Results tagged “hipsters”

Unsubstantiated! However, one Twitterer recently twote that she "Just found out cops in Williamsburg call hipsters marshmallows because we are white and soft." Whether or not this is true, we would like to recommend that everyone use "marshmallow" going forward — it is much less amorphous than the H word.

Model Daisy Lowe, spawn of Bush-frontman Gavin Rossdale and designer Pearl Lowe, had been living in the East Village right under our very noses. She just told W Magazine that she left the neighborhood after not making any friends, however, and headed over the bridge to Williamsburg, where they embraced her so much that now she has like 40 friends. She said, "I found that I could breathe a bit more out here. Also, I really didn't make that many friends when I was in the city, and after a year of being quite alone in New York, I immediately found a circle of friends in Brooklyn that were all on the same path." Her path allegedly includes some form of shoe art; she says she, "took a huge painting in our apartment and stuck some sunglasses and cute Chanel heels to it." She also loves taking photos on Coney Island, and once made shoes spell out "love" for some reason. Give this girl a scholarship to the Williamsburg Waterfront School of Superficial Hipster Art! And there are others on this path? She says her big bunch of new friends include musicians, artists, moviemakers, actors, models, her boyfriend Will Cameron (pictured with his lady love) and, you know, the usual creative types/celeb spawn hangers-on.

Typically you hear stories of the Hasids in Williamsburg revolting against the hipster bicyclists, especially those wearing skimpy clothing. But now The Forward reports on a sign that popped up in the neighborhood this month that could bridge the gap between the groups; "On it is a large Star of David constructed out of 50 or so rubber chickens. In the middle of the star, Yiddish text offers a free bike loan to any of the Yiddish-speaking Satmar Hasidim who live in the area." Baruch Herzfeld (himself a Sabbath-observant Modern Orthodox Jew, with two rabbi brothers) is the man behind the sign, and he hopes his efforts will help the Hasids understand their cycling neighbors. The 37-year-old Herzfeld is described as a "neighborhood gadfly/clown/activist/businessman who owns a small bicycle repair shop below the offices of his cell phone company" (it's noted that he loaned out the 1st floor space to Time's Up). He's already had some takers, and he "just received 500 used bikes from Japan that will allow him to expand his program." He says, “The goal is just to make it acceptable. I’m not doing it because I want to change the world—I just think it would be a healthy thing for the whole city if some of these guys got on bicycles."

Polaroid dead? Not yet! Urban Outfitters has teamed up with The Impossible Project to sell "a limited edition 700 hand-numbered deadstock Polaroid camera kits," which will include the much sought after and nearly extinct Polaroid Instant Film, and the Polaroid ONE600 Classic. These are the last of what's left, and it all goes on sale tomorrow (price is still unknown). The Williamsburgsters are not happy about this. Vintage Polaroid is their thing, Urban Outfitters; you can't just co-opt hipster style and sell it off to the masses. Anyway, one poster says, "I do not think anyone will buy a Polaroid at UO and do anything meaningful with it. There, I said it." Alright, Polaroid is so over, everyone get Lomos now. FML!

Hey hipsters, you're too disaffected to probably care, but: you've finally made it into the pages of TIME magazine! Or at least onto their internet home. They begin their brief history of the hipster by narrowing the group down to people who hate Coldplay, love silk-screened tees, and drink PBR. We cross-referenced this in our Urban Outfitters Hipster's Guide to the Galaxy handbook that doesn't exist because hipsters would never buy it, and it all seemed to check out.

This police blotter story in the Brooklyn Paper has it all: violence, Brooklyn, hipsters, the NYPD, puke, and lots and lots of alcohol. According to police reports, earlier this month a 28-year-old and his girlfriend were enjoying one too many drinks at the Bushwick Country Club. The young man started vomiting at the bar at 2:45 a.m., but refused to leave upon the encouragement of all those around him, including staff. But when the vomit landed on one employee's shirt, things went "from disgusting to dangerous" (or really just a hybrid of the two). After being forced out of the venue, "a female bartender doused the victim in water and struck him in the head with a plastic bucket—leaving a laceration that required seven stitches. Then a gang of drinkers from the bar roughed up the victim on the sidewalk in front of the venue." Can a plastic bucket really do that much damage? Anyway, the real story here is that the PBR-fueled hipsters turned on one of their own. Is this the beginning of the end?

