Back a few weeks ago, I put together a quick blurb including my thoughts on hipsters and why their attempts at synthetic originality make my blood boil. The opinion generated a fair amount of feedback thanks to Diehipster.com, and in all fairness some of the negative commentary that came my way does make a tiny bit of sense seeing as, on paper, I could have better supported my reasons for having such hostility toward the brand that is a Brooklyn hipster. But, instead of methodically plotting out an itinerary of verbal-assault through which I take over Williamsburg by annihilating one hipster at a time consequently reclaiming Mother Brooklyn for the natives, I rather haphazardly ran with the ideas that spewed out of my mind and the result of such is here.
Consequentially, I decided to construct a follow up piece and have thought long and hard about how I’d like to present my thoughts accordingly. Originally I considered a clearly drawn out essay complete with supporting documentation and factoids that cannot and would not be debated may be the way to go, but that just seemed like it would lack flavor. Next I thought maybe something of a dedication to the douchery that is Williamsburg and Bushwick by means of a photo-tribute might work. I picture this piece containing things like this, or this(nice cheetah tat). Yet again, this just didn’t seem like the best approach. Then, within a period of only a week, NYC time, I realized that this piece was pretty much writing itself via the asinine comments that come out of many a hipsters mouth/hands on the internet.
And so, I bring to you – The top 5 reasons why this Brooklyn native is completely fed up and disgusted with the hipster population of 2010 Brooklyn. These appear in no particular order and each one provides to me an equal amount of nausea.
Example Number 1:
In Defense of ‘Hipsters’ and the Controversial Practice of Moving to a City Not of One’s Birth
In this piece written by Barret Brown of Bushwick BK, it is crystal clear that the general attitude of a transplanted Brooklyn resident is that of superiority and elitism. Brown actually goes so far as to refer to the non-hipstery folk who move to Brooklyn from afar as either ‘Puerto Rican’ or a variant of ‘awful Balkan‘. First point of interest here is why Brown feels the need to conjoin the thoughts in his sentence referring to one grouping of people as awful – and the other simply as Puerto Rican? He got a good tongue lashing from natives and transplants alike for that one, and even though he later produced a follow-up piece in an attempt to not be labeled the racist he is, the damage was clearly already done.
I have news for you Brown, each and every one of us Brooklyn natives ancestral lines can be drawn back to other countries. My family migrated over from Italy during a time that made them the lower-class working immigrant. They worked feverishly to establish themselves and create environments that were safe for their women and children. They brought over with them a work ethic and an understanding of what it is to worry about putting food on the table each night, something that you, you feeble minded arrogant idiot, obviously have no respect for.
Later in Brown’s blurb, he really shows himself – and all other hipster garbage, to be of the selective class in their own minds. He goes into detail by describing natives as seemingly falling into one of the following:
“People who honk at parked school buses, throw old televisions out of windows, play shitty Top 40 dance music from parked cars at 600 decibels, scream at bodega clerks, avoid branch libraries, give money to Pentecostal preachers, buy t-shirts that say “Hi Hater” on one side and “Bye Hater” on the other and then wear those t-shirts in public, await the Jewish Messiah, worship the Christian Messiah, and play the lottery.”
Now – here’s where I really get angry. Yes, Brooklyn natives do buy tee-shirts that say Hi Hater on one side and Bye Hater on the other and then wear said tee-shirts, they do play lotto, they do wait for the second coming of Jesus and they do scream at Bodega clerks. (That is Bodega with a big “B” out of respect for the working man – who may just be, gasp, Puerto Rican!) And you know what, Brown… They will continue to do all of abovementioned things because that is who they are. Their patient wait for the Messiah is not done so out of a deep-rooted need for approval, unlike your every day hipsters attempt to be an Eco-friendly vegan. You people don’t give a fuck about the environment – you’re out there spending your mommy and daddy’s money on a surplus of PBR each weekend when that money can easily be going toward Eco-research. What you do give a fuck about is fitting into the herds that make up the current face of Williamsburg, and now a good majority of Bushwick. Say what you want about a native Brooklynites propensity to play shitty top 40 dance music out of their car radio systems but this much is true: I’d prefer the streets be littered with nothing but inaudible track over track of every horrific dance song you can possibly think of, a veritable overlap of an unrecognizable mish mash of shit, than have to endure one more fucking Siren festival of Indy garbage that appeals to you spurious elitist snobs.
