The Whole Hipster Horror
In the evening I ventured into my local Hackney Hipster pub. It serves a small selection of imported beers and de rigeur Hipster pizza, baked in the de rigeur moulded pizza oven, which resembles a Mongolian yurt, with a de rigeur shiny, polished steel chimney rising out of the top of it, like a sparkling telescope on a tiny hilltop. The furniture was recycled, all de rigeur mis-matched wooden chairs and second-hand leather club couches. The staff are uniformly Hipster: to this end the boys all have number-one-cropped back and sides, with a lank mop of long hair scraped back over the top of the very cool cranium; this is offset by straggly, pubic, Ned Kelly beards. The girls all have ponytails and wear cotton print dresses teamed with big, clunky, ironic boots. In the Hipster manner, all staff are required to exhibit an inordinate amount of self-interest at all times, even during the taking of orders from the customers. Hence, it was not uncommon for one of the bar-persons to break away in mid-sentence to a hapless person standing at the bar attempting to make an order, in order to advise their fellows about a television program that is de rigeur Hipster viewing. This is all done with the broadest of smiles, so the customer barely registers that there has been a huge breach in accepted customer service.
The regular customers proved to be no-less obnoxious than the staff. All were middle-class (which is not necessarily their fault), and decidedly middle-brow (which is definitely their fault). I sat with my pint of cider, awaiting my admittedly, so it turned out, delicious, sparsely-laden Hipster pizza. A man came to the counter with a toddler and a young boy. These were Reuben and Christian, as it transpired. Upon entry, Christian, the older of the two, made a beeline for the toilet.
"I'm going for a pee pee, Daddy!", it yelled over its shoulder.
"Alright, darling!", yelled the father from the bar, "Wash your hands, won't you?" The younger, more unfortunate-looking child, stamped its Gollum feet and screamed,
"I want to pee pee, too!" At this, the father left his post at the bar, in mid-order, picked up the grotesque and marched it into the Gents, leaving the push-chair propped across the bar. Other people drifted in and manouvered around it, only to be soundly-ignored by the bar staff.
Three young Hipster women arrived at the bar. The severely-thin one in the middle wore severely-cropped, severely-bleached hair, khaki cargo pants that finished just below the bony knees, and long dangling earrings. Her bare, rake-thin calves travelled down to brown ankle boots. They looked like mop handles protruding from little buckets. Each calf had a tattoo of the points of a compass mid-way down. The effect was rather repulsive. Suddenly, one of the other girls in the trio spotted another friend walking past the lovely curved street window. She screeched a shrill welcome that cut across all other conversation in the room like a scimitar.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAA!... AAAAAAAAAAA! THERE she is!" At this, she ran, squawking into the street to waylay her friend, her big, clunky, ironic boots stomp-stomp-stomping across the bare floorboards.
And now the young father and his two frightening children returned from the toilet. Christian immediately jumped up onto the front of his younger brother's push-chair and sprawled his thin elbows across the bar. He started yelling, "A drink! A drink! A drink! I want a drink!" The father, clearly unused to stopping his children doing anything they wanted, and yet torn by the reproaching looks several of us were giving him, now simply said, "Alright, Christian, let's try and have a sense of proportion, darling".
I looked about the room for some respite from the horror around me and I found it in a lovely Afro-Caribbean woman in her mid-thirties who sat at the next table with a German man around the same age. It was heartwarming to watch her body language. She was leaning towards him, right across the table, intently listening to his conversation, her eyes drinking him in, breathing in unison with him, regularly reaching across to touch him on the arm, reassuringly, each time he paused. A short while later one of the leather couches became vacated and she grabbed his sleeve and steered him to it, where she sat up close next to him. I estimated that they would be fucking within half an hour, despite his evident reluctance, or, perhaps, was it his natural Germanic coolness. In any event, I wished them all the very best for the night to come.
One of the Hipster barmaids saw something out on the street and went charging outside on her big, clunky, ironic boots. I watched through the windows, fascinated, as she began a conversation with a young Hipster couple out there. The boy was carrying a Dachshund puppy under his denim jacket. The barmaid could be seen imploring him to let her hold it. This he did, lifting the wretched, shivering creature aloft and passing it over to her. She went gaga over the thing, making baby faces and wobbling her head at it. After a few minutes of this she returned inside, where she caught sight of a bigger quarry - a Staffordshire puppy that was sitting at a table with its Hipster owners: a willowy young man with de rigeur bright sleeve-tattoos and de rigeur Ned Kelly pubic-beard, and his waif-like girlfriend. The dog wore a de rigeur studded collar.
"Aww! Waddaliddel cutie!" The barmaid said. She dropped to a crouch beside the animal and held its square head between her pale, thin hands.
"I'm sorry, darling", she told the grinning Staffie, "I've been unfaithful wid a boodiful widdle puppy outside! Can 'oo ever forgib me? I know I bwoke your widdle heart, baby." She then went on to explain to the Hipster couple that she had had a dog in her native America, which she had rescued from a pound.
"Yeah, it was a poor widdle baby that was born near a swamp, so it had no hair whatsoever. We looked after it so good! Gave it medicine and cream rubs and all that. So it grew all its hair back again. I loved that little critter so damned much!" The Hipster boy asked her what had become of it.
