Another one from the archives:
July 29, 2002
I’ve been getting the inevitable yet needlessly rude “How could you possibly like that nerdball band, They Might Be Giants?” email, but my favorite one went a little something like this:
“I saw you were into They Might Be Giants and was turned off, but then I saw you had a link to DJ Vadim, and decided you weren’t entirely lame.”
The author of this email couldn’t have been overly turned off by TMBG, since the title of my weblog is a direct quote from one of their songs.
Which brings me to the point of this post: people judging other people on spurious evidence of their “it” factor.
Most people do this in some form. I think it is part of our primitive primate brains to seek out the company of those who look/think/act like just like we do. It makes the probability of an individual being accepted into that group more likely. However, self-styled hipsters take it to an unhealthy extreme.
I live in the SF Bay Area, which is a self-esteem-crushing hotbed of hip. I get to observe hipsters all day in their natural habitat, and I’ve observed that they are constantly complaining about being discriminated against, yet they will ostracize anyone who doesn’t adopt their preferences and way of dress.
I don’t even think they realize it. I’m always incensed when someone says to me, “Wow, I didn’t know you were into independent film/ punk/ industrial/ hip-hop/ etc.” This is usually after the speaker has spent several days making no effort to make the most casual of conversation, then by circumstance I make a reference to a Dismemberment Plan song or “Donny Darko”, and all of a sudden, I’m possibly worth being seen associating with freely in public.
I tried to do the hipster thing. If you want to play the game, you have to wear the uniform. I had the black Louise Brooks bob, the clunky shoes, the vintage wardrobe, the lunch box purse, and I liked it. I really liked it. There were so many other people who did the same look, though. I found myself being typecast in people’s minds: “Oh, this looks like something you’d be interested in.” “She doesn’t look like she’d fit in here.” I found I was desperately trying to fill an image that was supposed to be cool and unconventional and different, but was more restrictive than if I’d made myself as nondescript as possible. In my search for freedom, I’d actually made myself a slave to that image, if you will.
That’s an irony even the most jaded of alternakids could appreciate.
10:23:18 AM 
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