Hipster Holocaust: 9 Reasons Hipsters are Annoying

Being a hipster is sort of like being grotesquely fat; everybody can see that you are, but it's considered impolite to actually mention it.

Punks wear their tattered threads and studded leather jackets with honor, priding themselves on their innovative and cheap methods of self-expression and rebellion. B-boys and b-girls announce themselves to anyone within earshot with baggy gear and boomboxes. But it is rare, if not impossible, to find an individual who will proclaim themself a proud hipster. It’s an odd dance of self-identity – adamantly denying your existence while wearing clearly defined symbols that proclaims [sic] it.

Hipsters and indie kids try so hard to fit in, but it's embarassing to have someone point out that fact. The punks would call them posuers, but punks put a lot of thought into their image, too. I guess fashion is always supposed to appear effortless, but the hypocrisy bothers me.

I thought I was the only one annoyed by the judgmental, hypocritical self-righteousness of hipsters, but Douglas Haddow's adbuster's cover story from July (forgive me, Hipsters, I am behind the times) is an anti-hipster manifesto brimming with insightful eviscerations of the hipster lifestyle without being too condescending or preachy.

But after punk was plasticized and hip hop lost its impetus for social change, all of the formerly dominant streams of “counter-culture” have merged together. Now, one mutating, trans-Atlantic melting pot of styles, tastes and behavior has come to define the generally indefinable idea of the “Hipster.”

So basically, hipsterism is the McDonalds of countercultures. It's unoriginal, manufactured and monolithic. It can't be reasoned with or defeated because it's constantly morphing into whatever happens to be cool at the moment -- but not too cool:

But the moment a trend, band, sound, style or feeling gains too much exposure, it is suddenly looked upon with disdain. Hipsters cannot afford to maintain any cultural loyalties or affiliations for fear they will lose relevance.

If it's mainstream, it sucks. But what happens when hipsterdom goes mainstream? Your mom might not be a hipster, but if you're 15 to 40 it's likely you or one or more of your friends are a hipster (there should be a 12 step program). Hell, everyone you hang out with might be a hipster.

Not that there's anything inherently wrong with a herd mentality -- it keeps you safe. But there are several annoying things about hipsterdom that really bother me. A list:

1. Denying what you are: If somebody calls you a hipster and you angrily deny it; you're probably a hipster.
2. Following trends while pretending to be a trendsetter: Are you consistantly cool and fashionably dressed? Well, trendsetters take risks, make mistakes and often look goofy; it's part of the deal. If you don't take the risk of being uncool, you are not a trendsetter.
3. High school is over: 15 year-old hipsters notwithstanding, the Coolness Hierachy of hipsterdom is basically High School 2.0 -- enough already! I thought you were rebelling against status-obsessed drones who are now working their way up the real power hierarchy.
4. Smoking cigarettes is not rebellion: You're a good little Democrat-Hipster, aren't you? Then why do you smoke cigarettes? Profits from tobacco fund the right-wing hate machine you claim to oppose. Smoking Parliaments does not make you cool. If you want to be (somewhat) rebellious, smoke weed.
   
5. Claiming to be so open minded, yet only listening to hipster-appoved music: Indie rock is full of great tunes and good bands, but there are tons of bands out there playing excellent music who don't get love from hipsters because they don't have skinny jeans, ironic trucker hats or bed-hed haircuts.
6. Atheism-chic: As any hipster knows, atheism is "in". But haven't you noticed that hardcore atheists are just as annoying as fundamentalist Christians? Most Christians, while misguided, are nice people who respect others' beliefs. Atheists should remember to do the same.
   
7. Conflicting values: You can't be both an environmentalist and a shopaholic. You can't jump into the indie side of consumer culture and think that insulates you from the repercussions of materialism and consumption culture. Not driving an SUV does not make you green. Your fancy, designer shoes were probably made by orphan children in the Phillipines and then shipped over here at great expense to the environment... but not your conscience apparently.
8. Loyalty means nothing, only fashion: Hipsters will often hide their love of uncool things, or cloak their love in a vaccinating veil of irony. This only causes more self-loathing and hypocrisy. There's a whole generation of hipsters out there who love -- truly love -- AC/DC but would never, ever admit it, except through irony.
9. Conformity kills: Okay, so let me get this straight... you're rebelling against the conformist mainstream in the same manner as everyone else -- by joining a subgroup that is undeniably mainstream in your age group. Congrats on being both a hypocrite and a conformist in one fell swoop.

What it really boils down to is hypocrisy and herd mentality. I'm not saying I'm immune to either, but they both bug me and I'm committed to avoiding them wherever possible.

I understand the need to form subgroups. I do. It's 21st century tribalism and it has its benefits. Countercultures shouldn't be blamed for going mainstream if it's a positive force in the world, but I'm afraid hipsterdom has become a regressive force that's more based on exclusion, ego-driven hypocrisy and ironic apathy than any positive force. What part of hipsterism is positive? Will anyone stand up and defend hipsters... or even admit to being one?

Flying Squirrel Suits!

Real flying squirrels are gonna be pissed when they see this.

