Hipsters live a lifestyle that is purportedly against the mainstream culture and are typically in their teens to late twenties. A hipster can be identified by his/her choices of clothing, music, coffee shop, home decor, and even vocabulary. The tendency is to be steeped in "indie" culture and to dress in a "bohemian" style.

1 Gain a strong sense of ironic and sarcastic humor. when asked a question, refuse to answer directly, and instead answer with an obvious lie. [for example: (while in a movie theater. something cool just happened onscreen) "oh my god, that was so cool. did you see that?" "no, i paid 8 dollars to come here and stare at the ceiling."] in answering, you can choose whether or not to use a sarcastic tone. but please note that when you don't use a sarcastic tone while saying something sarcastically, the recipient of your sarcasm can mistake your sarcasm for honesty.

2 Knowledge of good music is crucial to becoming a true hipster. If you are into any mainstream music at the current time (ex:Flo Rida, Rihanna, Akon, Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, etc.) throw it all away. Don't even donate it. (you can, however listen to mainstream music with an ironic sense without actually enjoying it. this is much alike to watching crappy old cartoons just to laugh at the crappiness of it.)

3 Now that you know that listening to (and enjoying) mainstream music is the worst thing you can do to yourself as a hipster, you can go on to independent music which is what all real hipsters listen to. The artists and groups are endless. (one good way to decipher whether or not an artist is Hipster, is for you to like them, and for your non-Hipster friends to have never heard of them.) Hipster artists of note include Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Belle & Sebastian, Jens Lekman, Neutral Milk Hotel, Klaxons, Cut Copy, Neon Neon, Margot & The Nuclear So and Sos, and King Khan and the Shrines. Music blogs like Gorilla vs. Bear, and Stereogum may help you with this. Meeting people who are already into these bands will help you as well. Perhaps the most popular hipster music website is pitchforkmedia.com. If they give an album a good rating, it must be quite hip.

4 Namedrop often. Talk about all the obscure bands you like that nobody you know has heard of. When your friends talk about a band you're unfamiliar with, just say you've heard of them but not actually heard them. Look them up the next time you have a chance to. It'll give you more cred.

5 Insult a lot of bands. If you love everything you'll seem like a fanatic. Make sure to give off a vibe that you are too cool and elite for a lot of bands.

6 Remember to use perhaps the most important hipster line: "I liked them before they were cool."

7 In addition, if you would like to seem more educated and elite there is the key phrase " I liked their first Ep, but pretty much after that i never got into them."

8 Fashion is just about as important as your music taste is. Generally, people assume hipsters to shop in thrift stores in attempt to looking vintage. This is really not the case to being a true hipster. The classic "Skinny Jean" is essential to looking hip. Hipsters love ironic eyewear such as shuttershades, oversized plastic framed glasses, Buddy Holly glasses, nerd glasses, and for the ones who can afford it authentic Ray Ban Wayfarers of all the colors of the rainbow. Some of the hipsters wear eyeglasses even though they have 20/20 vision! Guy hipsters actually probably wear skinny jeans more than the girls. Basically, the tighter, the better. Now tops aren't as big of an ordeal as pants are. Ironic tees, plaid shirts, berets, large flower headbands, neon nail polish, bird necklaces, gingham, plaid, checkered, vintage floral cardigan sweaters, fit hoodies, patterned and colorful leggings are all part of the hipster phenomena, especially when they layer/wear them all together without matching exactly. But make sure your pants are tight. Urban Outfitters,H&M and American Apparel are good places to start. ASOS also has many hip pieces. For inspiration check out Lookbook [www.lookbook.nu] or CobraSnake.

9 Food. Start growing your own food. Use compost if possible. If you have absolutely no space to do this, go to a natural foods market instead. Eating meat isn't exactly popular with the hipster culture. Fruit, coffee, oriental food, etc are all hip foods. Technically, they are all a bunch of foodies and love making gourmet meals. You can't really go wrong with lunch from Whole Foods. Many hipsters tend to be vegetarian or vegan.

10 It takes a brave hipster to start dancing. In fact, if you want to spot a hipster, just turn around the next time you are at a show and see them standing in the back discussing Stella or PBR in a can. Sometimes, if the music and setting is right, you will witness Hipsters engaging in dance movements. Hipster dancing, if done right, does not use so much of the hips as it does the upper body and arms. Lots of swinging your head back and forth. Remember to only do this if you are not humiliated easy. Although you will rarely see hipsters dancing at shows, they tend to enjoy separate dance parties where they can dance to an array of more upbeat hipster dance music

11 Female hipsters love to use Tumblr, Blogspot or Wordpress taking photos with their Holga cameras of cross-processed and "dreamy-like" pictures of themselves in a field, by the ocean, in forests, in their hipster rooms. Usually it is to express their desire for beautiful and soft vintage things that is reflected in their photography. A lot of them have pictures of their feet for some odd reason. If you know of a hipster girl that knows the terms "re-blog" or "follow me on blogspot" then that's definitely one of the indicators of a female hipster.

