A retro hat at that!

Dear Hipster:

Everyone has to pick one, so: are hipsters dog or cat people?

— Dylan D.

Short answer: hipsters are bird people.

Long answer: we relate to preferred pets on a level deeper than verbal or physical communication can convey. It’s as if you can read their little minds when scratching them behind the ears/earholes/dorsal fins, easily establishing an emotional connection with the beast whose instinctive behaviors mirror your own.

The housecat loves what is not. If she is inside, her druthers would be to be outside. Or, were she already outside, well, that’s old news — inside is the place to be, now open the DOOR NOW! Cats are natural contrarians, especially when it comes to attention. She will grease her way around your legs for some pats in your busiest moments, cruising in for a scritch while you’re occupied finishing a puzzle with your neighbors who you’re secretly excited to hang out with, even though they were weird when you first met. But as it goes, the cat is into being petted, and then she is over petting the second everyone in the room agrees that “petting the cat is really in right now.” Respect.

Dogs, wild or Wiener, are inherently pack animals, so it’s in their best interest to go with the flow. They are helpers-of and hangers-onto the man with the biscuit, even in fiction: Goofy, Odie, Santa’s Little Helper, Pluto, The Doo Brothers, even the Beagle boys just take orders and play along. The obvious exception is Brian Griffin, but every real dog I’ve ever offered a dry martini has sniffed and walked away, so make of that what you will.

Now, when we contemplate fictional cats, we find them written as pranksters and solo-acts, ever-changing and counter-whatever. Puss in Boots? Guaranteed, no one told him how to live his life, or how to dress. The Cat in the Hat does a full B&E on some bored kids, humblebragging about all the new ways to play and underground tricks, and the Fish is all, “No, that’s not how you’re supposed to play, that’s wrong,” and the Cat’s like, “Dude, relax, I can balance you on an umbrella and a book and a cup.” Ok, he was less aloof than your standard tabby, but he was just as unapologetically polarizing. Point is, us hipsters would sooner meow than bark, but probably end up chirping all the same.

Dear Hipster:

I realize non-mainstream sports have a certain hipster cachet, but they can’t all be cool. What is the lamest alternative sport a person can possibly play?

— Quinn

Oh. Foosball. Yeah, it’s a sport, in that two opposing teams compete for points via established scoring zones. But it’s also a game you can win at by being bad. No shade to the foosball legends who would score five goals on me before I could say “nice forearms,” but the fact remains that I could likely score one or two of my own by just furiously spinning the rods. It’s effectively a dice-roll strategy, but it’s a viable tactic nonetheless. I can’t think of another organized sport in which frantically choosing inputs for a potential output can benefit the player. This is probably the reason foosball is so dope after several pitchers at the pub: it appeals to the Lush Level of judgment and motor control, but if you get serious and call it a sport, then you’re the Germans from Community.