Where Art Thou Hipster?


It’s graduation season, which means students everywhere are contemplating their next move in life. If that move is a literal one, and you happen to be a hipster, then this handy map is here to guide you to a region of the country where you can best find your way into a pair of tight pants and Ray Bans and…

Wait. I’m sorry, but judging from this map, the whole notion of Boston as a hipster haven is completely bunk. If all you aim to achieve as a hipster is to “pretend I’m still in college,” then your hipster cred is questionable at best. Which is to say, Boston hipsters: You must do better. You need to distinguish yourselves and get on the (literal) map, like other hipsters do, for your taxidermy skills or your all-female ukulele concerto or your ability to make corn husk dolls that look like Alf. The New York Times needs to be able to find you as a subset within a subculture, and write breathlessly about how you’ve begun pickling and butchering or gone back to the farm. (Then Brian Williams can mock the Times for their breathless coverage. Because I never get tired of that.)

Perhaps part of the problem is that it seems that hipsters themselves have a hard time finding each other in Boston. As far back as 2005, Universal Hub noted a group’s attempt to co-opt a neighborhood where they could “take over. Make it hip, bring in artists; have entrepreneurs in our group open cafes.” And a more recent post on Yelp, which asked where a “sort of a rich hipster with an interest in fashion” (gag) should live when he moved to Boston was met with, yes, a fair degree of scorn, but also a variety of uncertain suggestions: Allston perhaps? Davis Square? “The South End if you’re hot.” No one could pin down the hipster nexus here in the city. Perhaps The Other Side should install a welcome booth for recent college grads, complete with a coupon book from Newbury Comics and direct people to the next to-be-gentrified neighborhood. Of course, this presumes that the hipsters haven’t caught on to the recent anti-hipster backlash, which has more or less announced the death of the trend. If that’s the case, perhaps Boston hipsters are now more trendy by not being trendy? Something to ponder for sure.

http://therumpus.net/2011/05/post-grad-hipsters-guide-to-inhabitable-u-s-cities/