Consider Vlasic “pickleback” shots and Love Island reruns

Dear Hipster:

What are some non-hipster things that are secretly (or not so secretly, considering you will publish this for all the world to read) revered and enjoyed by even the snootiest hipsters?

— B.

They like to pretend they’re better than everyone else, but hipsters love basic-ass, trashy garbage just as much, if not more, than the next guy.

Consider so-called “pickleback” shots — an acceptable thing among hipsters. For those who never drank at a college bar worth half its salt, that’s when you chase a shot of whiskey with actual pickle juice. Conventional wisdom suggests the “best” ingredients are not obscure rye whiskeys from small distillers and the juice of carefully fermented pickles made from heirloom cucumbers. Instead, you are looking for that toxic green Vlasic dill juice, glowing like antifreeze; and you want to pair it with the cheapest Irish whiskey you can get off the bottom shelf of the local Rite Aid. By every rational measure, it should be a heinous, revolting experience, and yet it’s weirdly delicious, and even the hippest hipster will gleefully smack one of these things down if given half a chance.

You can apply the same logic to greasy drive-thru cheeseburgers, fanny packs, and Love Island reruns. I could go on listing things till the end of time, but I think you’re probably picking up what I’m putting down here.

It’s easy to write this off as ironic posturing — “watch me slam this pickle shot lol” — but the draw runs deeper.

From Charles Bukowski extolling the virtues of the dingy dive bar to Christina Tosi convincing people they should pay handsomely for the privilege of eating cornflake flavored milk, there’s a long tradition of hipsters exalting the unglamorous. The impetus towards this is the same burning desire for ever greater authenticity that drives hipsters towards the artisanal and handmade, but you end up with the exact opposite expression of the same urge.

Keep in mind, things don’t have be “good,” at least not in the strictest sense of the word, to qualify as suitably gritty, grungy, grimy, and authentic. Shriveled up TJ-style hotdogs made from grade-Z meat, wrapped in Costco-reject bacon, griddled on a barely-hot hot plate, served on stale bread, and topped with watered down sauces are neither good for you nor objectively good to eat. Yet, at the same time, if you’re standing around eating one of these types of hot dogs, you are almost certainly having a Good Time. You know this because the only way you get in the situation where you are eating one of these danger dogs is when you have either come from something that was definitely a Good Time; are headed towards something that promises to be a Good Time; or you are in between two things, each of which qualify as Good Times. In any event, you can rest assured that This Is As Real As It Gets, which reassurance you can never receive from anything that has even a whiff of chi-chi posturing and pretension about it.

I realize this may actually prove too much, because if such non-hipster things are permitted to become hipster things purely by virtue of their non-hipsterness, then how do you tell the difference between anything anymore? I don’t make the rules. This is one of those dreadful paradoxes we have to live with, and I leave it up to you to determine if any difference survives.