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Ask a Hipster

An adjective cleared of meanness, envy, or spite

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Picking the perfect white elephant gift

- min read

Joy Division Unknown Pleasures meets Jack Black from High Fidelity-type character

- min read

Consider synthwave and Bonnie Tyler’s Aquanet blow-out

- min read

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Ask a Hipster

An adjective cleared of meanness, envy, or spite

It has been a slow week in the mail room, so permit me a moment to editorialize a bit, if you would be so kind. If “Ask a Hipster” has …

Ask a Hipster

Picking the perfect white elephant gift

Dear Hipster: As I’m sure you and everyone else remember, this time last year was a bummer for a lot of people. It was obviously a bummer in the big …

Ask a Hipster

Joy Division Unknown Pleasures meets Jack Black from High Fidelity-type character

Dear Hipster: I have a co-worker named Cliff who is quite the hipster. He drinks good local coffee, he eats locally sourced food, he even rides a cool older bike …

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Consider synthwave and Bonnie Tyler’s Aquanet blow-out

Dear Hipster: One thing I have gleaned from casually skimming this column over the years is that there’s a hipster version of everything. There’s beer, and then there’s hipster beer. …

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Creating a Simpsons-esque butterfly effect

Dear Hipster: It is no secret that culture and counterculture move in cycles, such that ‘old’ is periodically ‘new’ again, whether it’s regarding fashion, tech, or anti-prohibition homebrew in the cellar. Knowing what we do …

November 10, 2021

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Do hipsters believe in accountability?

Dear Hipster: One thing that seems to be typical of twenty-first-century hipsters is a somewhat permissive, laissez-faire attitude towards, well, just about anything, really, from dress to habits to jobs and anything else. I think …

November 3, 2021

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October 27, 2021

Are Hermes handbags and Patek Philippe wristwatches considered Veblen goods?

Dear Hipster: Here is one thing that simply doesn’t make sense to me. So much of the hipster scene revolves around elevating supposedly “lowbrow” culture over what we might call “highbrow” culture. But at the …

Ask a Hipster

October 20, 2021

Ideal round of golf: “any Wednesday evening at Mission Bay with three friends and 12 Stellas”

Hey Hipster: So my friend and I were having a conversation the other day about sports. He’s a PE teacher in North County. He says to me, “The only sport that you can win with …

Ask a Hipster

October 13, 2021

Mead and other boozy revivals

Dear Hipster: At this point, I have heard of hipster bars putting just about everything into a cocktail, or even straight up opening entire bars devoted to obscure alcohols. However, I have yet to run …

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October 6, 2021

The purpose behind limiting access to pumpkin spice

Dear Hipster: One cannot help but grow up in America without being sold on the virtue of individualism, personal liberty, and the right for “you to do you,” as it were. At the same time, …

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September 29, 2021

The moment you first heard about Panda Express releasing an Orange Chicken Sandwich

Dear Hipster: Here’s a bit of a hipster paradox that, at least in my opinion, requires a little unpacking. I would be a rich man if I got a nickel every time some random hipster …

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September 22, 2021

Ralph + Advil = “Radvil”

Dear Hipster: Please pass along these cat name suggestions to Tyler from this last week’s column. Remember, he was torn between human names and nouns. He can have both by using your suggestion of descriptive …

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Think George Mallory’s take on trying to climb Mount Everest: “because it’s there”

Dear Hipster: As I understand it, one of the most powerful motivating forces in the hipster universe is “wouldn’t it be funny if…” Invoking this ironic catchphrase still seems to justify doing all kinds of …

September 15, 2021

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Dress up like an extra from Seinfeld and head in to Applebee’s

Before we get ahead of ourselves, I’ll remind everyone that we posed a riddle to the general public a few weeks back. We got some inspired guesses, and a few snide remarks, but a handful …

September 8, 2021

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September 1, 2021

Brian Griffin has nothing on The Cat in the Hat

Dear Hipster: Everyone has to pick one, so: are hipsters dog or cat people? — Dylan D. Short answer: hipsters are bird people. Long answer: we relate to preferred pets on a level deeper than …

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August 25, 2021

Everything will be fine at Coachella

Dear Hipster: For many years, faithful readers have come to you for help in identifying hipsters and their hipster behaviors. But nothing lasts forever, and even the coolest hipster may one day wake up, look …

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Ask a Hipster

An adjective cleared of meanness, envy, or spite

Picking the perfect white elephant gift

Joy Division Unknown Pleasures meets Jack Black from High Fidelity-type character

Consider synthwave and Bonnie Tyler’s Aquanet blow-out

Ask a Hipster

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