Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes

Dear Hipster:

I transplanted here a couple of years ago from Portland, Oregon, and I noticed that on average, hipsters in Portland are way meaner than those in San Diego. What gives?

— Progressive Guru

They say correlation doesn’t equal causation, but I see a strong correlation between latitude and attitude. As you move north along the West Coast, the hipsters get meaner and meaner. By the time you hit Portland, you are surrounded by hipsters who can get super judgy over even the smallest perceived slights: Oh, wait, what? Did you actually call that kolsch “a kind of lager?” Wow. Seriously, bro. Maybe you should move to LA, or something, and, like, focus on your taco game, yeah bro?

But I digress. You asked why, not whether.

I suspect it boils down to hipsters in purported hipster havens like Portland or New York feeling like legends in their own times. No matter what they do, they’re unable to live up to the world’s expectations for them, and it leaves them feeling bitter and dejected. At the same time, they struggle with a sense of superiority that can never be conclusively proven because it rests entirely on trivial issues (similar to how San Diegans respond when the conversation turns towards burritos), but which drives them closer together because “other people just don’t get it.” Can you imagine that? It’s like having your dad be perpetually disappointed in you because you didn’t fail to live up to his expectations. You’d be mean too.

Dear Hipster:

Will the coming economic hardships caused by the global coronavirus pandemic be good or bad for hipsters?

— Sam

My supreme hipness is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural, but I can’t predict the hipster future any more than that shady, overconfident day trader trying to swindle you out of your 401(k) can time the market. Thus, although I know the impending economic catastrophe will have an effect, I cannot say if that effect will be “good” or “bad.” If the past is any indication, “good” or “bad” is a simplistic way to look at things.

Hardships are more formative than times of great prosperity. In the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008, a staggering number of intelligent, creative, young people — many sporting fresh college diplomas dearly bought by means of unconscionable debt — suddenly found themselves living in a world that rejected conventional concepts of personal and professional growth and fulfillment. Initially dismayed by the dearth of opportunity, many people threw themselves heart and soul into making the best out of the minimum-wage service and retail jobs they had thought were supposed to carry them through college. “If I’m going to work as a barista forever,” they thought, “at least I can make it mean something.” This factored into the hipster obsession with “craft” everything, and the rise of the modern hipster is, therefore, directly tied to the economic privation of the Great Recession.

We do not yet know what hardships the coming years will foist upon as, and we do not know what ill or beneficial effects they may have. All we know for sure is: whatever struggles lie ahead will play an outsize role in defining a whole generation of hipsters.