The Popcorn Stand: Don’t take credit for the Hipster Effect

This Old Fuddy Duddy tries to keep up on what’s hip and all that, although really these terms like hipster, slacker, or whatever, have been around for like, more than a 100 years.

I’ve been reading about the Hipster Effect and it seems to be a Hipster all you have to be is a Millennial who wears a flannel shirt, beanie hat and a beard. Or if you’re a female Millennial, all that without the beard.

It also seems to this Generation Xer/Baby Buster/Baby Boomer — and Generation Xers are going to hate this since they seem to be the biggest critics and rivals of Millennials — that Generation Xers and Millennial Hipsters are a lot alike and almost interchangeable. I came to this conclusion after watching the “Homerpalooza” Simpsons episode from 1996, which in my opinion is the consummate look at Generation X and hilarious.

As a Generation Xer/Baby Buster/Baby Boomer I’ll also take my shot at both Generation Xers and Millennial Hipsters. They don’t seem to understand what irony is. As the Alanis Morissette song “Rain” demonstrates.

I read recently how a man threatened to sue MIT Technology Review for using his image in a story about how all hipsters look alike entitled “The Hipster Effect: Why Anti-conformists Always End Up Looking the Same.” To prove the publication’s point, the man sued the publication thinking it was a photo of him even though actually a stock photo from Getty Images of well, any Hipster Man.

The man sent this heated e-mail to the publication: “Your lack of basic journalistic ethics in both the manner in which you ‘reported’ this uncredited nonsense, and the slanderous, unnecessary use of my picture without permission demands a response, and I am, of course, pursuing legal action.”

All I’ve got to say is — Isn’t It Ironic?

— Charles Whisnand