Hipsters? Scenekids?

The hipster has changed from the image portrayed by Robert Lanham's The Hipster Handbook from several years ago. My sister and I mulled over this on a car trip.

The hipster is deemed "cool by the cool." This is still true. However, the popular things, the favorite places, all of this is different now. And now there is a new group: the hipster/scenekids. I'm not talking scenekids like, your kid with two or three different hair colors and loves emo; I'm taking a broader view. I'm talking your kids who want to be hipsters, love the scene that is hipsterism, go to too many indie concerts, et cetera. The kids who namedrop "Galaxy," "Plan 9," "Toad's Place." Do you know these kids? I sure as hell do. They listen to bands named something you would call your older brother when you're askin' for a smack, a pastry and a body of water, plural words that end with, instead of an "s," the ever-ironic "z," and things you see around your kitchen.

Originally, the hipster was just a more-mature scenekid. Does this make scenekid/hipsters the middleground? I don't know.

Sociology really confuses me.

Some overtly trite people like to say "You shouldn't categorize people." But hipster/scenekids are practically asking for an ideological term.

So I was trying to find the difference between the hipsters and the hipster/scenekid, more than the obvious "hipsters are actually cool," and I fell upon an answer that was right in front of me the whole time: hipster/scenekids love the beatles, the biggest sellouts ever, and try to act like the beatles are underappreciated and have all kinds of underlying truths in such beautiful songs as "Why Don't We Do it in the Road?" and "Rocky Raccoon." Not that I don't love to listen to the Beatles. But I can't deny that they were some of the biggest douchebags ever. Hipster/Scenekids love Across the Universe.

Indeed, the Hipster/Scenekids are becoming too recognizeable, and it is in this way that they have eluded the ever-sought hipsterness. Questionable Content, an online comic about indie people, (http://questionablecontent.net/) is a prime example of this. I read this comic and think "Hey! There's my friend Julia Coppinger!" (Love ya, Jules!)

And for this reason I don't think I am a hipster/scenekid because I am too mean and don't really care about offending people. There's no motivation for me to explain ironic political incorrectness. I think doing that is an insult to your intelligence. These members of an Indie sub-group will pretend to be politically incorrect until one comes upon the issue of homosexuality or some other nonsense and then suddenly they're prim and proper and polite and ernest and never meant to offend.

Is there now a new hipster, now that the old image was corrupted by a bunch of art-highschool kids? Could my sister and I perhaps be the new hipsters, as hipsters don't know they're hipsters? After all, hipsters do have "one republican friend." Could the one republican friend have stolen the scene?

Lua

I'm narcissistic.

I'm listening to Bright Eyes. Bright Eyes is an indie girl's dream.

Why am I so against being friends with Indie people? I am so goddamn self-conscious. They're alright people, even if they are sort of rude sometimes. I know I'm rude sometimes. I should forgive them. They may be silly and fad-ish but so is everyone. Their only problem is that they think they aren't that way.

Oh, God. Just let me get over myself. I can't love Jacob. I'm too conceited. Oh, God, let me love people. Just let me find friendship. I can be friends with silly people.

Oh, God, I'm so melodramatic.

I just can't take anyone seriously.

Everyone wants to be taken seriously for their silly art or manic depression or disabilities or something. I think I'm the only person on earth who would rather be the fool who is the source of lucidity in troubled times than the pensive hero with a dark and troubled past.

Let me get over myself, please, God. I take myself so seriously. I'm no better than any hipster-scenekids. I don't like any music. I only like what my friends like. I don't like any art. I have no interests. I try to care about religion but I can only focus on God when I'm in a fanciful state of mind.

I love you all, okay?

Nobody reads this blog, but I love you all anyway. I love you even though you just see me as your token Republican friend. Or your free spirit. Your unique person.

I get that a lot. People tell me I'm unique and a free spirit and that they've never met anyone like me. People tell me I'm beautiful. It's their fault I'm so goddamn conceited. I'm none of those things. I'm an arrogant bastard who doesn't care about other people. All I care about is narrating the story of a hidden genius trapped in a world of shallow and narrow-minded people.

I am really self-loathing, though, too. I think if I were a boy girls would find me the to be the sensitive, artistic type. I would be Bright Eyes, only I can't play guitar.

I would be Bright Eyes on the violin.

I don't give a shit.

How do I meet more people who don't give a shit about social faux pas? Hipster-scenekids really care about that kind of thing.

