Happy New Year, all you hipsters! I hate to break with the typical Q-preceding-A format, but I must begin this year with a shout-out to the observant hipster who pointed out how my idea for …
January 1, 2020
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Stories by DJ Stevens
Jingle Cats is terrifying
21st-century zodiac placemat
Dear Hipster: Every year around this time, I think back to the paper placemats at the Chinese restaurant I went to as a kid. You probably know the ones I mean, with the signs of …
December 25, 2019
Elizabeth Warren has no idea who Diplo is
Hey Hipster: What the heck is hipster antitrust and why does it keep showing up in my news feed? I’m not even exactly sure what regular antitrust is (except I think it has something to …
December 18, 2019
Sustainable, artisanal, alternative Christmas music
Dear Hipster: It’s getting to be that season, when I can’t enter a retail establishment without having my ears bombarded by the same old Christmas songs I’ve heard over and over again for the past …
December 11, 2019
A Star Wars nativity scene with Baby Yoda
Dear Hipster: You have told us winter is basically here, and we should all be drinking warm, alcoholic beverages to chase off the Yuletide chill. I would challenge one of the basic assumptions underlying your …
December 4, 2019
The hottest drinks of winter
Dear Hipster: I think the hipster love of winter has been fairly well established at this point, and we can pretty much take it as a given that, for every person who falls back on …
November 27, 2019
More than one point of view on Thanksgiving
The ideal hipster Thanksgiving As I’ve pointed out before, no holiday lacks the potential for a hipster makeover. Thanksgiving is no exception. Not only is it nestled comfortably between epic Halloween costumes and ugly-Christmas-sweater parties, …
November 26, 2019
Thanksgiving dinner at Denny’s
Dear Hipster: I have been preparing elaborate Thanksgiving dinners at my house for and with a core group of friends and family for some time now. I think this would be my fifth or sixth …
November 20, 2019
Elliot Smith, Death Cab for Cutie, and an obscure, Milwaukee-based alternative hip-hop artist walk into a bar...
Hey Hipster: I haven’t heard a good hipster joke in a dog’s age. Make me laugh, or perhaps groan as the case may be. — Bernie I don’t know about all-out laughs, but if you …
November 13, 2019
Serious San Diego table grapes Foodies
Hi Hipster: Having grown table grapes in San Diego since the 1980s, and having rejected all the boring ones, I now have some forty-odd vines producing exquisite fruit. I have, of course, diligently combed over …
November 6, 2019
Mickey Mouse hats for adults
Dear Hipster: So, I guess hipster-themed Mickey Mouse ears for adults are a thing now. I for sure have a handful of adult friends who will for sure be ordering themselves a hipster Mickey Mouse …
October 30, 2019
Ironic Justin Trudeau Halloween
Dear Hipster: I read where you gave the wise advice, “Anytime you want to try blackface - DON’T.” But what if you want to go as Justin Trudeau in blackface? Isn’t that meta enough? — …
October 23, 2019
Halloween costume rundown: Scoops Ahoy to Downton Abbey
Yo Hipster: Share with me a few clever ideas to wow my friends (costume-wise) at any or all of the raging Halloween parties I will attend this year. — Shawn Dear Hipster: Is there a …
October 16, 2019
Finding dandyism in Simon Winchester’s The Map That Changed the World
DJ: Have you read the Wikipedia article on Dandyism? Certain parallels… Is there a history of Hipsterism? Does society always have one version or another of hipsters? Just Western society or Eastern, too? Are the …
October 9, 2019
Kale smoothies: too much of a good thing?
