Genesis

In my 20-something odd years, I have identified with many different social groups--Young Republicans, Skinheads, Rastafaris, Black Panthers--but in the Hipsters, I believe I have found my true calling. It's more than just the casual disdain with which they hold outsiders, their finely honed senses of irony, or their deliciously tight-fitting trousers; it's their ironic detachment from the world itself. It hit me like a shot when I overheard the following exchange while standing on the subway platform at Wall Street:

Thin Hipster: "Yeah, it kind of sucks, but it's like, pretty funny too."
Thinner Hipster: "Totally."
Thin Hipster: "I mean, I'm losing one of my balls. To cancer. On my birthday."
Thinner Hipster: "Hilarious."
Thin Hipster: "I think I'm gonna put it in a jar on my bookshelf."
Thinner Hipster: "Awesome."

How restrained! How ironic! How hip! Suddenly my impeccably pressed Marc Jacobs suit, crisp, pin-striped D&G shirt, and double-windsored Gucci tie seemed crass and shallow. I wanted to rip them from my body, drop naked to my knees, and beg them, "Teach me! Mold me in your image, you noble Hipsters you!" Using a calming technique learned from my days as a Rasti, I mastered my emotion--it is never wise to seem too eager--and instead removed my jacket, slinging it rakishly over my shoulder. "Are you Hipsters?" I inquired politely. The thinner one took one look at me, then responded, "Whatever. Who are you supposed to be, Gordon Gekko?"

Unused as I was to the understatement which defines the Hipster aesthetic, I half-expected his friend to laugh appreciatively, as I did, or high-five him, as I attempted to do. Instead, his lip curled in a carefully mannered sneer, and he and his friend turned as one and walked to the other end of the subway platform.

I confess, I was momentarily disheartened by the failure of my first foray into the Hipster subculture, but as their precariously thin stork legs carried them away into the crowd like young, slouched Gods, I resolved to become one of them, or perish in the attempt.