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When Honus Wagner looked like Robert De Niro

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Compare Middle Earth’s elves and men

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Spotting realism failures in Harry Potter

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Cool, Costco summer is here!

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Ask a Hipster

When Honus Wagner looked like Robert De Niro

Dear Hipster: Even if staying outside the mainstream and being countercultural is super important, it sure is exhausting keeping track of what’s hip and not hip, so that one knows ...

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Compare Middle Earth’s elves and men

Dear Hipster: What is the meaning of life? Is it all just a bunch of frothy beverages and salted caramels, or is there more to it? Will the tie-dye revolution ...

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Spotting realism failures in Harry Potter

Dear Hipster: One thing that has always bothered me is, why do fictional hipsters always seem to have it so easy? You see some hipsters on TV and movies, and ...

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Cool, Costco summer is here!

Dear Hipster: Summer is here! And it’s not canceled this year! I’d say it’s time to celebrate, but do I even need to say it? I would imagine almost everybody ...

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Is Charlie Brown a counterculture icon?

Dear Hipster: Immanuel Kant famously proposed that people should be treated as “ends in themselves,” not as a means to an end. As a corollary of that principle, people are supposed to help themselves and ...

June 23, 2021

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That Tumblr featuring Michael Jordan wearing questionable outfits

Dear Hipster: Around this time of year I always feel like the world’s attention is divided, at least a little bit, between hockey and basketball. Of course, by “the world” I mean “popular televised American ...

June 16, 2021

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June 9, 2021

Dessert choice or choice dessert?

Dear Hipster: As the proud owner of a sophisticated sweet tooth, I am always a little confused by people who have no opinion one way or the other on sweets and dessert. It has always ...

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June 2, 2021

Birthday buddies: Tenzing Norgay, Noel Gallagher, Bob Hope, and Daniel Tosh

Dear Hipster: What does it all mean? — Thad The answers are out there, Thad, but you have to follow the clues, and it takes special training in hipster numerology and phenomenology to uncover those ...

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May 19, 2021

Who owns Oscar Wilde’s “lowest form of wit”?

Dear Hipster: Hipsters are known for having a generally snarky attitude towards most things, but they hardly own what Oscar Wilde called “the lowest form of wit.” Why is snark so easy? — Max That’s ...

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May 12, 2021

Have you ever had a decent Mudslide?

Dear Hipster: Although I would tend to agree that cool hipster stuff (music, fashion, food, or whatever) pushes boundaries in a good way, one thing I have noticed time and time again is that avant ...

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May 5, 2021

The Golden Age of something

Dear Hipster: You’d have to be a dummy to ignore the profligacy of remakes, reboots, and retro-themed books, music, and movies that have cropped up with increasing frequency over the course of the past decade. ...

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April 28, 2021

What separates Schoenberg from a toddler bashing on a piano

Dear Hipster: I get how it’s cool and hipster to have obscure, preferably one-of-a-kind aesthetic sensibilities, but I don’t get why it’s important. This is kind of abstract, but how is there any value in ...

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Waxing poetic on the origin of Cap’n Crunch

Dear Hipster: What has had a greater effect on defining what it means to be a 21st-century American hipster: movies and TV, music, or something else entirely? — AJ That’s a bit like asking, ‘Who ...

April 21, 2021

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If Elliott Smith came back from the dead

Dear Hipster: You want to know one thing you never hear about? Hipster mansions. If you picture the most hipster house you can imagine, you see a teeny tiny little cottage somewhere, or an itty ...

April 14, 2021

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April 7, 2021

Can Peeps cure scurvy?

Hipster: Why do I feel compelled to purchase discount, post-Easter candy when I would never, under normal circumstances, purchase a giant bag of Kit Kats and mini-Snickers for myself? Is there something about leftover holiday ...

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March 31, 2021

A combination of unlike elements

Dear Hipster: I have always wondered about the allure of weird, hipster businesses concepts that combine unlike elements under one roof. I’m thinking of things like a combination laundromat and bar, or a garage that ...

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When Honus Wagner looked like Robert De Niro

Compare Middle Earth’s elves and men

Spotting realism failures in Harry Potter

Cool, Costco summer is here!

Ask a Hipster

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