Welcome to Look at This F*cking Hipster, your personal guide to understanding hipsters and hipster culture! In this book, we will explore hipsterdom in all its glorious facets and idiosyncrasies. And by “explore,” I mean, of course, “ridicule.” This book is chock-full of hipster ridicule. Why so much ridicule? Because … look at them. They’re asking for it. It’s like I always say: “Hipsters are ridiculous people, and you can’t spell ridiculous without ridicule.” … Or something.
Ugh, what am even I talking about?
Okay, look, I’ll be honest. Even I can’t believe my stupid-ass tumblr blog became a book. In fact, when I first met with my publishers, I asked them, “Why are you giving me a book deal? Who would buy a book full of content that’s already on the Internet?” The head publisher quickly replied, “What’s the Internet?” and then handed me a suitcase full of hundred-dollar bills. So, I guess that’s how book deals happen.
I never expected my blog to become so popular. It started out as a joke, a pet project to amuse my friends and family. To be perfectly honest, my initial idea was to help my dad start a blog called IsThataHipster.com. Because whenever my parents visit me in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, that’s what he asks me whenever a person walks by.
“Is that a hipster?”
“Yes. That’s a hipster.”
“Okay … but is that a hipster?”
“Yes, Dad. Pretty much everyone in this neighborhood is a hipster.”
“What about that Asian guy over there? Can hipsters be Asian?”
“I suppose so, but they’re usually white and have Asian girlfriends.”
The response to LATFH.com was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. Within a matter of days, my little joke had spread to millions of people all over the world. Unknowingly, I had tapped into something much larger than I could have ever expected–something retarded–that people from all corners of the globe yearned to laugh at and laugh with. Mocking hipsters, from their lifestyle choices to their fashion decisions to their inevitable offspring (yikes), has now become my full-time job. Some would say it’s my duty.
I am not without my critics, however. Some readers have accused me of being a “monster,” a “coward,” a “hate-monger,” and a “shitbird who eats bags of dicks.” Others have called my blog the beginning of a “vast hate movement” that “promotes negativity and conformism.” One idiot even called me the “Carlos Mencia of hipsters,” which would be a super offensive thing to say if it made any sense. Obviously, this is America, and everyone is entitled to have shitty opinions and no sense of humor. (But let me say that if my goal was to “promote” conformity, why would so many of the people I make fun of dress and behave in exactly the same way? That’s just flawed logic.) Despite this, I would like to address these false charges right now by taking the opportunity to say right now, unequivocally: I do not hate hipsters. Let me repeat: I do not hate hipsters.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t love hipsters. That would be weird, like loving Scientologists or syphilis or something. But I don’t hate them, either. I think that’s important. I simply find the hipster lifestyle to be wildly fascinating. And if that sounds like I’m being condescending, that’s because, yes, I’m being condescending. Duh, of course I am. But doesn’t condescension come from a much better place than hatred? (That place = deez nuts.) I just think it’s fair, after years and years of everyone making fun of poor white trash, that someone had the courage to stand up and make fun of rich white trash.
Other critics have told me that hipster bashing is “so four years ago” (which, ironically, is the most hipster-y thing a person could ever say). They claim that there’s no such thing as a hipster, that it’s simply an idea, a “fabricated social construct meant to demean and subjugate individualism and civil disobedience.” To these people I say: Congratulations, you went to college! You totally know the terms “civil disobedience” and “social construct.” Foucault the world, son!
The thing is, everyone goes to college. Everyone. Sorry, you’re not special at all. Go snort some more Ritalin and jerk off to your Murakami collection. If there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that hipsters do exist. I live in Williamsburg, which is basically the Mecca for hipsters; the Bedford stop on the L train station is their Kaaba. Hipsters dominate my neighborhood. I smell their Tom’s of Maine deodorant when I’m in line to get coffee in the morning. I hear them discuss the work of Krzysztof Kieślowski while I wait for the bus. I see them play organized kickball in the park. Adults. Playing kickball. And it’s not just in Brooklyn. I’ve been exposed to hipsters in Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Montreal, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Baltimore, Austin, Moscow, London, in college town after college town … pretty much anywhere that (white) people live.
There’s a hipster pandemic. They’re spreading. They’re multiplying. They’re taking over. You might as well savor this moment while you can. Look at these fucking hipsters and laugh. Before it’s too late.