Monday night I saw Citizen Cope at the House of Blues. You might know his song "Let the Drummer Kick", which was used on So You Think You Can Dance - or maybe that's just me, because Alice replayed the episode endlessly.
It was an 18-and-older show. We stood near the back, and a few paces in front of us was a tall gangly kid of probably 18 with his mom, dancing his heart out through the whole show. Dancing ... unconventionally, the way I did in high school.
Between us and him were two girls. Every once in a while I would see one of them laugh behind his back and pantomime one of his moves. At one point they had a passerby take a picture of them with him. Then the mocking began in earnest. They flailed along behind him, fell down laughing, and carried on, and I got angrier and angrier.
Now, Alice and I indulge in a catty little game where we make up stories about people - along the lines of What Not To Wear - but we keep it to ourselves. Before I met Alice, I was really uptight about not disrespecting people's idiosyncracies (lord knows I was picked on enough), but then I realized that it doesn't hurt anybody if it's private.
Let me make my feelings perfectly clear: publicly mocking people's nonconformisms is the most poisonous form of hipsterism. Hipsters are joyless accountants of cool, and they contribute nothing more to raising the level of culture than a turd does to the level of a punchbowl. Conformists don't allow anyone to have fun, conventionally--whatever that is--or otherwise.
So, ladies: fuck off.
Hipster snobs: The Neighborhood Association of Nonconformityville. The Condo Board of Individuality Estates. The self appointed Culture Cops of alternative lifestyles. Reminds me of when Punk went from attitude to image to mainstream to mall commodity. Just how many signatures do you have to get on your permission slip to be allowed to be yourself these days?
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