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Stories by DJ Stevens

The overpowering nature of ketchup

Dear Hipster: I was visiting people in Chicago over the holiday season. As you may well know, Chicago has a rich tradition of eating hot dogs, and I saw “no ketchup” signs at each and …

January 16, 2019
Cheeky imponderables

Let’s get the New Year rolling with some cheeky imponderables, shall we? Dear Hipster: What is the difference between cashing in and selling out? — Dan It’s like the difference between making your dreams a …

January 9, 2019
What our dear friends in Corporate America know

Dear Hipster, Going into 2019, I’m contemplating a change of perspective. Throughout my life, I have tended to take a “close enough for rock and roll” attitude towards a lot of stuff because life is …

January 2, 2019
Crossing an invisible line

Dear Hipster: Although you’ve always made it abundantly clear there is no one-size-fits-all definition of hipster, we can all agree that hipsters are largely identified by what they do, whatever that may be. Some magic …

December 26, 2018
Meta-catster!

Hey D.J. Check out this picture I found of “Catster.” I guess that’s like a “Hip-Cat!” So, if this were in the Reader, I guess it would be like asking the question, “If there are …

December 19, 2018
It’s a trap

Dear Hipster: What would you say if you were walking downtown and you saw a pink poster in the window of an apartment complex advertising “Hip Apartments for Lease” alongside another pink poster of a …

December 12, 2018
The perfect catch-all holiday

Dear Hipster: With the so-called Holiday Season fully upon us, one cannot engage in the world without fielding a barrage of “Happy Holidays!” and other such seasonal well-wishes. As if it weren’t enough to be …

December 5, 2018
The Mac Davis Rule

Dear Hipster: At this point in my life, I have friends in their twenties, thirties, forties, and even fifties. Usually, I don’t think too much about the potential generation gaps that separate us. After all, …

November 28, 2018
Delightfully improbable scenario

Dear Hipster: If it snowed in San Diego this winter (I mean, in the city proper, not up in the mountains) do you think local hipsters would be into it, or would their immunity to …

November 22, 2018
A chorus of hearty mehs

Dear Hipster: If pies can be ranked in order of hipness, then what else goes appropriately on the hipster Thanksgiving table? — Karen The key to any good hipster Thanksgiving table is balance — balance …

November 14, 2018
Virtuous behavior through humblebrag

Dear Hipster: I don’t agree with Corn Dog Guy (or Girl) that hipsters = yuppies. In fact, I’m not even sure there are yuppies anymore. When I think of “yuppies,” I think of a whole …

November 7, 2018
Australians being hilariously Australian

Dear Hipster: I saw a video the other day on the Australian National Geographic website, of all places, about how the Oxford English Dictionary gives the etymology of hipsters as having something to do with …

October 31, 2018
A penchant for all things random

Dear Hipster: I was chilling at a brewery with a couple friends the other night, and I inadvertently eavesdropped on a couple hipsters who were drunkenly bellowing behind me about some shenanigans one of them …

October 24, 2018
A cruel, gentrifying hybrid called... Corn Dog

Dear Hipster: I think the concept of hipster has changed so much throughout the past 25 years that I don’t even consider hipsters Hipsters anymore. I consider them to be...yuppies. Am I wrong to think …

October 17, 2018
Ripe for holiday mockery

Dear Hipster: Every damn year, Halloween comes around and I realize I’ve got a party on Saturday...and it’s Thursday...and I don’t have a costume, or even an idea. I swear, this year I’m going to …

October 10, 2018
Blind pet diagnosis: the truth lies somewhere in the middle

Dear Hipster: I have a 13-year-old Italian Greyhound rescue, Turbo, who I just discovered is almost totally blind. Italian Greyhounds are sighthounds. Does Turbo’s sightlessness make him an ironic, hipster sighthound? Should he move to …

October 3, 2018
A perverse tribute to a true dive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrpTDaSjfaM

September 26, 2018
This burnt ochre-colored craving

This burnt ochre-colored craving

September 19, 2018
Life expectancy

Life expectancy

September 5, 2018
A generation of industrious professionals

A generation of industrious professionals

August 29, 2018
Hipster superpower

Dear Hipster: Would it be hipster to refer to “an hipster,” as opposed to “a hipster,” or would it be pretentious? — An Enquirer I think it’s only pretentious if you say “an hipster” when …

August 22, 2018
The difference matters

Dear Hipster: You write often of the quirks and idiosyncrasies that differentiate hipsters from what I will call, for lack of a better word, the bourgeoisie. I want to hear about the inverse principle. Namely, …

August 15, 2018
How to avoid hipsters

Dear Hipster: I’ve noticed the way this column often provides helpful (dare I say “invaluable”?) advice on how to distinguish various varieties of hipster from each other, on where to find hipsters, and on why …

August 8, 2018
Where San Diego hipsterness begins

Dear Hipster: What is the most San Diego-specific hipster thing you could do? — Kyle On balance, our local hipsters are much the same as hipsters in any other urban locale worthy of an Eater …

August 1, 2018
Don't try to predict the next big thing

Dear Hipster: Why do so many hipsters harbor ambitions as musicians? — Ernesto It’s actually the other way around, many musicians live hipster lives. The part of the human brain that makes music begins to …

July 25, 2018
Seasoned with a hint of social conscience

Dear Hipster: I’ve been following your advice about eating all the food in the house in order to make space, but its not been so easy. Why do I have all these cans of sun …

July 18, 2018
Brick & mortified

After an outpouring of creative ideas from the brightest minds among the Reader’s local fan base, I offer the following list of neologisms that might fill the gap in the English language where there really …

July 11, 2018
A Hip Hopera

Dear Hipster: What kind of music is best for working out? — La Jolla Spin Class Junkie I wouldn’t know. We hipsters prefer to remain thin by smoking cigarettes and eating kale. Dear Hipster: I …

July 3, 2018
Doomed to obsolescence

At the end of May, I put out a call for suggestions from readers for a word meaning “the pain you feel when you realize something you love about the world is doomed to obsolescence.” …

June 27, 2018
Where have all the cowboys gone?