Example Number 2:
This just in: Hipsters disrespect Williamsburg tradition (shocker!)
There are various street festivals that happen all over Brooklyn every summer. This is Brooklynite culture. This is what we, as natives, looked forward to during the adolescent years. These festivals are a celebration of who we are, whether it be Italian, African, Hasid, Latino, or Asian – each and every summer there are myriad events honoring our roots. NY, the melting pot, is where diversity lives. And then you have some fucking asshole with absolutely no respect for lineage – or a culture outside of their own that will make a comment as offensive as this one:
“It was a tiny parade, and they shut down Graham Avenue?” said Mr. Tocco, 26, an actor. “There was one float and a horrible marching band. It was very ironic. The Latino parades are more festive.”
That’s right they shut down Graham Avenue you little asshole. They shut down Graham Avenue because this is a tradition. It is a tradition that lived here way before you and your 7 roommates. Williamsburg, pre-infestation, had a sizable Italian population. It still does, to some degree. The people who look forward to this event every year have deep rooted history in Taggiano, Italy. They are devout and they love their Saint – and not you or any other bearded conformist should have even the slightest commentary as it pertains to any inconveniences you may suffer as a result of a street closure. You don’t have to like the band, or the saint, or anything about organized religion for that matter –but you damn better respect it because you’re in THEIR home, not the other way around.
This total disrespect of a culture throws me into rage. The hypocrisy as I see it is that there is a devotion to Brooklyn in a hipsters writings and their artistic expression – and then there are the comments like that made by Tocco, one completely negating the other. Brooklyn today is not the only Brooklyn to have ever lived. If you want to love Mother Brooklyn then you better learn what she is about. She is about religion – and she is about street festivals and devout Christians or Jews or whatever other outrageous devotion that may exist. Brooklyn is about diversity and coexisting. Why is it that the neighborhood I grew up in had absolutely no issues when it came to Jewish and Roman Catholic Italian families integrating? My friends were a 50/50 mix of Jewish and Catholic – and we played together and ate together, and lived in peace and unison. There was no disrespect, ever. We understood our differences and we kept them in mind when dealing with each other. If I had a Jewish friend, I didn’t ring their bell for hide and go seek past afternoon on a Friday out of respect for the Shabbat. Why the fuck can’t you all put on some shoulder-covers and respect the Satmars of Williamsburg in the same manner? – I’ll tell you why: it’s because you have no interest in loving Brooklyn for what she is truly about. Your interest is in that of a take-over position. You are all in love with Brooklyn because you’ve come here and turned it into nothing but a mirror image of the small town plebeian existence that you came from.
Fuck Defending Brooklyn – How about Respecting Brooklyn?!
Example Number 3:
Flashback to August 2009 for The MOVE Party organized by the “Lowbrow Society for the Arts” – A moving “art” party that overtook 3 subway cars on the J line thus completely interfering with all of the other paying commuters’ rides to/from work/home/wherever. As reported by Jeremiah Moss of Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York (a GREAT blog!), the partiers rode the J line from the Bowery to Broadway Junction in East New York. They brought beer onto the trains, they brought food onto the trains, and they wore costumes and played instruments like banjos and accordions.
It’s reported that some folks enjoyed the scene and participated by clapping along to the live tunes – or by making use of the flowers that were being handed out to the female passengers, but for the most part it seemed as if the members of this ‘art party’ had pretty much confined the passengers, forcing them to participate in something they may, or very well may not, be into. The best is yet to come, however…
At Broadway Junction, the partiers exited the subway cars and continued their singing and dancing on the platform. The crowd was a mix of costume clad hipsters and black neighborhood locals who were waiting on their train. And then the magic happened, one hipster idiot breaks into song and declares that said tune is:
“All About how Money Doesn’t Mean Anything!!”
Right – Great idea there, douche bag. Come into an area that is completely depraved with your expensive instruments and your costumes and your elite attitude and have a fucking Kumbaya singalong about how money is unimportant… in the ghetto. Smart.
As Jeremiah Moss reported it, here is an exchange that happened between party goers and what I picture to be a local:
“This is not a good stop,” he said. “Don’t you think if you were here all alone, you’d be mugged right now?”