I need people who don't give a fuck about anything. About school or the fucking environment or fucking politics. Politics is shit. I'm sick of kids my age calling themselves "liberal" like they know anything about politics. I make jokes about Republicans and they say "Is that really what republicans believe? That black people should be slaves?"

Why are they so sure they're liberal if they don't even know what other political groups believe? In grade school your teacher always tells you on multiple choice assignments to not just choose the first answer that SOUNDS right. Read all of them.

I wouldn't call myself a republican except that I care about abortion. Political parties are dumb and give idiots an excuse to gather. There are tons of dumb republicans; there are just as many people who are republicans because they were raised that way as democrats. The only difference is that republicans never get to experience those endorphins released by feeling self-righteous. The media hates republicans.

That's really why I'm a republican. If everyone hates them, they've gotta be pretty cool, right?

Damned Vegetarians...

Vegetarianism seems like a nice idea. It's defiant and trendy and hardcore. Right?

Not so, my openminded friend. Vegetarianism is a feel-good ideal that is pointless unless taken 2DX-treme. As a non-vegetarian, it seems like more of an opportunity to feel self-righteous than make a statement about cruelty to animals. Now if you're vegan, that's another story. You can at least walk the walk.

What is vegetarianism, after all? Vegetarianism is when a teenager who buys things from thrift stores decides that, for the sake of animals, eating the small amount of powdered chicken found in Ramen is cruel and inhumane. However, this doesn't keep them from eating store-bought eggs and milk, which are obtained from animals kept alive in conditions less humane than the ones in which they are slaughtered.

I mentioned this to one of my vegetarian friends, and she said "Cows and stuff have to be milked or they'll be in pain." Not so, my blonde-haired friend. The reason cows lactate indefinitely is because humans are fucking with them and giving them hormones. In the wild, they would lactate until their calves were weened. As for chickens, one could say that without humans their eggs would go to waste, but in reality humans bred them to produce unfertilized eggs. It's kind of creepy, isn't it? Humans fuck up animals. But I'm not even close to a vegetarian, so I shouldn't be the one complaining. But that's not the issue. The issue is that people who care about animals enough to not eat their meat shouldn't be eating any kind of milk and eggs that aren't free range. Heck, I'd eat free range for sure if I cared about animals enough to go shopping with my parents.

Who is this?

I don't know who this man is, but he looks like a douchebag. It looks like he bought his hair at Hot Topic. Notice his sporty lil goatee.

It really is true what they say...time makes fools of us all.

Paper makes the best bagels of all

In response to my earlier blog, I have a friend at school that is a total Jew. He has a Jew 'fro and sometimes takes out bagels in class and refuses to share them. He claims he isn't Jewish, that he is Christian, and that I should stop trying to convert him to being Jewish even though I'm Catholic. I told him I'm just trying to get him to accept his heritage. So I made a list of Jewish names for him to choose from--Malachai, Melchisedek, Mazda, Yisrael, Matisyahu. He chose "Mazda" and I was like "Hell no. You're Malachai." and so he was so mad that he balled up the piece of paper. Then I told him to eat it and he did. It was awesome. I love it when guys do what I say.

Favorite Jews

My favorite Jewish Boy Names: Jedediah, Mordechai, Matisyahu, Yisrael

Why is it that when I search for "Jewish boy names" on google it gives me "jewish baby boy names"? What if I don't want to name a baby, I want to name a grown-up kid? Where do I find those names?

LOLLZ

You know what? I love looking at liberal bumper stickers online. They're better than movies. Like, "Dad, dad, when is the netflix coming?" "Three days. We sent off the old ones today." And one says to oneself, "Don't get upset. You can go look at that one about Bullshit again. It had you cracked up for weeks. You even got in trouble for repeating it to people during class." So, you go to those websites again and just read all of them, and then get kind of confused, and try to tell people all the funny jokes, but then you can't, because you realize it's a play on the spelling and stuff.

