Yippee latte, pumpkin spice

Dear Hipster:

I think we have all heard someone call Sriracha “the hipster ketchup” before, but is there a hipster version of everything? Like, is there a Hipster Elvis? A Hipster Citizen Kane? A Hipster Michelangelo?

— Lance

Because once you become “the” anything, you’re sort of losing hipster credibility by operation of first principles. Nothing springs to mind, although it reminds me of a game some friends and I invented one night at a dive bar in Hillcrest over about half a keg of Pacifico and half a bowl of soggy pretzels. The rules are pretty simple, you have to either add the word “Hipster” to a movie, book, or song title; or you can change one word in an existing movie, book, or song title to the word “Hipster.”

If you think the fun ends there, you’d be super wrong, because you also must include a blurb or caption to go with your augmented hipster title, which blurb or caption must convey the approximate substance of the putative hipster-themed media. Thus, you end up with concepts such as:

“Hipster Die Hard: off-duty Williamsburg barista, John McClane, heads to Los Angeles in search of his ex-girlfriend, Holly, a singer-songwriter who left him after she achieved moderate YouTube fame for her solo banjo covers of mediocre pop songs. Before he can reunite with Holly, McClane gets caught up in the takeover of a local coffee shop by Silicon Valley tech-bro wannabes. He survives by staying low-key authentic in a world full of posers.”

Or, if you do the change-a-word variation:

“The Only Living Hipster in New York: very sad song about poor hipster with useless art history degree and crushing student loan debt who feels like nobody gets him.”

This whole game also works great in group-text form. For any of you out there who would really like to play, but don’t have friends or family who think this sounds like a good game, email your blurbs to [email protected]. I’ll be your friend who plays clever word games.

Dear Hipster:

It’s getting to be that time of year again. I feel a secret yearning for pumpkin spice growing in my heart, yet I don’t want to broadcast this burnt ochre-colored craving to the world on account of the inevitable (not to mention harsh) judgment of my peers. Is it cool to like pumpkin spice stuff ironically yet?

— Shaun

Not yet, but have patience, you brave, pumpkin spice pioneer, for I believe your day is coming. For the time being, I still consider pumpkin spice jokes pretty darn funny. Time was, they were straight up hilarious, but the novelty of mocking pumpkin spice in all its pumpkiny spicy forms has indeed faded some, and now pumpkin spice jokes are merely amusing, or perhaps droll would be the right word. Soon, it will no longer be cool to make fun of pumpkin spice, because everybody else will be doing it, at which point you can safely consume your pumpkin spice whatever with only a self-deprecating “I know, right?” as a shield. In fact, this very autumn season may well push pumpkin space hating into the mainstream; and by the time the Thanksgiving stuff starts appearing on the shelves at the local grocery store, you might be in the clear.