Not exactly L.A. versus San Diego

Dear Hipster:

What’s the difference (if there is one) between an L.A. hipster and a San Diego hipster?

— Janelle

Picture two hipsters with rhyming names, Alysyn from L.A., fresh from riding the gentrification wave into Boyle Heights; and Jameson from San Diego, specifically the neighborhood of El Cerrito, which he will tell you is going to be overrun with hipsters any day now.

Alysyn pronounces her name as a more pretentious “Allison”; but she goes by “Ally,” making sure to add the extra “L” whenever she writes it so she can tell people it “doesn’t sound like the guys who won World War II” whenever someone suffers the misfortune of reading her name out loud.

Jameson readily admits his dad named him after a whiskey bottle but takes pains to indicate that if he were to make a similar maneuver with an as-yet-unborn son, the boy would surely be named India Pale Ale, pronounced “EE-pah,” and technically suitable for a little girl as well. Jameson doesn’t discriminate.

The L.A. hipster had to fire her life coach/guru/platonic lover when she found out he had been eating meat for years despite advocating a vegetarian diet. She orders $19 Cosmopolitans ironically, and genuinely enjoys them. The L.A. hipster drives a 1980s Maserati with 250,000+ miles, but it’s not like it’s a big deal. She’s only working at that café temporarily. She wants you to read her script. She served Brad Pitt a latte once, but she doesn’t care. She tells you all about it. She thinks the hipsters down in San Diego are way too grungy and overly proud of their beards.

The San Diego hipster isn’t ashamed to be a lifetime bartender. In fact, he is pretty sure you envy his free-spirited lifestyle. He doesn’t own a car, but he pedals a vintage track bike, and he rides a café racer-style motorcycle that his “welder friend” helped him build. Don’t ask him what his tattoo sleeve “means,” because that’s not the point. He tells you anyways. The San Diego hipster doesn’t get those L.A. hipsters who go to spas and can’t tell you who was in the Minutemen but still act like they belong in the scene.

Dear Hipster:

I must write to correct something you said in your column from the week of March 22. Contrary to what you and your friends might think, the Lifeline program is part of a systematic effort by the federal government to distribute untraceable listening devices among the general population. Once Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the NSA, they had to figure out a way to go off the grid. Nobody would suspect free phones! I don’t know if you saw that movie Kingsman, but that’s how it begins! Anytime somebody’s giving you something for free, you have to be like the smart fish, wondering where the hook is. Could you please print a correction? Also, I don’t see how or why anybody should take you seriously. If that little picture of you is any indication, you look like kind of a douchebag. No offense, but, seriously. Don’t you think it’s a little irresponsible to give such bad advice from your position?

— T.

Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

— DJ Stevens