Dear Hipster: Unlike many of your readers, I will not write to complain ad infinitum about hipster stuff. I actually like a lot of hipster things. Sign me up for the fancy coffee, minimalist design, …
October 2, 2019
Predating Charlie Parker
Dear H’ster: One qualm I have, and it predates your column and the last however many years the term Hipster has been in the popular vernacular, is that 99.2% of our population do not know …
September 25, 2019
Mocking minimalism from Dwell magazine
Dear Hipster: You made me LOL at your August 29th article where you said most people do not have room to park in their garages that are filled with boxes, many untouched for over ten …
September 18, 2019
Discover the affordable glory of malt liquor
Dear Hipster: I’ve recently moved into San Diego, and into my first apartment post-college that’s really mine. At least, it’s mine and my roommate’s because there’s no way I could afford a 1BR spot for …
September 11, 2019
Bringing up baby with a six-figure salary and a 529 plan
Dear Hipster: I’ve recently moved into San Diego, and into my first apartment post-college that’s really mine. At least, it’s mine and my roommate’s because there’s no way I could afford a 1BR spot for …
September 4, 2019
Scratchy Goodwill rag, or Egyptian cotton from Bed Bath and Beyond?
Dear Hipster: I’ve recently moved into San Diego, and into my first apartment post-college that’s really mine. At least, it’s mine and my roommate’s because there’s no way I could afford a 1BR spot for …
August 28, 2019
Discounts on kale smoothies and Miller High Life
Dear Hipster: I’ve recently moved into San Diego, and into my first apartment post-college that’s really mine. At least, it’s mine and my roommate’s, because there’s no way I could afford a 1BR spot for …
August 21, 2019
Kyle takes a crack at kale chips
So, here’s the thing. I know I impliedly promised a swift return after investigating the prison-themed hipster bar supposedly selling artisanal pruno in decidedly poor taste. Terrible idea, but, hipsters will hipster. If I may …
August 14, 2019
Caught between Chernobyl and the slaughterhouse
Well, the rumors of a Pavement pre-reunion reunion proved unsurprisingly false. I regret nothing. Unfortunately, my return to “Ask a Hipster” will be delayed yet another week. You see, before I even made it halfway …
August 7, 2019
Pinterest-worthy artisans
Note: a friend of mine, whose name I cannot reveal, from a city somewhere in the United States, the location of which I cannot reveal (but I assure you, wherever you’re thinking, you’re wrong), heard …
July 31, 2019
The new James Bond
Dear Hipster: What the heck? When will the hipsterfication end? I check my phone first thing this morning, and what do I get on the news feed? The new James Bond is going to be …
July 24, 2019
Luxurious Charms
Dear Hipster: My friends and I were having a very tipsy Fourth of July this year, drinking and playing lawn games as one does on a midweek summer holiday. And, as people tend to do …
July 17, 2019
Sex on the Beach, Pousse-cafe, and other incongruous beverages
Dear Hipster: A while ago, I went to a bar that has a reputation for divey-ness. I won’t say which one, because I get the sense that would be unhip, but suffice to say the …
July 10, 2019
No point of market saturation for housing or craft beer bars
Dear Hipster: I’m no economist, but I think I have learned a thing or two about markets merely by watching the world around me. For instance, I was not surprised to hear housing prices have …
July 3, 2019
David Bowie? Too soon. Tupac? Too soon. Buddy Holly? Still too soon.
Dear Hipster: In the world of perpetual hipster irony, what, if anything, is sacred anymore? — Dave B. You might be forgiven for thinking that our cultural moment, which in its time has boasted such …
June 25, 2019
Founding a new nation like Sealand
Dear Hipster: You’re probably too young to remember Sealand. Back in the late Sixties and early Seventies, these kooks had seized an old oil rig (or something to that effect) off the coast of England, …
June 19, 2019
Mitigating climate change with more than #NODAPL protests
Dear Hipster: How do we make mitigating climate change hip in the sense of people actually doing something about it? Yeah, they may post a few things on Insta or RT, but how do we …
June 12, 2019
The inexplicable reason people keep eating at the Cheesecake Factory
Dear Hipster: Is it ever the case that somebody might want to impersonate a hipster? If so, why? — Darren One might think, given the general opprobrium towards hipsterkind on behalf of the general public, …
June 5, 2019
Enthusiastically endorsing Drumstick ice cream breakfast cereal
Dear Hipster: I get how things normally work. Hipsters are into hipster stuff before it’s cool, then, after the hipster stuff attains mainstream popularity, hipsters are “over it” because it’s too mainstream. That’s old news …
May 29, 2019
Is old school cooler than modern when discussing 8-tracks, laserdiscs and Betamax tapes?
