which is cute, but Mande is also quick to constantly distance himself from the site he made and unexpectedly became a hit. He includes in his introduction that an "idiot" once referred to him as the Carlos Mencia of hipsters, and while Mande thought that didn't make any sense, it actually does. He says his days of "sitting outside on a couch, drinking PBR and listening to the Libertines [was] ancient [history]" (he's now a "menopausal black woman, jamming to Earth, Wind & Fire and Chaka Khan"), sometimes he comes across a bit like an old disgruntled man. You can feel he thinks hipsters a formidable to the world's well being, but then again, you also can't take him too seriously--just like hipster children.

In another chapter, he gives a brief history of where hipster influence came from, and by the time his site went up, it had already lost its way. Yet, his depiction of them at times is bit much extreme even for the average viewer of them. A lot of popular fashions today have traces of hipster detail, but Mande's models are on another level (which is possibly his point). Inside the book, there's a picture of guy at a party wearing a plastic bag as a shirt. Now, that's not hipster, that's just creative and completely silly.

The book and blog leads the way for hipsters nationwide in the U.S. to feel like shit, and Mande essentially encourages everyone to make fun of them and their love for music mash-up guru Girl Talk. The last chapter is in defense of his blog and book in that a good friend of his became one of them, a hipster, in front of his eyes. The transformation to the aberrant side ruined their friendship, so there is a kind of vendetta to why he spends so much time and energy on his favorite homeless chic, spoiled brat group of people that he also cannot stomach--but they sure are providing him a decent living, as he implies he got a sweet advance from his publishers (thanks for sharing).

So even though Mande broke it down for us in quick language that the "purpose" of his famed hipsters, though their style sticks out like a sore thumb, because of their lack of significance, they are hard to define and instead receive snide comments that Mande would likely insist they only had coming to them. According to him, it's all about "apathy", as the hipsters and scene kids continue to be one the most harmless and ridiculous counter or sub-cultures in America, and are always inspiration for young comedians, like the YouTube series "Scene Kid Love". Hipsters are without a doubt obnoxious, but the fact that most them could give a sugar honey iced tea about what you think, almost makes them a little more compelling to f*ckin look at--emphasis on little.

check out the website where Mande wants you to also buy his book by clicking on the link: http://www.latfh.com/

VIDEO: YouTube parody from TheRealParis about the fabolous life and style of hipster boys and girls arch enemies, the scene kids. "Scene Kid Love". Watch away.