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Oh, the East Coast. It tickles us ever so.
Last year Cornell University's
Erin Geld wrote something or other about the Cosby's neighborhood as a bastion of coke-fueled cool, and all of the hipsters freaked the fuck out on her via the comment thread on a Gawker post. It seems that Geld trashed Brooklyn and its allegedly (un?)cool scene, so people went batshit. Or something like that. (Being a story about NYC and Ivy Leaguers, we're sure it's much more complicated than we could possibly understand.)
Anyway, her feelings we hurt so much by the angularly-haired that she moved here to San Francisco. (Welcome, Erin!) Here's what she says in Newsweek online about living among the hipsters in Baghdad by the Bay:
So, I eschewed the Ithaca-to-Williamsburg trend and went west to San Francisco. It is, surprisingly, almost more packed with bandanna babies than Brooklyn. They lounge in Dolores Park with organic sandwiches and two-buck Chuck as if it were stale bagels and PBR on Bedford Avenue. They are similar: name-dropping obscure bands, writing novels "secretly" and being endearingly vain. But in the Mission’s sweet-smelling cloud of tolerance, hipsters are relaxed and just a bit more lovable.
Being from somewhere else is a good thing. It's expected, interesting. There's no convenient Internet venue through which to pick on people, as they lick their own outsider wounds. ["Ahem!" -- SFist] Instead, people comment on restaurants and farmers' markets. They're usually nice. Helpful. Memories of 1967 still linger in the Bay Area, and people are a little goofy for my East Coast taste. But, thank God, they don’t take themselves very seriously--they're way cool with being cool.
Dolores Park? Two-buck chuck? Organic? Novels? She might be confusing hipsters with fags. Also: Nice? Helpful? Not taking ourselves seriously? She might be confusing SF with Portland.
What say you, cool readers? Are our hipsters the most huggably soft in the land?
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Sounds like this Erin Geld is intent on making enemies on both coasts.
I don't know if hipsters per se are friendlier, but I find people in San Francisco in general much, much friendlier, nicer, more willing to go out of their way to help you, than the supposedly friendly middle area I hale from.
And I can provide plenty of anecdotes to prove it.
confusing hipsters with fags is a common mistake i hear....
dis!
Why are hipsters the only people who use the term hipster?
Who is this woman? Is she trying to carve her niche as the go-to pundit for all things hipster?
@ mcgordonliddy,
true. and although i am totally fucking rad in countless ways, i wouldn't qualify myself as a hipster since i'm over 30. (and have a 34" waist.)
When a person moves from one city to another, I think it's pretty common to go through this period where they compare everything there is about the two cities in order to have a basis from which to make judgments about both places. This is what the Geld woman is up to and it's obvious she's heavily glossing over stuff. The people of San Francisco are not friendly, nice or helpful. The woman is clearly deluded. Furthermore, what kind of hipster drinks two buck chuck in Dolores Park? Does this woman even know what a hipster looks like? Maybe she's having a hard time picking them out from the rest of the hipsters who hang around this town.
I live in The Sunset; we know nothing of this so-called "hipster" you speak of.
Hey Erin....welcome to San Francisco.....now go back to Brooklyn. No but seriously, unless she is retarded she must have known its the same over here.
Oh God, not another thread about hipsters. Kill me now.
Us fags drink champagne at dolores park thank you very much.
There’s no convenient Internet venue through which to pick on people, as they lick their own outsider wounds.
Stick around, Erin.
"Erin graduated from Cornell last May and is now writing in San Francisco. She wants to stress that if you have a problem with her column, you shouldn't post mean things anonymously to some website; you should take the old-fashioned route and either e-mail her or send a letter to the editor."
Erin, grow some ovaries and get the hell over yourself. Please find another angle to make yourself stand out: writing about hipsters is so 12/07.
(Was that mean enough?)
I don't get why she thinks we can't conveniently access gawker out here in the wild west.
I'm a human being, not an anthropology project! And I drink sparkly water when I'm lounging in Dolores Park, not $2 Chuck; so blegh, Erin Whateva Whateva, observe THAT!
what with bi-rite just down the street, i can't imagine too many people are bringing two-buck chuck with them.
(LisaLives, love your icon. very much so.)