12 Denial. Hipsters will never call themselves hipsters. On the contrary, they tend to deny their "hipster-ness" at each possible turn. In addition, they will make a point of chastising other people for being hipsters. Denial is one of the most important roles of a hipster.

3/22/2010 6:39:47 PM

WORDS

(and GGMON so i wouldn't have read anyway)

[Edited on March 22, 2010 at 6:40 PM. Reason : .]

3/22/2010 6:40:22 PM

she is on step 12

3/22/2010 6:41:32 PM

lots of idiots are obsessed with hipsters

3/22/2010 6:42:47 PM

THIS THREAD IS FUCKING HILARIOUS!

3/22/2010 6:43:35 PM

meh

3/22/2010 6:45:11 PM

JesusFuckingChrist. How many goddamn hipster threads do we need around here???

3/22/2010 6:46:02 PM

I bet GGMon listens to 96Rock and wears jorts.

3/22/2010 6:50:54 PM

13. Hipsters can't be Fat.

3/22/2010 6:52:16 PM

lots of stage 12 hipsters in this thread so far

3/22/2010 6:56:58 PM

THIS THREAD IS FUCKING HILARIOUS!

3/22/2010 6:59:44 PM

No mention of ironic facial hair?

3/22/2010 7:09:10 PM

Some of these are out of date. For instance, girls don't use Holgas any more, because there is a Holga-style setting for the iPhone Hipstamatic.

3/22/2010 7:09:21 PM

I realize this thread is about hipsters....which I am not. Hear me out, maybe I can offer some insight.

I am in outside sales, which is currently salary+commission, but will move into straight commission starting at the beginning of July 2010. I have been in this position since July 2009. I have competition from several direct manufacturing sales reps, large distributors, and local distributors. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each:

Direct Advantages: Immediate knowledge of new technology, no middle man mark up, one shipping bill (paid by manufacturer or buyer of goods), access to larger range of non-commodity items, control inventory, have access to many distributors that can effectively sell their goods which increases market share, and set prices of commodity they manufacture.

Direct disadvantages: Typically have 1-3 sales reps per region (i.e. southeast, mid-atlantic, northeast, etc.) limiting the number of accounts they can successfully manage/cold-call, lack physical customer service or physical technical service available to or affordable for smaller users or altogether, are sometimes not trustworthy because they will go in behind their distributors that sell their commodity to one account in large quantities (i.e. they missed a big account, and have found out about it through a distributor selling their particular product) which leads to the distributor not selling their product anymore, have too many distributors selling the product ultimately driving the set price down through deviations, possibly rely on distributors to actually sell the product, and competition from other direct sources.

Large distributor advantages: have access to other commodities that go hand in hand with other manufacturers (poor example- grocery stores sell milk as well as cereal), get direct pricing, many locations regionally or nationally easing the shipping burden of buyers with multiple locations, personal service either customer or technical, many sales reps that are able to cover a broader territory, access to multiple manufacturers of the same commodity allowing to keep prices in check, service programs that smaller companies can't offer and direct providers can't match in price or value, and experts of many many commodities as opposed to one or a few.

Large distributor disadvantages: smaller local distributors creating price wars (think Michael Scott Paper Co vs Dunder-Mifflin), direct mfg's going in behind and stealing business, limited access to all of the mfg's (you won't find Harris Teeter name brands in Food Lion and visa versa), can't truly set prices because it's based on both supply and demand, territory management, and tough growth prospects in slower economies (this is true for direct as well really)

Local distributor advantages: Typically a good ol' boy setting where the seller and the buyer know each other for years (this does happen at all levels, but mostly at the local level), local folks are right down the street and can be used in emergencies, if the local guy buys at high enough volumes then there is no shipping charge to the end user, and access to both direct mfg's and large distributors.

Local distributor disadvantages: easily beaten in price, array of commodities, array of technology, lack of trained staff, low cash flow, etc etc etc.

This is what I have noticed in my six months, I am sure there are plenty more that need mentioning. The way I am setting myself apart as a sales person is this: I go after the big accounts right now while I am new. The big accounts, if I land them, will take care of me while I am new and building a customer base. The money made off of those allows me to focus free time on smaller accounts that get me higher margins. I build up big accounts, I would like to have 5-10 of these, then get 20-30 medium accounts. If I lose 1 or 2 big accounts, the 20-30 medium accounts keep me afloat while I go after new big accounts. I don't really waste time on small accounts simply because they basically pay for breakfast or something really small.

