Authors: Brenna Ehrlich,Andrea Bartz

Stuff Hipsters Hate (17 page)

BOOK: Stuff Hipsters Hate

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Med students also:

• Wear stupid scrubs in public—without irony

• Get wasted on the weekends and post 800 drunk pictures on Facebook every Monday

• Drop medical references and/or anatomical jokes they know you will not understand into totally incongruous conversations, just so they can patronizingly explain them afterward. (Seriously, I don’t care what a renal pelvis is or why that’s a play on words. Fuck you.)

• Constantly complain about their huge mound of homework

• Try to hit on you at the pharmacy while in their head they’re clearly thinking, ‘Can I mention med school? What about now? What about now? OK she sort of mentioned Tylenol…can I casually drop it? Damn I am awesome.’

Even worse: students of podiatry, or thodontics and dentistry. Don’t even pretend there’s motivation there other than cash. Just admit you’re a greedy ass-clown and be done with it.”

—Christopher E., 27, barback, laborer and painter

STORING MONEY IN ACCEPTABLE PLACES

AUTHORITY

While hipsters would have you believe that their hatred of authority stems from some deeply noble place—a wholesale rejection of the Darwinian principle of the survival of the fittest, a holy campaign against the elitists of the societal realm who believe that those who succeed in the world are those who have the means to—the reasoning behind this disdain comes from a much simpler place. Hipsters want to feel special, and they want to be told (constantly) just what marvelously unique and exceedingly sparkly snowflakes they are. When one is toiling away under an overlord known as a boss, catering to his or her whims instead of the more mercurial ones woven into the very fabric of a hipster’s being (“What if I want to paint all the walls, like, fucking magenta? Really,
ochre
? Who the fuck wants
ochre walls
?”), one runs the risk of having one’s cuddly, creative spirit demolished by the glistening Mack Truck that is authority. This is yet another reason you’ll find so many hipsters unemployed, where the only authority one has to pay heed to is oneself—and he/she already thinks you’re fucking awesome.

WHEN THEIR FRIENDS GO TO LAW SCHOOL

JANELLE:
Hey dude, Jason is having a fucking awesome party tonight at some loft in Bushwick. Wanna get there early? Like 1 a.m. or somethin’?

TYRON:
Sorry, lady. I have to study.

JANELLE:
What the fuck do you have to study for? You’ve been outta school for five years….

TYRON:
The LSATs.

JANELLE.
Are you shitting me?

TYRON:
Naw, I mean, this whole poet thing isn’t really working out. I mean, no one wants to pay me to write, so I figured I would, like, learn a trade.

JANELLE:
Are you going to be an LSAT tutor…?

TYRON:
No, asshole. I’m going to law school.

JANELLE:
What the fuck? When have you ever expressed interest in the law? You don’t even like motherfucking
Law & Order
—and there are, like, six versions of that show to choose from.

TYRON:
Well, lawyers make a lot of money, which is something I don’t have. I can’t shelve books forever, Jan. I can’t. I need stuff like, I dunno, a room with walls. Last week I brought this chick home and she took one look at my so-called room—a shower curtain and bed sheets—and announced that she had to get up early. She’s an art handler. How many art handlers do you know who have to “get up early”? I can’t deal with this anymore, dude. I need to eat. I need to get laid. I need cash. I mean, yeah, I would probably have to wear a suit year round to cover up my sleeve tats, and, sure, I would have to shave more often and probably move to Manhattan and drink with I-bankers at shitty places like Tonic, and I would most definitely have to pretend to get excited about sports and shit—but I can do it. I can suck it up. I’m almost 30. It’s time to get serious.

JANELLE:
Dude, you’re not going to get into law school. I mean, that’s just a stone cold fucking science fact.

TYRON:
Why the fuck not? I got like fucking straight A’s in college.
JANELLE:
Well, for one, you majored in abstract sculpture and Victorian poetry, and two, the most experience you’ve had with the legal system was that time you got arrested for breaking into that construction site, getting smashed and passing out in your own vomit.

TYRON:
Dude. That was, like, a fucking minor offense. Like, you know, a misnomer.

JANELLE:
Um. I rest my case.

WORKING AT CHAIN STORES

While myriad hipsters work in retail and/or the service industry, you’ll find nary an h-girl or h-boy working at a chain store (e.g., Target, Key Foods, Starbucks). You see, to a hipster, a position folding clothes or frothing cappuccinos at an indie business is merely a romantic interlude on the way to musical stardom/a Pulitzer/a tragically hip death in a Williamsburg loft. Such offbeat occupations have a certain ephemeral appeal: One quickly becomes a tragic everyman, much too sultry and quirky to labor behind a counter for the rest of one’s days. In such a role, one may beguile customers and coworkers alike, making the gig a catchall for a hipster’s three primary urges: acquiring food and drink, generating angst and getting laid.

Conversely, working at a chain smacks of permanence: the daily ritual of donning uniform and nametag, the coffee breaks with Joan (she’s worked here for 15 years—she’s a lifer), the total and complete inability to blast one’s jams/show off one’s tats/get stoned in the bathroom during one’s lunch break. (And, lest we forget, the complete and utter lack of attractive people.) The admission that one works at Target is like a pair of carpenter khakis—you ain’t gonna find a hipster who’ll want to get into those pants.

Notable, yet nebulous exceptions: Scenesters often work at stores like Urban Outfitters or American Apparel—you know, stores that hold open auditions for employees. Hardcore hipsters, however, consider such vocations to be, well, douchey.

PAYING FOR FOOD

Hipsters do not enjoy wasting money on frivolous things such as sustenance. When caught at the crossroads between the taco place (i.e., the place where dinner can be procured) and the bodega (i.e., the place where 40s and Parliaments come from), the bodega will almost inevitably triumph. After spending several long hours listening to records that seem to narrate one’s life, the urge to drink one’s face off and forget that the world exists usually wins out over any lingering hunger pangs. Besides, there’s always a generous supply of dumpster bagels available for the taking—provided they’re rat poison-free.

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