I wonder who was the first guy who said, "Hey, let's make suits that mimic flying squirrels and then jump off a fuckin' mountain!!" 'Cause these guys actually did it:



That's probably just about the most insanely stupid thing I've ever seen. I'm not objecting, though. We need space monkeys to do dangerous and stupid shit so the rest of us don't have to. And these guys are breaking new ground in the field of... uh... um...

Okay, they're just crazy.

Horde of wild monkeys kill Delhi deputy mayor, set up monkey government

Vengeance, both swift and brutal: monkey-terrorists strike again, leave message: Do not fuck with da monkeys!

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

SS Bajwa suffered serious head injuries when he fell from the first-floor terrace of his home on Saturday morning trying to fight off the monkeys.

Monkey-related deaths are on the rise as swarms of deadly monkey fall like furry stones upon the heads of unsuspecting humans. The time of monkey-judgment is at hand! Pray to the monkey-god Hanuman for mercy or you just might slip on a banana-peel carefully placed by his secret monkey assassins!

You may think monkey-murder is a laughing matter, but you won't be laughing when twenty rhesus monkeys attack you out of the blue, rape your women and throw feces at your friends.

Given the chance, these monkeys will surely destroy us all. That's why we need tough anti-monkey legislation. Contact your congresscritter today and screech into the phone until he gets the message.

No doubt the monkeys are forming a government-in-exile as we speak, plotting a bloody return to power. Monkey-terrorists are drawing up plans for more sneak attacks designed to liberate their brothers in the jails we call zoos while militant monkey marauders have plans to attack peanut supply-lines and drop coconuts on peoples' heads.

There are rumors of a Monkey Caliph hiding in the jungles, biding his time until more human governments are overthrown. My sources risked their lives to bring me this information. Monkey-spies lurk everywhere, waiting to fling poo at those who speak against them. Our young are inculcated with coded pro-monkey messages while monkey mullahs openly recruit new converts to their militant monkey madrasahs.

There can be no doubt. This is all-out war -- a great struggle between civilizations and it's time to choose sides. You're either with us or you're with the monkeys.

This has been an Electric Monkey Pants Intergalactic News Network (EMPINN) special report!

You live in the monkeysphere, human!

You are human, yet you live in a monkeysphere. How odd.

..What?! You don't know what the Monkeysphere is? Here's your chance.

You can impress people and look smart at parties by having a solid grasp on the concept of a monkeysphere and the ability to explain it succinctly. Then you can screech and fling poo at them.

If you're nice, maybe I'll let you into my monkeysphere.

Monkeys and money

Okay, I'm not trying to position this blog as a resource for monkey news or anything, but this article is hilarious. It's about teaching capuchin monkeys to use currency. This is the best line from the article:

The data generated by the capuchin monkeys, Chen says, ''make them statistically indistinguishable from most stock-market investors.''

Ouch. Haha! Okay, that was taken out of context, but it's still funny. Here's some more info on the experiment:

It is sometimes unclear, even to Chen himself, exactly what he is working on. When he and Santos, his psychologist collaborator, began to teach the Yale capuchins to use money, he had no pressing research theme. The essential idea was to give a monkey a dollar and see what it did with it. The currency Chen settled on was a silver disc, one inch in diameter, with a hole in the middle -- ''kind of like Chinese money,'' he says. It took several months of rudimentary repetition to teach the monkeys that these tokens were valuable as a means of exchange for a treat and would be similarly valuable the next day. Having gained that understanding, a capuchin would then be presented with 12 tokens on a tray and have to decide how many to surrender for, say, Jell-O cubes versus grapes. This first step allowed each capuchin to reveal its preferences and to grasp the concept of budgeting.

Isn't this basically what happened to humans? Certain humans invented money and then they had to convince all the other humans that money was valuable. Of course, if you've been reading my screeds on the Federal Reserve you'll know that the "evolved" humans pulled a fast one. After having convinced us that money is valuable they removed the U.S. from the gold standard and put us on fiat currency. So essential, our money is worthless; it has no inherant value and it's not backed by gold, silver or even copper. It's paper. What kind of monkey games are we playing here?

Back to the article. It amused me to no end when the monkeys started going a little crazy in a very human manner. They start stealing money and the humans bribe them to get it back. Who's testing who?

Once, a capuchin in the testing chamber picked up an entire tray of tokens, flung them into the main chamber and then scurried in after them -- a combination jailbreak and bank heist -- which led to a chaotic scene in which the human researchers had to rush into the main chamber and offer food bribes for the tokens, a reinforcement that in effect encouraged more stealing.

Something else happened during that chaotic scene, something that convinced Chen of the monkeys' true grasp of money. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of money, after all, is its fungibility, the fact that it can be used to buy not just food but anything. During the chaos in the monkey cage, Chen saw something out of the corner of his eye that he would later try to play down but in his heart of hearts he knew to be true. What he witnessed was probably the first observed exchange of money for sex in the history of monkeykind. (Further proof that the monkeys truly understood money: the monkey who was paid for sex immediately traded the token in for a grape.)

He taught monkeys prostitituion! Boy, I bet he's proud... er, well, maybe "proud" isn't the word for it. Anyway, it's a good article; check it out.

Monkeys on acid

You know you wanna see it, man. Monkeys on fucking acid.

Hollywood, here I come!

Monkey sniff butt!

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Monkey sniffs butt!!
Monkey sniffs butt!! Woo!