Alone Again (Naturally)

Someone once told me that hating hipsters makes you one, to which I say bullshit. I hate hipsters and no one who has ever met me would accuse me of being a hipster. I am too fat, too old, and too tired to live ironically. I am not attracted to men with deliberately stupid facial hair, or to women who sell vagina jewelry on Etsy. I choose my clothing based on what doesn't chafe. Yeah, I know, no hipster would ever admit to being a hipster, but it doesn't follow that everyone who denies being a hipster is, by definition, a hipster. I'm not the Batman, either, and saying so doesn't make me the Batman. Or does it?

The thing is, I am not, nor have I ever been a ____. Whatever goes in that space, I haven't been it. The closest I ever came was when I was about 14 and all I listened to was metal and I only wore black, but that was more about me being REALLY FUCKING ANGRY than being a part of something. I think it's because being a part of something involves other people, and I have a longstanding policy against that. Yeah, I have friends, but I don't have a group. Seems to me like hipsters exist in groups...in which they make bad art and listen to bands you've never heard of (for a good reason) and just generally feel superior together. Shit, I don't know what they do. I don't really care. They look smelly.

Pop culture tells us that attractive, successful and likeable people travel in packs. That's normal. That's what social animals do. Well, I hate packs. I hate the way people act in them -- groupthink and peer pressure and all that. I was asked a few years ago by some hipster dude what my "community" was. Pretty sure he was just trying to figure out which team I played for, but I looked at him blankly, in his stupid little t-shirt, eating his stupid vegan lunch, and told him, "Oh, I don't really have a community. I'm kind of on my own." What the hell kind of question is that, anyway? Are you working on a degree in sociology? Are you going to invite me to join your cult? He seemed to imply that I needed a community in order to have an identity. Well, I don't. If you've got a community, good for you, but please take me off your mailing list.

I don't know who the hell I am and you probably don't, either. I used to think it would be nice, or at least easier, to have a label. Sure, I've considered many communities, but I just don't like package deals. I'm an a la carte kind of gal.

And I am not a hipster.