I think that we can all agree that Silverlake, Brooklyn, and Foodies have all jumped the hipster shark. Here are some of the finer examples of hipsterism gone overboard:
“Ruth Bourdain” is the nom-de-text of a hilarious critic of foodie-ism. Observe her recent snark here:
Last night, on our way to a Dodger game with friends, we drove past the latest in mastication technology:
We drove on, because only the most fashionable crash-test dummies and robots eat there.
It seems that the latest food fad is local hipster butchers.
These ladies put the “butch” back in butcher:
And the DIY-types are clamoring to know, “Where can I butcher my own hog?”
But perhaps the pinnacle of tastelessness (or hilarity; you decide) is this:
I’m sure that many of you can top what I’ve posted here. I say, bring it!
URBAN TACO FABRICATOR?
Urban Taco Fabricator.
It appears I will be escaping this neighborhood just in time.
I draw the line at those coffee shops with “pour over” coffee, where they artisanally hand-pour your coffee for you and then charge you $4 or more for, yes, a cup of coffee that is virtually identical to a cup of fresh drip coffee. I first encountered this in Silver Lake, although they have them “everywhere” (I am confined to hipster-friendly geography, apparently). I like good coffee, and I use the pour-over method for my own coffee in the morning because it makes a single cup quickly without a mess, but having an OCD, judgey barista pour the hot water for me while I wait 10 minutes is too much.
Also, the musical-comedy group at Nerd Law School used TWO stock hipster characters in their revue last spring, so hipsters are totally over.
Oh, the butcher thing…wasn’t Julie Powell going to become a butcher for her second book? I think I remember discussing this with a friend as we walked around South Austin (home of many hipsters! and food trucks, which hipsters l guess like?) talking about our mild resentment toward Julie Powell. Ah, in fact she did write a book about it, three years ago; I just didn’t hear of it. I guess maybe Meryl Streep turned down the movie role of Giuseppe, the kindly old Bronx-Italian butcher who shares with Julie not only the wisdom of bovine dismemberment, but a few things about life and love. Also wow, Publishers Weekly hated it. I thought they existed to give good Amazon blurb.
Dave, did we ever tell you our this-actually-happened hipster barista story? And yeah, the hand-poured coffee thing is just cold coffee waiting to happen.
FPS, you just crack me up! And I admit that I had to look up Julie Powell, which earns you 10 hipper-than-thou points.
LP, I believe that you are correct. Nick. of. time.
I think maybe “jump the shark” needs an ancillary term: “jump the hipster.” “Even Hel-Mel has really jumped the hipster.”
The kind of hipster I can still get down with.
Also: Hip before it was cool?
More on the vexed genealogy of the hipster.
What we’ve decided to ID as hipsterish today is really just a new-form yuppiedom, right? The commodification of hip? So much of it has to do with consumption. Of course “taste” has always been bound up with $$, but there’s something here about the development of a whole class of outsiders that used to be economically marginal but now are quite privileged. Hence, rather than supporting the actual old-school butcher in your neighborhood they’ll go to the new “artisanal” butcher who has nicer display cases and higher prices.
I never got around to reading that n+1 book about hipsters. Did anyone else?
Also, Urban Taco Fabrication sounds like it should result in giant Jim Dine-esque tacos made out of used tire rubber or something.
J-Man, I don’t know if you’ve told me your barista story. Tell it again!
My roommate went to one of these artisanal pour-over coffee places recently and told me this story about what happened: The barista set the whole apparatus up and did the initial pour (a little bit of hot water to make the grounds “bloom” before you do the main pour). While they waited for the bloom to bloom, the manager came up and engaged the barista in conversation. Distracted, the barista did not start the main pour in time. According to my roommate, she apologized, threw out the filter and the over-bloomed grounds, and started all over again. She later told my roommate, “You know, that would have been a very good cup of coffee, but it wouldn’t have been as good as it could be.”
jim dine… lol
The transformation of the word hipster from beatnik, jazz-loving cool to overprivileged, self-indulgent pseudo-cool is just a damn shame. We’ve lost a national treasure.
Sigh…. and yet, I love my neighborhood. And, double sigh, Diablo (urban taco fabricator), as much as I wanted to hate it, is really fucking delicious. Among the best tacos I’ve ever had… I guess I’m a hipster, though.
11. Shit.
11: I believe the correct term, according to the Hipster Handbook I have you years ago, is “aging hipster.”
I thought it was “aging-headed hipster.”