Having worked tirelessly to end global warming, nuclear proliferation, and that horrible Guinea worm disease, hipsters can at last enjoy a well-earned childish diversion. This Sunday the Seattle chapter of the Cardboard Tube Fighting League (yep, it exists) will be hosting a tournament! Everyone's invited to dress up like knights in cardboard armor and smack each other around with tubes, which will be provided by the organizers. (No outside tubes are permitted, to prevent contestants from causing any non-ironic injuries with doctored tubes.) Afterward, everybody will not get laid.

Did the Wall Street Journal post an Onion News Network video by accident? Nope, they actually went to Williamsburg to "get the skinny on skinny jeans for men" (their words). The video is after the jump, and at 48 seconds in you'll meet the guy who started it all (how exciting!), he says he's been wearing skinny jeans "forever," but he adds that it only became a trend in 2003ish, after it was already a trend in the '60s, or sometime before Uniqulo started carrying them. But he was born in them. He also gives a big "WTF?!" look to the camera later on when discussing the charlatans who wear their skinny jeans with sneakers. Well, with a little help from Darwinism, the skinny jean set won't make it through the century, doctors have repeatedly warned against how they cause tingling thigh syndrome (especially when worn with uncomfortable shoes).

By now you've probably heard the Phoenix song "Lisztomania," and you've probably seen the Brat Pack tribute video that hit the Internet soon after its release, but it's always worth another few hundred listens. Leave it to a bunch of Brooklynites to create a tribute to the tribute. How delightfully derivative! That's right, here, contained within the same 4 minutes and 16 seconds, you get hipsters, '80s nostalgia, graffiti, rooftops, the Manhattan skyline, the Water Taxi, and dancing dancing dancing.

W Magazine strays from its normal high fashion looks and points the camera at hip(ster) couture, namely the Depression Era threads being paraded all around town. The mag notes, "at least young New Yorkers are going down in (historically appropriate) style. In Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, the resurgence of feathers, vests and newsboy caps are a fashionable response to the plummeting Dow." But these old-timey signifiers have been around for well over a year now—does this mean the hipsters knew just how bad this recession thing would get and were subliminally warning us through their curly mustaches and buttoned vests? Somebody check how many hipsters cashed in their stock options before Bear Stearns! And while admiring their vaguely Depression Era-ensembles, keep in mind that the bars you see these kids in are pouring $10 to $15 cocktails. The real folks feeling this recession are probably just huffing, with the kind of facial hair that comes from having sold all their razors as scrap.

If you thought your Christmas was depressing, the Burg (with some help from the All-For-Nots) are here to share your pain. Non-trust fund hipster bread lines, depression, hand-made garbage gifts, suicide threats...Happy Holidays from the Burg!

      

Last night at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg, Robert Moy took home the crown at the finale of the long-running Williamsburg Spelling Bee (now about to enter its 9th season in February). It's more commonly known as the "Hipster Spelling Bee," but that just seems like the same reactionary snark fired at anything happening within sneezing distance of a few Brooklyn L stops. When one of the nine contestants offhandedly mentioned that she was "channeling her inner Rebecca Steele," we agreed with the assessment of another overheard label: "Nerd Soup" (it's charming, in an Alpha Bits cereal sort of way).

Now that hipsters have gentrified the neighborhood, the Times is reporting that a new group is moving into Williamsburg and undoubtedly endearing themselves just as much to longtime New Yorkers--immigrating Europeans. Europeans have accounted for one-third of those who have scooped up the 2,000 new condos in Williamsburg in the last two years. Europeans say the neighborhood resembles the areas they left behind--like Brighton in England and Marais in Paris. They also find its residents less career-driven than Manhattanites. One Brit who hangs out at the bar Spike Hill tells the paper, “There isn’t that same kind of talk about money and jobs. People leave work at work. It’s more like friends back home.”

