It's a lot of work to be a young, urban hipster. Granted it's not what most would consider "real" work, like digging ditches or rescuing people from fires, but the average hipster nevertheless finds himself in an ironic situation: In order to fulfill his desire to demonstrate his disdain for entertainment, he must work at least twice as hard as anyone else to entertain himself.

(A full discussion of the emotional shallowness and hypocrisy of hipsters would take up way to much space, and is quite beyond my scope. But a reformed hipster like myself has the same desire as a reformed drug addict to decry his past life.)

Outcasts during most of their teenage years, and thinking themselves to be the perfect specimens of "intellectual outlaws" (when in fact they are neither), most hipsters develop a hatred of all things deemed "popular". While most people live our their lives without worrying about the chart positions of their favorite things, hipsters are required to be savvy about the media that they hate so much. Coupled with a lack of tolerance for boredom, they have to seek out music, movies, tv shows, and books that are impossible to find in order to keep themselves amused. By their very nature, the things that are intensely desirable to the hipster require intense effort to acquire.

It's not good enough for these self styled rebels to simply go and blow $200 on a CD player. They have to spend another hundred bucks on a turntable, so they can listen to their import vinyl. Which in itself is a problem, because it means that they have to spend a great deal of their free time in seedy record shops. And they certainly can't be expected to go in, buy a record, and be out of there in ten minutes; they have to spend hours going through the stacks, judging each record, not only on its musical merits, but also on its street cred. The story is much the same when it comes to books, movies, and other entertainments.

For all of the time and money spent on avoiding that which is popular (and therefore, mediocre) one would expect that they at least would experience a great deal of pleasure in their chattel. But it's often not the case in a subculture where enthusiasm is looked down upon as being a virtue of the simple minded. In an attempt to avoid appearing brainwashed by the mass media, hipsters have to constantly prove to themselves (and others) that they haven't lost their critical faculties. They have to be ready to blow twenty bucks on something, and then completely denounce its artistic merit at the drop of a hat -- depending of course on the consensus of their friends. Basically, once somebody in their group assigns the label of "crap" to something, it usually sticks. After all, nobody is going to go to the trouble of defending it; when somebody says the new White Stripes album sucks, it's easier to change your original opinion of it than it is to risk losing status in the group (remember, enthusiasm equals bad).

Semiotics is the burden of the "authentically" cool. It used to be that you could score points for not having a television; but now, you'd better be sure that you know enough about "Friends" to make jokes at the show's expense. Better yet, if you can get in on the ground floor of something that later becomes incredibly popular, you can turn around a weep bitter tears over the fact that something that was once good is now garbage. Dissecting popular culture is the one true entertainment of hipsters; but it requires an intelligent mind well versed in the art of doublethink. One must avoid becoming too self-aware, and realizing that one knows way too much about the thing that one is supposed to hate.

Maybe it's a noble thing to prefer home-grown, mom and pop bullshit to the corporate stuff, but working hard to have a good time is just -- well, work. And even if it's true that hard-gotten rewards are better than those that are easy to come by, they can't be that much better; otherwise, would our species be so addicted to instant gratification? If something makes you stupidly happy, isn't it good enough to build your too-short life around? The "guilt" of a guilty pleasure is often self imposed.

To hell with that; put on your Nikes and go see a movie at the mall. And try to relax, you uptight bastards.

-B. C. Silvia