google news nz: Love/Hate Relationships w/ Hipsters

I had the inspiration to write this post yesterday after coming across Flavorwire?s ?Hipsters on TV,? in which they covered some of their favorite hipster characters over the years starting at Happy Days? Fonzie all the way to Parks and Recreation?s April Ludgate. Not entirely sure how I would begin this post, I decided to give myself an extra day to let it simmer so that I could write something coherent and not too biased.

Why do people love hipsters?

Why do people hate hipsters?

The only way for me to approach this post was to answer these two questions and to keep them separate from each other, but of course I let in several other factors. I remembered that one scene from Juno where Ellen Page talks about the guy (Sean Cameron from Degrassi) who always treats her like dirt, but secretly would date her if he had the chance. I thought about the article I read earlier this week in which I learned that The New Girl was renewed for a second season and it was because the whole world was infatuated by her character. Somehow I couldn?t seem to get this newsfeed post out of my head that a friend posted about hipsters not being able to dance and then proceeding to blame the entire city of Seattle as being a failure for it.

Using these bits and pieces as well as my own background knowledge in the matter, I decided to form a ??theory.? WHOA communication class, look what you?re doing for me already!

Non-hipsters have a love/hate relationship with hipsters because they secretly love the qualities and traits that are associated with them, but they will almost never admit it. You love hipsters because they represent a different type of lifestyle than the one you live. They are the type of people that are in the know before the rest of the world. For example, you know how Japan is able to predict fashion trends about a year ahead of everyone else? This is the same thing. Hipsters are well in tune with what is happening before everyone. Maybe you heard Young the Giant?s ?My Body? for the first time at the Video Music Awards and you thought it was great. Yes, you?re right. It?s a great song, but hipsters were the ones that were probably living in the same hometown of Irvine as the band and watching them at local venues that hold at max only 70 people when the band performed there back in high school. I?m not saying that hipsters are the type of obnoxious people that actively seek out newcomers so that they can proclaim they ?discovered them before the mainstream did, ? some do ? but most of them just fall into it by chance.

People love hipsters because:

a) they dress better. Yes, I said it. They have the ability to thrift better than you do and make their entire outfit look better than your one pair of designer jeans that you simply wore with a plain sweater. While you were still wearing your Juicy Couture terry suits in high school, people like Tavi Gevinson were becoming style icons.

b) they are foodies. Forget fast food, hipsters always know about the best up and coming restaurants in the area and they are there opening night.

c) they thrive in the arts. Photographers, musicians, artists, designers ? they all seem to excel in whatever they do and they continue to blow everyone?s minds with the projects that they have. Sofia Coppola, Mark Hunter, Scott Schuman, Zach Hyman ? this list could go on forever. The Talks discovered the other day that Scott Schuman earned a quarter of a million dollars alone just for shooting an American Apparel ad campaign earlier this year. The man runs a street style blog ? but okay it?s a pretty great one.

d) the manic pixie dream girls like Zooey Deschanel. You can?t exactly figure them out, but you love them anyway. How do they get away with the quirky things that come out of their mouth and why are they so darn cute all the time?

e) they are smart. Hipsters are an intellectual bunch. They read and study everything. Not everyone can be a James Franco example, but this one seemed to fit pretty well.

f) hipsters get stuff done. They aren?t afraid to pursue new ventures and that is why hipsters are successful in their careers. Granted, not all hipsters are the same, but most of the time we hear more about the successful hipsters than the ones that are not ? Alexa Chung, Harley Viera-Newton, Matthew Gray Gubler, Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

In short, hipsters do many of the same things that everyone else does in real life, but sometimes they?re just better at it than you. And you hate them for that. You hate them because you don?t understand their culture and so you put them down. You judge them and call them dirty, can?t understand the way they dress, hate their dancing and their music, but secretly you want to know how they do the things they do. Don?t we all? I mean I think I would love to know what it was like to live a day in the life of a true hipster.

?future project?

[Evan, I hope you don't hate this post too much]