I was a hipster before being a hipster was hip

This article was originally published in the Sierra Vista Herald on 25 January 2015.

One of the problems with not being a Millennial is that I’m not constantly wired into the social media universe. I don’t get constantly alerted by my phone that there is some vitally important social phenomenon going on right now that will change life as we know it for the next thirty seconds. For instance, I missed that Kim Kardashian break-the-internet thing. References to it kept popping up here and there, but I had no clue what it meant. While at the ASU-UofA game last November, I was sitting next to some ASU students sporting “Break-the-Cat” shirts with Sparky’s face photo-shopped over Kardashian’s in one of her look-at-my-derriere photographs. “Nice shirt,” I said without having any idea what I was seeing. My daughter and son-in-law later had to slowly and carefully explain it to their rotary-dial, dinosaur father. 

My daughter, who is a card-carrying, hipster-qualified, Millennial advised me to check the “trending” feature on FaceBook to stay up with important social developments.  I just checked it.  Jane Fonda admits that posing for photos on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun in 1972 was a huge mistake.  She just figured that out? The other trending story was “DeflateGate,” the allegation that the New England Patriots were deflating footballs to make them easier to throw and catch during the AFC championship game.  But, doesn’t that mean it was easier for the Colts to catch the ball also?  According to my daughter, I can arrange to have these vitally important stories sent to my phone as soon as they break at any time during the day or night.  I don’t know about you, loyal readers, but the only socially significant information that I need to have sent to me in the middle of the night is that there is a meteor headed for my house…or, that Kim Kardashian is headed for my house wearing a Sparky mask. 

However, there is one vitally important social development that I should have been aware of  but, has somehow escaped my attention.  The vitally, important social development that I should have been aware of and wasn’t is that I’ve apparently been a hipster for my entire life.  A hipster is generally defined as someone who follows trends or fashions that are considered outside the cultural mainstream. Again my daughter, who is a font of disturbing information, was explaining to me how she frequents a hipster beer-tasting establishment with her husband.  She tells me that she has to wear a plaid shirt and wear geeky, black horn-rimmed glasses while she’s there. The hipsters like to drink what they consider to be counter-culture beers.   Now this is where it gets weird.  The favorite beer of hipsters is Pabst Blue Ribbon.  Other beers they like are Olympia and Schlitz.  For bourbon, they prefer Wild Turkey.  Are you kidding me?  These are the kinds of drinks that you’d expect to find in a Wilcox honky-tonk.  If you wear a plaid shirt and Buddy Holly eyeglasses while drinking a Schlitz, you’re living a lifestyle that even Barry Goldwater would have been comfortable in.

My, how things change.  I’ve been wearing plaid shirts, geeky glasses, and drinking cheap beer most my entire life.   At no point in my life was this behavior ever seen as cool.  It was just the way it was.  What a shock to find out that everyone from my generation that grew up in Arizona has been on the cutting edge of a nation-wide social coolness phenomenon for fifty years and didn’t even know it.

I hear hipsters like those fat-tired, no gear, bulky framed bicycles to ride.  What’s next?  Slinkies and hula hoops?  The skinny-jeans they like to wear now remind me of the straight-leg, high-water jeans we used to wear as kids.  The difference is that we had to wear ill-fitting jeans because our parents couldn’t afford to buy new ones each time we grew, not because we thought it was cool. 

I’m worried about how far the hipsters might take this glorification of the fashions of my generation.  I don’t mind the fashions of the 50s and 60s, but what if they start assuming the fashions of the 70s?  I don’t think I can stand it if they start wearing polyester, bell-bottomed leisure suits and grow fu-Manchu mustaches on their faces. Maybe I should subscribe to one of those social media phone alert services to warn me at the first sighting of someone wearing a puka shell necklace.  If that happens, you can look for me in a Wilcox honky-tonk wearing a plaid shirt and sipping on a Schlitz, waiting for the fashion trends to change so I’m considered cool once again.   

Me and Kim Kardashian that is.