The Hip and the Hondaphilic?

Dear Hipster:

Would it be possible to ironically drive one of those mondo lifted brodozer trucks, or is that too on-the-nose for even the hispterest hipster?

— Charlie

I once had a hipster friend who swore by the “boy racer” aesthetic of modified compact cars. His ideal vehicle would have been an old Honda CRX sporting heavily tinted windows and a wing on which you could serve Thanksgiving dinner. This was a guy with impeccable hipster bonafides, who boasted a long list of favorite industrial bands I can all but guarantee none of you have ever heard of, and who did most of his daily getting around by straight-up walking, because he liked taking his sweet time to go anywhere. In other words, this was definitely not a guy you would expect to be into the whole Fast and the Furious vibe, which is among the least hipster scenes you can imagine.

If that level of hipster incongruity exists, then I suppose a hipster driving a lifted truck is at least plausible. However, I don’t know that any self-respecting hipster can justify fuel economy measured in “gallons per mile,” so maybe the lifted truck hipster is a horse of a different color, or, more accurately, a veritable unicorn.

Dear Hipster:

With some local businesses refusing to accept cash during the pandemic, probably based on the old “money is dirty” saw (which is only partially accurate because, although money can harbor “germs,” it is a poor disease vector), do you think we will start hearing about some kind of hipster retro-cash movement?

— DeeDee

Why stop at a hipster insistence on contemporary paper money? Why not have a bunch of hipsters running around insisting on a return to ‘specie,’ i.e. gold- and silver-backed currency from before the Civil War? I can see it now, and it is indeed glorious. Can you imagine bartenders biting coins to determine whether you’re going to get served or thrown from the bar by a surly bouncer?

Unfortunately, there is already an active contingent of currency hipsters who would need to step aside from their place at the head of the queue in order to make room for a new, wider segment of retro currency hipsters. What? You’ve not heard of currency hipsters? I bet you have, and you didn’t know it. Remember the last time you were at a bar with friends, trying to split up a check, and that one friend pulled out a pocketful of dollar coins? I wasn’t there, but I’m willing to bet that same friend delivered an unprompted lecture along the lines of: “You know, almost every country in the world other than the U.S. utilizes a dollar coin. In Canada, they call them Loonies. In Europe, civilized people have been paying for their cafes au lait with dollar coins for years blah blah blah.”

Congratulations. You have met the currency hipster, who can’t shut up about the superiority of the dollar coin. Granted, he is totally and completely correct. Dollar coins are superior. Have you ever slid a couple dollar coins across a counter to pay for a coffee? Dang, that is the height of satisfaction. It’s like getting a high-five from Abraham Lincoln. Still, that doesn’t make that one friend any less insufferable when you’re trying to divvy up the cost of 17 Miller High Lifes and a single Appletini between five moderately drunk people.