“I don’t believe that,” said the partiers.
“Believe it. You don’t know where you’re at.”
“Yes, we do,” said the partiers, “This is our train, too. We ride this train every day.”
And, here’s where I get angry, again. – The way I see it, there are two possibilities here:
ONE: The hipster really didn’t have any idea where he was and he was just acting like he did so as not to look like a complete dolt in front of his herd – (but I don’t believe this to be true at all)
Or
TWO: The hipster did in fact know where he was and went forward with his little ‘Money doesn’t mean shit’ song with absolutely no regard to the fact that more than half of the 90,000 East NY residents are reported as living below the poverty line and are on some form of Public Assistance.
It is this flippant attitude with respect to the struggle of another human being that enrages me. There is little understanding of the real fight. There is little attempt made to submerge oneself into the true grit and grime as it exists in these areas and instead of fully exposing themselves to the reality of poverty and strife, hipsters will come into an area and mock its residents with fabled stories of how life is grand and they shouldn’t have worries or woes because money is unimportant.
There is little more I can say about this one – I think it speaks volumes all by itself.
Example # 4
Candy Crack for Sale in Williamsburg & Greenpoint
This one is a favorite, and you’ll excuse me if I get really fucking obnoxious and irate as we go through the various reasons why pretending to be a crack dealer deserves a punch in the face.
Maybe they didn’t have a crack epidemic in Ohio but here in Brooklyn, the shit ran rampant for longer than I’d like to remember. New Jack City-esque Crack Houses do not exist only in Nino Brown’s world. They’re very real – and for a good while back in the day, Brooklyn suffered a serious setback with respect to its residents becoming Crack addicted zombies. And here comes Nate Hill, an asshole in a fish-hat, who not only glorifies the act of ‘buying crack’, but does so dressed as a cartoon character, you know, to appeal to the youngsters and such.
The article linked above will tell you that you can only buy his ‘crack candy’ between the hours of 10pm, and 2am, much like a “real drug dealer” – and this little tidbit is reason Number Uno to support my argument that these idiots have no idea what a toll a Crack addiction will take not only the addict but the families and friends of the addicted as well. Newsflash, idiot: crack sales is a 24/7 operation. Do you think that a crackhead limits their usage to an exclusive night-time habit? Do you not comprehend that this addiction will remove every particle of property, every interpersonal relationship will suffer, and every ounce of well being that may reside in your body will diminish as a result of the extreme hold it takes on the addict’s life? Is it funny, to you, Nate Hill? Funny to you that people are dropping dead as a result of over-dose because their feeble hearts cannot take it anymore? You explain your shtick as “amusing theater” that is meant to be taken in jest. Well, I’m sorry if I don’t see the humor in emulating a life style that results in deaths, murders, robberies, rapes, and the overall loss of a person’s livelihood.
This is just one more example of how a hipster finds it amusing to copy the life of the poverty stricken population with little or no understanding of what the real-deal is. The fake crack sales, the brown paper bag Miller-High Life 40’s (for $12.00!! Gtfoh!) they buy at hipster bars, the photography of graffiti in an attempt to feel closer to an urban oasis they’ve created in their little ill shaped minds, all of these acts are prime illustrations of the phantasmagoria they prescribe to themselves.
Example # 5 –
This is a snapshot of a flash ad that BushwickBK.com runs – because, apparently, this is now the face of Bushwick.
Nuff Said.
I could easily continue to build on this list on a daily basis but that would just be silly at this point. I will, however, continue to support sites like diehipster.com and latfh.com and I’ll do so with the feral attitude that supports my opinions above. In my previous piece some accused me of attempting to assign myself the position of Ambassador of all that is Brooklyn Cool – and that is not at all what I’m about. I don’t think I’m cool, lame, or any other variant of an adjective as it relates to my association with the borough of Brooklyn. What I do think, however, is that I am a girl who was born and raised here and that credential is enough to continue to voice my opinion accordingly. I know this place I call home – and until I up and leave, I will represent the Brooklyn that lives in my heart. If you don’t like it, that’s all the better for me and the rest of the natives out there who are sick of your unconcerned gentrified attitude. Add it to the list of reasons to leave.
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