"Oh, we sold it when I knew I wanted to come here to London."
And now the Gollum child, Reuben, was yelling at his older brother from their position at the bar,
"Daddy took me to go pee pee and I didn't want to have a pee pee. I thought I did want to pee pee but I didn't! No pee pee came out."
I finished my cider and walked out of the establishment, ruminating on the stultifying conservatism of the whole Hipster aesthetic. Having swept across the western world over the last decade it presents itself as 'alternative', 'left-leaning' and 'globally-conscious', when in fact it is the polar opposite.
The regular customers proved to be no-less obnoxious than the staff. All were middle-class (which is not necessarily their fault), and decidedly middle-brow (which is definitely their fault). I sat with my pint of cider, awaiting my admittedly, so it turned out, delicious, sparsely-laden Hipster pizza. A man came to the counter with a toddler and a young boy. These were Reuben and Christian, as it transpired. Upon entry, Christian, the older of the two, made a beeline for the toilet.
"I'm going for a pee pee, Daddy!", it yelled over its shoulder.
"Alright, darling!", yelled the father from the bar, "Wash your hands, won't you?" The younger, more unfortunate-looking child, stamped its Gollum feet and screamed,
"I want to pee pee, too!" At this, the father left his post at the bar, in mid-order, picked up the grotesque and marched it into the Gents, leaving the push-chair propped across the bar. Other people drifted in and manouvered around it, only to be soundly-ignored by the bar staff.
Three young Hipster women arrived at the bar. The severely-thin one in the middle wore severely-cropped, severely-bleached hair, khaki cargo pants that finished just below the bony knees, and long dangling earrings. Her bare, rake-thin calves travelled down to brown ankle boots. They looked like mop handles protruding from little buckets. Each calf had a tattoo of the points of a compass mid-way down. The effect was rather repulsive. Suddenly, one of the other girls in the trio spotted another friend walking past the lovely curved street window. She screeched a shrill welcome that cut across all other conversation in the room like a scimitar.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAA!... AAAAAAAAAAA! THERE she is!" At this, she ran, squawking into the street to waylay her friend, her big, clunky, ironic boots stomp-stomp-stomping across the bare floorboards.
And now the young father and his two frightening children returned from the toilet. Christian immediately jumped up onto the front of his younger brother's push-chair and sprawled his thin elbows across the bar. He started yelling, "A drink! A drink! A drink! I want a drink!" The father, clearly unused to stopping his children doing anything they wanted, and yet torn by the reproaching looks several of us were giving him, now simply said, "Alright, Christian, let's try and have a sense of proportion, darling".
I looked about the room for some respite from the horror around me and I found it in a lovely Afro-Caribbean woman in her mid-thirties who sat at the next table with a German man around the same age. It was heartwarming to watch her body language. She was leaning towards him, right across the table, intently listening to his conversation, her eyes drinking him in, breathing in unison with him, regularly reaching across to touch him on the arm, reassuringly, each time he paused. A short while later one of the leather couches became vacated and she grabbed his sleeve and steered him to it, where she sat up close next to him. I estimated that they would be fucking within half an hour, despite his evident reluctance, or, perhaps, was it his natural Germanic coolness. In any event, I wished them all the very best for the night to come.
One of the Hipster barmaids saw something out on the street and went charging outside on her big, clunky, ironic boots. I watched through the windows, fascinated, as she began a conversation with a young Hipster couple out there. The boy was carrying a Dachshund puppy under his denim jacket. The barmaid could be seen imploring him to let her hold it. This he did, lifting the wretched, shivering creature aloft and passing it over to her. She went gaga over the thing, making baby faces and wobbling her head at it. After a few minutes of this she returned inside, where she caught sight of a bigger quarry - a Staffordshire puppy that was sitting at a table with its Hipster owners: a willowy young man with de rigeur bright sleeve-tattoos and de rigeur Ned Kelly pubic-beard, and his waif-like girlfriend. The dog wore a de rigeur studded collar.
"Aww! Waddaliddel cutie!" The barmaid said. She dropped to a crouch beside the animal and held its square head between her pale, thin hands.
"I'm sorry, darling", she told the grinning Staffie, "I've been unfaithful wid a boodiful widdle puppy outside! Can 'oo ever forgib me? I know I bwoke your widdle heart, baby." She then went on to explain to the Hipster couple that she had had a dog in her native America, which she had rescued from a pound.
"Yeah, it was a poor widdle baby that was born near a swamp, so it had no hair whatsoever. We looked after it so good! Gave it medicine and cream rubs and all that. So it grew all its hair back again. I loved that little critter so damned much!" The Hipster boy asked her what had become of it.
"Oh, we sold it when I knew I wanted to come here to London."
And now the Gollum child, Reuben, was yelling at his older brother from their position at the bar,
"Daddy took me to go pee pee and I didn't want to have a pee pee. I thought I did want to pee pee but I didn't! No pee pee came out."
I finished my cider and walked out of the establishment, ruminating on the stultifying conservatism of the whole Hipster aesthetic. Having swept across the western world over the last decade it presents itself as 'alternative', 'left-leaning' and 'globally-conscious', when in fact it is the polar opposite.
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