Jessica P. OgilvieLast month, Public Policy Polling data confirmed what so many of us have already suspected: America hates hipsters. And it's not just that the majority of us loathe the ironic masses — it's that our loathing makes us positively gleeful. Hipster hatred isn't just a hobby these days; it's a badge of honor.
Nowhere is that more true of Los Angeles, where we're crawling not only with hipsters, but with some particularly annoying sub-species. Here's our list of the five categories of hipsters we especially love to hate.
Credit: Screengrab YouTube
The Drug-Glorifying Vice Hipster
It's 4 a.m. at a party in Echo Park, and slumped up against the wall in a seated fetal is a wistfully skinny girl, her clothing askew, her knees bent into her chest a la Fiona Apple circa “Criminal.”
By this time of the night, her eyeliner is smudged three inches below her bottom lash line; her hair, artfully mussed with sweat, saliva and traces of beer.
But make no mistake about it: This drunken K-hole of a moment is where the magic happens. After all, this is the moment in which, if only Terry Richardson were present, he would find the filtered beauty in her manic pain. It's the moment whence, if she were writing a Vice column (and she might well be), her most profound, Thompson-esque insights would be gleaned.
It is, in short, the moment the drugs have taken hold.
It's this hipster's insistence upon the importance of her chemically-fueled angst that makes her such an easy target for the haters. Because while the rest of the city is out there doing drugs behind closed doors like normal people, she would like the world to know that her high is special, unique…significant.
Credit: Photo by Timothy Norris
The Trendy Coachella Hipster
When Coachella hit Indio back in April, the sands parted and made way for hordes of people to spend three days frolicking about the desert high as kites and making out with trees.
Dressed in jorts, headbands, and doily dresses, the trendy Coachella hipster would have you believe that she's as carefree as her attire suggests. But the truth is that nothing — but nothing — about this hipster is carefree. Indeed: Shopping trips are made especially for the festival. Jorts are measured and cut to within inches of their lives. Upwards of $500 may well be dropped simply to appear as though Urban Outfitters projectile-vomited in his or her general direction.
On top of that, many in this particular breed of hipster don't even know the bands they've allegedly come to see — or, worst of all, they may be so intent on seeming on top of the coolest, most obscure music, they pretend to like bands that don't actually exist (thank you, Jimmy Kimmel).
The trendy Coachella hipster is, then, an unfortunate example of a bandwagon hipster, complete with a desert-sun spotlight.
Turn the page for a breed of hipster that hates you more than you hate them.
Credit: Photo by lindsey gee via Flickr
The Artisanal Food/Wine/Beer Snob Hipster
Despite our antipathy for the hipster species, some of its members are just too adorable to hate (we're looking at you, Zooey Deschanel!). And that's why the food/wine/artisanal beer snob hipster is so great: They hate you before you even have the chance to hate them. That makes your return hatred perfectly justified and something you can exaggeratedly and righteously ratchet up.
This, after all, is the person who judgmentally side-eyes any beer that was brewed in Milwaukee. Who won't drink coffee unless the beans were hand-picked by local vegan unicorns. Who takes you off their Christmas card list if you buy chicken that wasn't given the opportunity to fully self-actualize before being kindly, humanely laid to rest.
This hipster can frequently be seen glaring over his mustache at the person on the other end of the bar who ordered a Coors Light and caused the record to screech to a halt, or dropping lists of obscure ingredients like some hipsters used to drop band names.
The only nice thing about the food/wine/artisinal beer snob hipster is that they want as little to do with the rest of the world as the rest of the world wants to do with them. In that sense, perhaps we can all get along.
Credit: Photo by rawkblog4 via Flickr
The Quirky Silver Lake Hipster, a.k.a. The OG
Before hipsters began their slow takeover of Coachella, before they began brewing beer in their basements and before the first one had a column in Vice, there was the OG hipster, the one who dwelt simply and somewhat unobtrusively in Williamsburg or Silver Lake. This is the hipster who started it all — the first one to put a bird on it, the first one to shop at ModCloth, the first man to drunkenly put on his girlfriend's skinny jeans, say “fuck it,” and leave them on for the next decade.
Their clothes might still have ironic sayings on them. Some of them have even taken it to the next level and gotten those ironic sayings permanently inked on their forearms or — tastefully — just behind their earlobes. Most come complete with every product that Apple has ever produced, and many work away on those products at cafes strewn about Silver Lake like so many fedora-wearing sprinkles on an ice cream sundae.
This hipster has become so common that it wouldn't be fair to try to make assumptions about what kind of work they do, where they come from or what they want out of life. But at this point, people love to hate the OG hipster because … well, it just seems like what was once an interesting and fun trend is simply never going to end.
Which leads us to our final hipster of the day…
Turn the page for the hipster that truly makes us weep for America.
Credit: Photo by solarnu via Flickr
The Aging Eagle Rock Hipster
Perhaps “hate” is too strong a word for the aging Eagle Rock hipster. In fact, perhaps a more appropriate word to use would be something like “acceptance.”
The Eagle Rock hipster has graduated from his days of glorifying drugs. He's gone to Coachella five or six times and is no longer impressed. But he doesn't throw in the hipster towel; his tattoos are permanent, and so, too, is his commitment to tight band t-shirts, locally sourced vegetables and PBR.
The aging Eagle Rock hipster, in other words, has embraced hipsterdom just as he has embraced the creases that are now permanently etched into his forehead. His existence seems to imply that hipsters truly aren't going anywhere; this look and style, even though it was begun over a decade ago, isn't a passing fad.
Yes, that's right: We're stuck with them. It's an urban gift that just keeps on giving.
See also: The Six Types of Transplants Ruining L.A.
Fear and Loathing of Los Angeles: Let Them Keep Hating. We Know Better.
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