But, I mean, whoever says computers don't teach you anything is full of crap. I learn a lot about politics from those, and other things, too. I mean, I've learned several languages from those. Like, Iraq is "Vietnam" in Arabic. I feel really embarrassed now, because I've been saying it wrong for years! Those have also taught me many interesting facts about history and wars and stuff. I know a lot more about our country's status in the world because of them! Like, did you know that there's a village in Texas that's missing its idiot? George Bush needs to take quick action. I feel sorry for those people. Because I know how they feel, exactly. But you shouldn't even joke about it. The idiot, or "fool", as some people would title him, can be a really important part of society. I'm not even kidding. In a lot of Shakespeare's works, while the fool may be an object of ridicule, he can also be a source of lucidity in troubled times. I mean, for serious, sometimes the fool says the wisest words in the whole play. Like, this one time I was on a field trip...you could call it the field trip from heck. When I say "heck", I mean it very figuratively. But don't get wrong, I don't use that word very loosely. Our class clown got lost. My teacher did the headcount and she said, "Oh, my God, we're missing that idiot kid." And then, in my heart, I realized how much I was really missing him. I mean, I almost cried. You don't understand. My friend Ned was crying his little eyes out. (We were in 4th grade, hence the "little".) Then we realized that he was sick that day and hadn't come at all. But then I missed him even more. And after school, I went to his house, because I missed him so much. And I had a special delivery for him: a hug, and some chicken noodle soup I had my mom pick up from the Ukrops after I got off the bus.

I don't know what George Bush has to do with that, but it's probably his fault, because according to the detectives and The Enquirer, Hurricane Katrina is also his fault. Like, I read the Enquirer all the time and this one time there was this story about this dog with nine lives and it was true because it even had a picture and they interviewed its owner. And it's called "The Enquirer", it has to be enquire about something. I mean, don't quote me on this, but Kanye West, my African-American favorite musical artist ever, says George Bush hates black people. And he's probably right, because he's black and he'd know. I mean, I'm not black, I wouldn't know. But when people unfriend me on myspace I'm pretty sure they hate me, I mean, I can tell. I mean, please bear with me, but I mean, George Bush unfriended all the black people with Hurricane Katrina. Figuratively, of course. He's like Hitler.

Indie has changed

Instead of the Beatles-influenced sweet sounding guitar ditties that was the Indie I came to love, Indie is now mostly techno, and video game techno at that. The real pretty stuff, like the 60s influenced stuff that was folksy and bluesy sounding, I liked that. I like the fun techno stuff, but it's not the same. Of course, Indie just means it's an independent label, but one can't deny that there's an image that goes along with it, there's a subculture that is skinny youths in undersized t-shirts.


Thus is the way of the world..

Fuck Shoes

Every morning during my first classes I go crazy and I want to run around and miss class and shout a lot. My sister says this is because I am anxious and she would probably know because we have the same mom and dad. I hate the morning classes. I can't stop squirming around and relax and pay attention. I always hope for a diversion and an excuse to start laughing. Today I took off my shoes in Latin Class. A boy asked my why I wasn't wearing shoes and I said, "I've been waiting all day for someone to ask me that. If you know anything about my history with shoes, you know what I say is 'fuck shoes.'" and he said "Okay, Dane Cook."

I know that was really pointless but it's an example of how freakin' out I am in the morning. I actually like it when people tell really boring, pointless stories because it makes me feel less retarded. I have like twenty notecards due tomorrow and I've done like nine.

This is the first day of your life (earnestly)

Today was the first day of my life.

At least, according to an upperclassman in my piano class. And she was completely earnest, too. Apparently I will be living it up at my art high school, surrounded by opportunity: the gay men and hairy men and sassy old men, one of which is my eighty year-old piano teacher. I have to admit, for how sassy he is he isn't annoying.

The night before the first day of high school, my sister asked me if I was nervous, and I said no, I was just tired. So I tried to sleep. Eventually I got to sleep around twelve-thirty or so. And in the morning, I was tired, and I trundled off to school late-ish, and got there in time, but not in time to figure out how to open my locker.

As I walked toward the school, I felt kind of sheepish as I saw the older kids; if there's one thing that intimidates me, it's my peer that are older than me. I'm not scared of grown-ups or people my own age, but upperclassmen--like mean, patronizing older siblings. I felt anxious right at that moment, thinking, "How did I make it this far?" I'd always thought I would drop dead or something at the end of eighth grade. Not like in a nihilistic way--I just didn't think beyond it. Even the day before I started high school, I felt it was surreal. How could I go to high school? I'd always been teased by older cousins and siblings for naivety, being younger than them, and lack of life experience.

I wasn't sorely disappointed. But I had had high expectations. I expected people to not be shy, to take to each other, to me, immediately. And they did take to each other. Because they knew each other from school. But I had to rely on the people who didn't know anyone else for company--I tried to mingle with the group, but the truth is, they're shy to me. It wasn't a total waste of a day, I guess. As it happens, good things did happen. I like to think I was friendly enough to make possible future friends. I did develop a rather nasty headache.