Dear Hipster: If old-school is cooler than modern, and if obscure is cooler than common, then why aren’t hipsters stockpiling 8-tracks, laserdiscs, and Betamax tapes? I would think these various media, so much more obscure …
May 22, 2019
“Hey, Mexican Cavalier with US plates. Neat!”
Dear Hipster: So, I was reading the letter from the guy who apparently read a seventeen year old Reader article about buying cars in Mexico, went to TJ to get himself a 2019 Cavalier, and …
May 15, 2019
The Indiana Jones of the local Salvation Army
Dear Hipster: As a second (but not third) generation fashion iconoclast — though I do have a great-grandparent who made distinctly eccentric sartorial choices in his day — I feel welling up in me a …
May 8, 2019
Instagram cat influencer or guest spot on Ellen as a parrot who can sing renditions of Beyoncé songs in Spanglish?
Hey Hipster: Would it be better to get reincarnated as a cat who’s famous on Instagram or a parrot who gets to be on Ellen (but only for one day) because it learns how to …
May 1, 2019
Colonel Sanders as a Coachella-bound influencer?
Dear Hipster: What the heck do I have to do to become a multi-millionaire hipster Instagram influencer with lucrative contracts from big companies? I want free hotel stays, toys for my kids, treats for my …
April 24, 2019
Is Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” a country song?
Dear Hipster: Is “Old Town Road” a country song or not? WTF?! — D., Normal Heights At least a couple of times a year, somebody sends me what looks like a throwaway question, little more …
April 17, 2019
Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotics filtered through a few generations of abstract thought
Dear Hipster: I have a meta-question for you this week. It seems to me that you receive a tremendous number of messages along the lines of “is such and such a thing hipster or not …
April 10, 2019
Rick and Morty space-time conundrum
Dear Hipster: What would be the ideal, alternate universe in which a hipster such as yourself might be trapped after falling through a tear in the space-time continuum? Before you answer, I have some ground …
April 3, 2019
What’s a sixer of Tecate worth? Engelbert Humperdinck Christmas album?
Dear Hipster: I own a moderately beat pickup truck, which I do not really drive all that much on account of not wanting to pay for the gas. I call her Delores, and, before anyone …
March 27, 2019
Which came first in the MIT Technology Review?
Dear Hipster: I’m sure you’ve heard of the old mimesis v. anti-mimesis imponderable, i.e. does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? It’s the kind of thing one could go back and forth on …
March 20, 2019
Curling sport fandom: Ironic or genuine appreciation?
Hipster: My daughter laughed at me when I said I didn’t like to watch curling because everyone else seemed to be into it. Whenever it’s on TV, the announcers always have to explain the rules …
March 13, 2019
Did Fox News call Kamala Harris a poser?
Dear Hipster: Do we put 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful and current California Senator Kamala Harris in the hipster hall of fame for apparently having been into both Snoop Dogg and Tupac before either rapper had …
February 27, 2019
Wasting my life away reading McSweeney’s and the San Diego Reader
Dear Hipster: For about a two weeks now, I have found myself lying asleep at night, staring up at the ceiling, watching the fan twirl around, listening to the night noises, and pondering the universe. …
February 20, 2019
Original innovation or moustache imitation?
Dear Hipster: Sometimes I get confused about whether it’s more hipster to be an innovator or a clever imitator. On the one hand, it seems to me as if the most hipster thing you can …
February 13, 2019
Target and Urban Outfitters: out on the bleeding edge of culture
Hipster: Are places like Target and Urban Outfitters bona fide hipster destinations or a mass marketed version thereof? — David Much of the outcome here depends on your personal definition of hipster. If you think …
February 6, 2019
Hep to the jive
Dear Hipster: Growing up we used the term hep instead of hip, as in I’m hep, a real hep cat, or hep to the jive. So, shouldn’t it be Hepster? Asking for a very hep …
January 30, 2019
The cachet of clever
Hipster: Usually, I feel like YouTube gets me pretty well, recommends the right videos and whatnot, but every now and again I see some unsolicited, random video about things I don’t care about. The other …
January 23, 2019