I will say this, if you can't get a big account in the first 6-8 months (assuming you have cash flow that you can ride this long) you could be in a world of trouble. If you can get one, it will really make going after the others a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. It's simply just very exhausting wasting any time on anything other than big accounts in the very beginning. You work just as hard on the medium sized accounts and see 1/3 to 1/36 of the money in my situation.

If you have any other questions, you can PM me. I hope this helps in the slightest!

3/22/2010 7:11:18 PM

I've been wondering what it would mean to wear "ironic" clothes or have "ironic" facial hair. Is irony just a synonym for "weird" at this point?

3/22/2010 7:13:44 PM

^irony is used in place of the word people actually mean, sarcastic.

as in, if a dude is wearing a circa-1998 shirt featuring NSYNC, or a girl has a corporate brand, a la Mr. Bubble, emblazoned across their chest they aren't actually supporting the band or product, they're sarcastically pointing out how empty and stupid they are. in some instances this isn't the motivation and the person is actually attempting to embrace the nostalgia of said item. this all applies to both stupid t-shirts and stupid facial hair.

people are the worst.

3/22/2010 7:52:49 PM

we should retire the words irony and ironic. smack my bitch up

3/22/2010 7:58:09 PM

3/22/2010 8:00:44 PM

If you have a Mr. Bubble t-shirt, you're supporting Mr. Bubble, because the only way to get one is to buy a bottle and get the coupon off the back to send in.

3/22/2010 8:16:19 PM

^unless you purchased the shirt second hand.

3/22/2010 8:50:52 PM

i guess my point was that to the best of my knowledge mr. bubble hasn't sold out their trademarks to the "vintage tee" distributors

3/22/2010 8:53:37 PM

my point was that your point was lame.

3/22/2010 9:01:44 PM

do you expect me to read all of that?

3/22/2010 9:05:38 PM

3/22/2010 9:05:53 PM

ibt BettrOffDead NONE OF YOU PEOPLE HAVE A FUCKING CLUE post

also, i don't think neutral milk hotel belongs on the hipster artists list

3/22/2010 9:13:09 PM

nvm

[Edited on March 22, 2010 at 9:21 PM. Reason : .]

3/22/2010 9:20:44 PM

Wouldn't telling people about the bands you like because nobody knows about them be counter-productive?

A real hipster should say "This band is awesome, but I'm not going to tell you who it is, (insert whatever derogatory word hipsters use for normal people)"

3/22/2010 9:48:02 PM

I have a shirt with an Oregon Trail picture and the words "You have died of dysentery." I sometimes worry that people will think it is ironic. In reality I have both played that game and had real-life dysentery.

You know, just in case you should ever see me in the shirt and wonder.

3/22/2010 9:57:32 PM

Quote :

"I have a shirt with an Oregon Trail picture and the words "You have died of dysentery.""

one of my top 5 favorite shirts that I have owned for years now

3/22/2010 10:06:46 PM

im a fan of the hipster backlash...

such as people currently saying hipsters are totally into local organic expensive coffee (blue bottle and stumptown). I heard the other day it was "such a hipster thing to do" to buy shitty bodega coffee.

WHO KNOWS

3/22/2010 10:16:04 PM

Fair trade coffee gives me awful diarrhea.

3/23/2010 7:01:22 PM

http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Hipster

i find out you lol'd them all.

3/24/2010 3:39:54 AM

how TWW has changed over the years.

8 years ago, there would be tons of threads hating on frat guys and sorostitutes.

now it's all hipster hate.

3/24/2010 8:20:29 AM

There's room to hate all 3 groups.

3/24/2010 8:34:33 AM

3/24/2010 8:59:12 AM

Quote :

"9 Food. Start growing your own food. Use compost if possible. If you have absolutely no space to do this, go to a natural foods market instead. Eating meat isn't exactly popular with the hipster culture. Fruit, coffee, oriental food, etc are all hip foods. Technically, they are all a bunch of foodies and love making gourmet meals. You can't really go wrong with lunch from Whole Foods. Many hipsters tend to be vegetarian or vegan."

I live less than a mile away from a Trader Joes, a Whole Foods, a Starbucks, a Twisted Noodles (Thai), and an Evos which is a "healthy and environmentally sound fast food chain, featuring soy, veggie, turkey, and salmon burgers, baked fries, and fruit smoothies."

3/24/2010 9:02:23 AM