Aging hipsters, have you been wondering what your next move will be when you outgrow your skinny jeans and youthful neighborhood? The Brooklyn Paper gathers you'll probably still be "too cool" for the Brownstone set, but point you over to the micro-neighborhood of Greenwood Heights, "tucked between overpriced Park Slope and undervisited Sunset Park." Located just below the future hipster resting place hotspot of Green-Wood Cemetery, it's currently a growing community of "creatives, freelancers and hipsters who have had it with the North Brooklyn scene." The "Mayor of Greenwood Heights" told the paper, “There’s a very good mix of people here, but it still has a neighborhood-y, working class feel to it." Last year the Sun (R.I.P.) took a look at the neighborhood, reporting that typical homes ranged from $700,000 to $825,000.

A reader writes in that the new Real World cast showed up at a Fashion Week party and (surprise, surprise?) got drunk and tried to make out with people. But wait! She tells us, "the Mormon Real World-er who is ENGAGED, Chet, tried to makeout with stunning Whitney Top Model Thompson!" Most likely his Mormon fiance isn't checking out New York party photos...but she'll be finding out when it all airs on television (they always do). Meanwhile, NYMag points to a quote from Chet, who was allegedly drinking Shirley Temples, in which he addresses hipsters.

“When we go to Williamsburg we get harassed. The hipsters throw things at us and say ‘Why are you here? Go home! Ten years ago none of them were there either…Why are the hipsters so small-minded?”

Remember the Mr. & Miss Williamsburg Pageant? Well, it happened, and one contestant reports back that the winner was victorious by drinking a PBR and simultaneously taking her panties off from under an American Apparel romper. Also...this crowned hipster jewel was from New Jersey. But wait, the scandal goes even deeper! She notes that Misha Calvert, head of the pageant (pictured), "instructed us not to tell anyone from the press that the whole applicant process was rigged" and that the Colt 45 story was a fabricated publicity stunt (shocking!). While this particular contestant and Calvert are no longer friends on Facebook (harsh!), the former did learn something: intellect cannot beat taking off one's underwear whilst donning an American Apparel romper, and "a large part of being a hipster in Williamsburg is flashing your vagina to the entirety of New York media."

Like Christian Lorentzen before him, Douglas Haddow deconstructs the hipster in the latest Adbusters cover story. Just as in Lorentzen's Time Out NY piece, "Why the Hipster Must Die," Haddow doesn't really have a solution to the hipster problem, except to allude to the fact that ultimately, one day, their blood will be on their own hands. Until then, they are today's main suspect in the murder of Western Civilization...something that Haddow makes sound so damn poetic.

The half-built condos tower above us like foreboding monoliths of our yuppie futures. I take a look at one of the girls wearing a bright pink keffiyah [sic] and carrying a Polaroid camera and think, “If only we carried rocks instead of cameras, we’d look like revolutionaries.” But instead we ignore the weapons that lie at our feet – oblivious to our own impending demise.

Continue reading "Deconstructing Hipsters"

For a couple years now, a Chicago-based group called the Neighbors Project has been encouraging gentrifiers in cities across America to “connect with their diverse neighbors to improve the neighborhood for everyone.” The goal is to neutralize the “polarization” caused by widespread urban gentrification, and also offer advice for people who have had it with the corner bodega’s refusal to carry the New York Times and stock more produce beyond the usual “bananas that look like they're in pain.”

With its own music festival, budding arts community, and plenty of backlash...is Staten Island primed to become the next hipster haven? One tipster sent in these photos taken in the St. George section of SI last week. Yuppies and hipsters and street art, oh my! It will be like New York City's very own island of misfit toys...toys with neon accessories and a breathtaking air of entitlement.

Attention sexy hipster kids, there's a new Craigslist poster that needs YOU...if you are, in fact, a young hip Brooklynite who has a penchant for blurbing and reading about the sexual encounters of teens. Interested? Read on...

Cool Brooklyn book publisher looking for cool 18-25yo hipsters to blurb our cool forthcoming book of sex stories for teens. We will send you a PDF of the book and ask for a blurb & headshot for advertising, website, publicity. Tiny honorarium of free books and our guarantee to read and consider your own book manuscript for publication.