Depends. The fixie Zeitgeist/Lucky 13 hipster is pretty cool, it's the insufferable Marina-in-denial hipster at Amber and Delirium that makes me want to go Whammy Burger.
Thanks Brock, I keep meaning to read the book:
http://tinyurl.com/5lscsa
What is a self-proclaimed hipster journalist doing writing for Newsweek anyway?
My trendy go-to rag is Time, any day.
Hipster is just the new catch-all tag. Of course they're going to be same but just a little different.
We can access gawker. We just can't be bothered to.
Dina Lohan was named 'Mother of the Year' on Long Island. that's hipster.
Hipster, hipster, hipster! And that's all I have to say (for the moment).
I'd like to propose a one month ban on the use of the word "hipster" in any of the -ists. Please?
"Memories of 1967 still linger in the Bay Area, and people are a little goofy for my East Coast taste."
I'm not sure what "a little goofy" means in a cultural context of neon Thriving Ink tees, crooked white Ray-Bans, porno Horseface bandannas, coke spoon tattoos, jeans that gangrene your shins, teeny bikes with no brakes, Justice remixes, and Steve Aoki armpit smell -- but hey, goofy!
Maybe she means yoga.
Ooh, hey, let me run my idea for a restaurant/bar by you guys!
...or not.
Anyway, it's called "Hungry Hungry Hipster" and trust me, it's seriously the 6th funniest thing on the whole internet.
Damn you, disabled a tags!
What's the difference between a "Marina-in-denial hipster" and a hipster? The circumference of the ankle hole in their jeans?
A hipster is a hipster is a hipster.
Prospect Park, Dolores Park, Marina Green...whatever.
i think some of you might be confusing people who know how to dress well with scenesters. i'll take someone who like to play dress up over self-consciously "real" people any day.
its not dolores park, its called hipster meadows!
but lets gang up on her, she wrote that article for newsweek, which is basically like listening to aunt say 'you go girl'
I just wanna live the dream....Ride a fixie...live with a coke dealer who takes artsy fotos of me, work at American Apparel and date a hot asian chick who works at cassanova/hemlock/maybe phonebooth. I dont consider myself a hipster, i mean how does listening to bad brains and suicidal tendencies make me hip? shoot. whatever, i dont even care.
@ TeamAwesome.
Absolutely. Nailed it.
Like, perfectly.
lol hipsters
@ TeamAwesome.
Absolutely. Nailed it.
Right down to the meta-reference.
"How does listening to this well-regarded afro-punk band make me hip?"
Aren't trendy/hip/cool people the same everywhere? Acting like their not lends their conformity too much credit.
I am admittedly kinda "Eh" whether I'm in San Francisco or New York or Tokyo or London or wherever.
I'm probably pretty cool in Dubuque, but I wouldn't put money on it.
In my experience, east coast "hipsters" are just as nice or nicer than SF hipsters. But I must agree that Dolores Park is a hipster playground -- whether gay, straight, bi, whatever -- Dolores Park is the place to be to hang out -- the uncool and unhip gay guys (usually from places like Illinois) avoid the park and tend to gather on their decks listening to really bad electronica music.
Fuck hipsters. They're fundamentally the same as yuppies and both are ruining the city. I don't care what pathetic sub-culture you associate yourself with as soon as you start buying $300 jeans, doing or avoiding anything because it's trendy to any group, and gentrifying the hell out of whatever neighborhood you live in you need to go.
Oh man. She sounds like 7x7 when they discover a new neighborhood in San Francisco.
Snoozefest.
A)
whatever happened to 'pull up your pants'?
i liked that one. don't those jeans hurt your balls?
- or -
B)
we were totally like 'this', and now they are all 'that'. and it scares me. not terribly much. but somewhat.
I still prefer the English term for hipster.
Those Cunt capsules are absolutely fabulous. As much as I loathe re-making successful British shows for the American audience I can't help but think that a similar series at SFist, if written to the same high quality, would be fabulous.
I'm late reading this! I'm thinking these few things:
1. If this girl just graduated from college, how does that give her any credibility? Didn't she just start life?
2. I moved from Portland (NYC before that) a few months ago...HIPSTER HELL. I've decided it's a tag for a certain kind of people: the ones who desperately need an identity.