Epic power metal covers of the “Toss a Coin” song from The Witcher

Dear Hipster:

One minute all the cool kids are dopamine fasting, the next minute everybody’s like “OK, Boomer,” and before you know it they’re dreaming up epic power metal covers of the “Toss a Coin” song from The Witcher. Next week it will be something else I couldn’t possibly foresee. Sometimes I feel like everything’s a trend, and only the trends matter. Has the hipster obsession with trendiness “run amok” so that now we are stuck in a vicious cycle of trendsetting and being “over it” at an accelerating pace that threatens to cause some sort of cultural whirlpool?

— Rich, Hillcrest

Damn. Now you’ve got me putting on my best Jaskier the Bard voice and singing ditties about some legendary hipster to the tune of “Toss a Coin to Your Witcher”: “He knew of all the trends / before any of his friends / when will he be over it? / well, I guess that depends! / Toss a coin to your hipster, O valley of plenty, O valley of plenty!”

But enough of that silliness.

I don’t think you can blame hipsters for any of those particular trends, but I won’t let that diminish your point. I’ve said time and time again that staying constantly on trend is something of a death-defying feat of cultural derring-do. When you get right down to it... aaaaand here we go again—

“The hipster was too cool / for anything like school / he dropped out of college / now he makes CBD Juuls! / Toss a coin to your hipster, O valley of plenty, O valley of plenty!”

OK. I’m back. Sorry about that. You know how it is when you get a song stuck in your head. Anyways, what we’re talking about here is the fine balance involved in being a trendsetter, being on trend, and not being too late to the trend party. It’s... oh crap, I guess I won’t even try to fight it—

“He would not drink ale / if it was not India Pale / he would scorn lesser beers / unless they were on sale! / Toss a coin to your hipster, O valley of plenty, O valley of plenty!”

Really, I’m sorry to all you poor people reading this who haven’t had the pleasure of getting the “Toss a Coin” song stuck in your head. You’re really missing out on some priceless cleverness here. But, as I was saying, don’t let yourself fail to see the forest of pop culture savvy for the trees of whatever’s trending right this very moment. You have to—

“Toss a coin to your hipster, O valley of Plenty!”

—see beyond the trends; to be more than the trends. It’s all about—

“Rides his fixie to the bar / when he does not own a car / but what does it matter? / He’s much cooler than you are! / Toss a coin to your hipster, O valley of Plenty, O valley of plenty!”

I seriously can’t even right now. Clearly, trendy nonsense is more than capable of absolutely dominating our lives, but at the end of the day, we are the ones who make the trends. If we let them rule us, nothing separates mankind from the memes. We have to be better than that.