          

The endless debate over how to classify hipsters has been tearing this city apart for years, pitting brother against scenester, native New Yorker against arriviste, trust funder against squatter, even self-hating hipster against himself. So it's important for everyone to step back a bit and acknowledge that while we may never agree on a singular definition for hipster, like Supreme Court judges watching porn, we know it when we see it. Sure, the word hipster is a tired cliché, but the cliché still walks, talks, and parties down in Brooklyn, with bottles of whiskey stashed proudly down the back of its Speedo. Your hate only makes them stronger, and let's face it – they do know how to have fun.

Tie-dye is making a comeback in the fashion world (though most higher end shops are calling it "dip dye"), and it's not uncommon to hear Phish or The Grateful Dead playing at a coffee shop on Bedford Avenue...but are all of these signs that hipsters are becoming hippies? It seems the proof is in the homegrown pudding, as The NY Times reports on many young city slickers trading in their tight-jeans for some overalls (making their thrift store 4-H t-shirts no longer ironic). That's right, hipster librarians are so over, all the cool kids are taking up farming now -- and even current city-dwellers are cheering them on. One commented on the winds of change a-blowin', saying, "our rock stars are ricotta makers.”

Looks like someone took that pirate trend a little too far. The NY Times is reporting on Brian Markey and Owen Cahillane, who are sailing the high seas in their floating abode. Okay, no sailing is involved, but the two roommates, recently transplanted from New Orleans and channeling the spirit of Davy Crockett, live day in and day out on a houseboat in the Bronx.

Panic gripped a sizable number of New York night crawlers last fall when both the holiday-timed Motherf*cker freakfest and popular posture party Misshapes were derailed within months of each other. Today the Times checks in on distraught survivors like one Melissa Maino, partygoer: “It’s been rough. Going [to Motherf*cker] was what I depended on for New Year’s Eve. [Its end] was definitely heartbreaking.”

Over the weekend yet another production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber classic, Cats, closed. This hipster-ized version of the legendary musical used American Apparel styling for their look, and it all went down on Broadway...that's 1100 Broadway in the 11211 zip code. ArtCal points out that because the original Cats "ran parallel with corporate and municipal efforts to 'clean up Broadway' for big business," these hipster cats may be trying to make a point. Though they add they may not know what, exactly, as the troupe operates "in a mode of an ironic traipsing around social issues while remaining politically invested in... something."

Brooklyn Ink tells us that the first rule of Punk Rock Pillow Fight is you do not talk about Punk Rock Pillow Fight. This is also the second rule, so you have most likely never heard of this underground feathered fight.The anonymous arena for this event is like Fight Club for hipsters. We exaggerate (slightly) but were forewarned not to give away too much about the pillow fight’s underground location in Bushwick. Two rows of...

Love 'em or hate 'em, hipsters have made their way into a real-life bounded book that will be available for purchase next spring. What does Generation Hipster look like in black & white? It ain't pretty. 6 Sick Hipsters, by Rayo Casablanca, follows "Williamsburg's reigning elite" and brings some noir to the neighborhood...as well as a feral baboon. The press release tells us a bit of what we can expect: "Lately someone has been laying...

Ever wonder what that person you passed on Bedford Avenue thinks of the big issues in the world? Well, someone did. Alethea Brown takes it to the streets to find out some Williamsburgites views of the current political state...or at least who they think is sexier: Hillary or Barack: Martha Stewart as President? Whatever Williamsburg!...

A Mutual Fund for Hipsters called The GendeX™ Thrasher Funds? It just can't be real...except it is. Advertised through a "dedicated email" from Daily Candy this morning means they have some cash to advertise -- but to prove their hipster-cred we may need to see some MySpace profiles. And surprise, surprise -- it looks like they have one (John Mayer is in their "Top 12" friends! Ironic or do their parents also work there?). Their...

Takeover BAM went down Saturday night after Sufjan Stevens’s last BQE show. There were 5 bands playing until 4am in the Opera House, bawdy burlesque shows, DJs and dancing in the swank BAM café, art by Mighty Robot and others, rock documentaries, a Lindsay Lohan Mid-Career Retrospective (“Mid-Career” – get it?) and $3 beer. It sounded like such a great time that we eagerly showed up at 11:30, only to realize that we weren’t the...