Dear Hipster: I was idly browsing Westworld reddits the other day, trying to figure out exactly what the heck has been going on the past couple weeks, and that got me thinking about cowboys. Real …

June 20, 2018
Dads who like booze donuts and sausage cocktails

Dear Hipster: I’ve been having a kind of hipster crisis lately. I fear I am gradually becoming less and less cool. It seems like just yesterday I was tending bar, sleeping in, getting drunk at …

June 13, 2018
Martinis and kidney shaped pools

Dear Hipster: Consider the following a sort of follow-up to your recent missive about weather and seasons. Which is the more hipster destination, the desert or the beach? — Dale J. Hmmm, both certainly have …

June 6, 2018
Tech, you were my brother, and I loved you

Dear Hipster: What was your favorite hipster moment during the royal wedding? — Erin Not watching it. Dear Hipster: Did you hear Yanny or Laurel? — Derek I don’t get what all the fuss is …

May 30, 2018
Why isn't there Amerivision?

Dear Hipster: I have no opinion on the chicken song, but I sort of wonder, why doesn’t the US have something like the Eurovision Song Contest? — Denny Beats the heck outta me. I would …

May 23, 2018
And the winner is...

Dear Hipster: What are the five most hipster things that have ever happened? — Derek I guess this is it. Number one. The hipsterest thing of all. We began this journey by learning about some …

May 16, 2018
Eat everything in your house

Dear Hipster: What are the five most hipster things that have ever happened? — Derek I’ve already plumbed the depths of my knowledge and summoned the three most hipster things ever. Based on completely objective, …

May 9, 2018
The best minds of my generation destroyed by madness

Dear Hipster: What are the five most hipster things that have ever happened? — Derek As we enter the third part of my efforts at cataloguing the five hipsterest things of all time, I’ll briefly …

May 2, 2018
George Plimpton: a life lived on a "wouldn't it be crazy if" basis

Dear Hipster: What are the five most hipster things that have ever happened? — Derek As promised, I now continue a painstaking countdown of the five most unequivocally hipster things that have ever happened. Last …

April 25, 2018
Y'all best stick to beer and booze

Dear Hipster: Between discourses on the early days of the hipster-PBR relationship, paeans to the superiority of snooty craft beer, or nostalgic returns to traditional dad beers (e.g. Narragansett in the North East, Natty Boh …

April 11, 2018
Hipster humor, explained

Dear Hipster: Please tell me a good hipster joke. What kind of jokes do hipsters generally like, anyways? — Chad Well, on the one hand, you have your “hipster jokes” such as, “How many hipsters …

April 4, 2018
Rap puts hipsters in a bind

Dear Hipster: We hear so much about hipsters and the obscure indie rock bands they love, but I want to take that discussion in another direction. Specifically, a direction completely apart from twee indie music …

March 28, 2018
Cirque du Hipster

Hipster: So, are there any notable hipster events held anywhere? Craft-beer festivals don’t count. Beard contests, obscure craft hobbies and art on display, booths with books of unheard-of authors, single-speed bike races? I think this …

March 15, 2018
Wooing the ad-shy hipster

Dear Hipster: What is the deal with advertising to hipsters? I would think that hipsters would be immune from marketing ploys, if for no other reason than hipsters wouldn’t want to purchase something so mainstream …

March 15, 2018
The good old days that never were

Dear Hipster: I have been thinking about the popularity of retro stuff recently, at least from a pop-culture standpoint. To me, it seems like people remember the past as distinctly better than it actually was. …

March 7, 2018
A blunderbuss-load of errata

Nothing warms my heart in the dead of winter more than the random questions y’all propound upon me throughout the year. I refuse to believe you’re just messing with me. Instead, I think of this …

February 28, 2018
The tortuous relationship between hipsters and stick-and-ball sports

Hey Mr. Hipster Dude! With the passing of another Super Bowl of Crap, do hipsters actually pay any attention to all the sports crap that’s going on? If they do, WHY? I usually ride my …

February 21, 2018
Where it's always 1997

Dear Hipster: Why can I not divide by zero? I feel like there’s some Illuminati conspiracy to cover up the truth. — Z. Math has nothing to do with it. As anyone with an ounce …

February 14, 2018
Talk of the occasional guava pastry leads to a physics lesson

Dear Hipster: Why is there never any parking near hipster coffee shops (especially ones that contain guava pastries)? — Janelle Khaleesi There’s a simple answer and a hard answer. I’ll give you the easy one …

February 14, 2018
Get stabbed by a guy named Nekro Klown

Dear Hipster: Would you rather attend the Gathering of the Juggalos or the Thunder Nationals monster-truck competition? I don’t actually care, but I admit to some curiosity. — Deb Oh. Wow. Tough choice. On the …

February 7, 2018
Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy

Dear Hipmeister, In a recent answer to a question about increasing automobile size, you wrote, “It’s like a big middle finger to hipsters everywhere, which, naturally, people love.” That brought two questions to mind. One, …

February 7, 2018

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