How To Be A Hipster…

Oh,the hipster status: So easy to spot, but so difficult to attain. From the threads and music to your college major and apartment, any misstep can make you into a totalposeur.

Wear Hipster Clothes

The first part of hipster life is style. Be advised: Any brand that clearly states you spent good money on your jeans — designer brands – are not for hipsters.

Hipster jeans look like your mom’s hotter friend wore them in the ’80s and lost them down a rain gutter, and you picked them up last week at your neighborhood Goodwill. In reality, you probably bought them at Urban Outfitters for $75 and paid for them with your dad’s creditcard.

Listen to Hipster Music

Next, music. If you aren’t a music buff, don’t worry. Getting down to the nitty gritty of hipster jams is easy if you do your research. Pandora is a great resource, as you can search an acclaimed hipster band like The Pixies. If you like them enough, you can buy a t-shirt from Hot Topic. If you’re looking for a more recent band, start with Animal Collective, Arcade Fire, Belle & Sebastian or Fleet Foxes, as well as some mainstream hip-hop, such as Nicki Minaj or Lil’ Wayne.

And don’t forget to nod your head slowly at all your neighborhood bands’ basement shows as well, buy their records and name drop them pretentiously (even if your best local band is just two dudes who can’t play the 10 gallon bucket and washboard they record with).

Start a Hipster Career

Hipsters also tend to have obscure, intellectual or artsy college degrees. Popular hipster majors and subsequent jobs include, but are not limited to: graphic design, arts administration, studio art, illustration, computer animation, philosophy, women’s studies, anthropology, psychology, communications, film, media production, journalism, literature, etc. It’s all about paying the big bucks to attend a small, private, liberal arts college to get a degree in the things that will teach you the art of traveling, writing, using cameras and sitting on curbs chain smoking and thinking.

Have a Hipster Attitude

Because a hipster’s job prospects might include such titles as bike chain engineer, herb cultivator or collage art critic these people tend to have a certain attitude — a blend of indifference, sleepiness and snobbery. They’re never busier than you are, but they thinkthey are.

Image source: Paste Magazine, Nov. 2009

They do not get too excited about anything. They do not suck up or act like anyone is actually cool (who can be cooler, really?). They always talk about needing coffee or cigarettes or a beer, regardless of the time of day. This combination is particularly common if you are also a runner or vegetarian – nothing adds to a hipster’s mystique like being a running, smoking vegetarian. But, hipsters also tend to know the best local places to grab good, cheap food (although it might be vegan).

Live in a Hipster Apartment

A hipster’s living arrangement is the most paradoxical part of the existence, however. Hipsters tend to have rich parents. Of course, they’d completely lose their hipster status living at home in a McMansion, so hipsters tend to live in small apartments in gritty parts of their cities of choice, with at least two other people. It’s all about street cred, even though the closest most hipsters have ever been to a shootout is a blow-out sale at Anthropologie. Want to find the neighborhood in question? Just look for bohemians, hippies, gays, artists, independent coffee shops, bike shops, college students and street art (but not Shepard Fairey. What. A. Sellout.).

Heed this warning: Hipsters are generally disliked by wannabe hipsters. Mimicry is just another burden the uber-cool must bear, so tread lightly as you become a hipster.

In the end,  you’ll really know you’re a hipster when everyone calls you one but your curt reply is always, “Fuck hipsters.”

Courtesy of Renee Mitson