I’m afraid it is quite impossible to live the way you truly want to live and remain a respected member of society. Being charming is only an affectation employed to momentarily charm women, in the same way a full money clip will momentarily charm a prostitute. Suits are for posers, hair styles are for reality TV stars, and fashion is for teenagers. Integrity is so unheard of in modern times that people mistake it for intelligence, which is just as rare (the real stuff anyway). We have an abundance of intelligence, unfortunately it stands for nothing. The brilliant graduates that swamp the job markets with empty CVs are the most lacking in sincerity. These are people who wear music festivals like fashion accessories. They avoid chain store coffee in favour of that cool Hipster place that sells real coffee. It doesn’t taste better, but the cup it comes in matches your sunglasses. Take them off! You’re in a café and it’s fucking raining!
Graduates are not brighter than the average non-university member of public, they have just been told lots of very specific details about a subject they picked at a whim before they were old enough to know what really interests them.
Some graduates are different. But then some normal people are different too. Forget graduates. We are all fake soulless commercially influenced animals in tight fitting jeans. Clothes are here to keep us warm and comfortable. Not to squeeze our genitals. Personally I favour boxer shorts in the house and boot-cut jeans everywhere else. Does this make me better than people who describe their personality as “fashionista” on dating websites? No. It doesn’t. It just makes me a miserable person that hates you for no valid reason. It is not your fault you got sucked into a scene of individualism that was designed and marketed specifically to you and hundreds of thousands like you to convince you that you are unique. Give it up. You don’t even like that obscure beer you drink do you? You just like that you have to go to an independent shop to buy it. You can only afford six bottles a week but damn it tastes good. And you’ll give one away to that new friend of yours and he’ll agree that, although it costs more, it is way better than that commercial beer you get in the supermarkets. Don’t worry, nobody thinks you’re not cool, and discovering new things is actually a good thing. Just know that the makers of that beer have you in mind as their demographic. Does it have a picture of a moustache on the label? I bet it does. You are being sold a bottle of beer as a fashion accessory.
I am not better than you, I have just given up on life and people. It’s sad really. Anyway, forget all that. Let me tell you how I ended up saving one of you funny dressed bearded weirdos from a maniac dressed as Paris Hilton.
His name was Lenny, and his story begins with a Beard Styling Kit his auntie gave him for his birthday. The box was made to look old-fashioned. It came from Debenhams and had a picture of a cool moustachioed gentleman on the packaging. The Hipster was about to be killed by the superstores. At this point Lenny didn’t even know he was part of a fashion movement. He had never heard the word “Hipster” before. He just had a relaxed philosophy towards life and an interest in knowledge, history, British-ness, and obscurity. His house was full of books and interesting things. But by some kind of magic the superstores had waved a wand and turned him into a pigeon. Then they created a pigeon hole and stuffed him into it.
When Lenny went outside that day he realized that everyone was beginning to look like him. But these people weren’t rallying against society, or modernism, or commercialism, or a clone society, no, they were swimming excitedly towards it.
In a fit of madness, on his 31st Birthday, he started tearing at his beard and scratching at his tattoos. He ran back into the house and stared into his bathroom mirror. He had bags under his eyes. His beard was wild now. He tore open the Beard Styling Kit and switched on the mechanical shaver. In a few frantic moments of trimming his beard was gone. He flattened down his hair with water and then used the comb that came in the box to comb it into a side parting. He smiled madly.
He grabbed at his t-shirt and ripped it from his body. He pulled off his jeans and tore off his socks. He looked at himself again. Were his boxer shorts too trendy? He wasn’t sure. He took them off and flung them away. He stood naked now, looking at his tattooed body. He still liked his tattoos but, somehow, just for today, he would have to hide them. In the garage he had a spray paint gun that he used for his art.
In his garage, naked and breathing heavily, he filled the bottle on his spray paint gun with pink paint. He pulled a dust sheet over his Ford Capri, so as not to ruin it, and skilfully covered his tattoos. He would find the clothes he needed for today amongst his ex-girlfriend’s things.
A few hours later he emerged from the house. Look at him. Strange looking. His eye is twitching wildly. He has a blonde wig on and a well-fitting white dress. He has no shoes on. His skin is pink. In his right hand is an authentic 1930s walking cane. Concealed inside the cane is a blade.
The mass clone ocean that swarmed from faux independent fashion shops to the coffee shops they have mistaken for external living rooms run by friends are clogging up the high streets like well-dressed protesters with no agenda. They think these coffee house owners aren’t there to make money but instead to deliver something real. Perhaps it’s more real than Costa. Who knows anymore? They sell Hipster clothes in Tesco. “God Damn!” Thought Lenny. How did it come to this? How did he go from a struggling artist who could only afford to buy clothes from charity stores to being forced to look like he shops at the most expensive fashion outlets? He tightened his grip on his cane. A few people noticed him. One smiled and flashed the peace sign. It is impossible to look outrageous these days.
Lenny pressed a button on his cane with his thumb and the shaft fell away like a sword sheaf. It hit the floor and rolled away. He stood there now. His beard badly removed, the fresh paint on his skin beginning to stain his white dress. A pretty girl with a mad hairstyle was sitting at a coffee shop across the road. She looked artsy. She thought Lenny was embarking on some kind of living art instillation. She got it. She felt his pain. She understood his message. She gave a flirtatious wave with only her fingers. He walked over to her and ran her through with his sword. She had a blossoming flower tattooed on her chest. Blood tricked over the petals from the wound in her neck. He pulled the sword out. She coughed and blood vomited from her mouth. The piercing in her bottom lip made the blood cascade like a waterfall with a rock in the middle. She fell off her chair and knocked her coffee over. The coffee spilled over her MacBook Air. People began to scream. This was an unforgivable waste of coffee.
People charged at him. There were Hipsters everywhere. Bearded men. The women looked like a burlesque troop. Some of them looked like homeless 90s kids. I was there too. I have a vinyl record collection at home. I am one of those that Lenny wants dead. Except, my sense of fashion is so terrible that any attempts made by me to look like a Hipster have failed. It is lucky for me then that the only evidence about my person that would make me one of the hated clones is the curls at the ends of my moustache. Thank god my moustache wax is below par and it is late afternoon. My curls are beginning to sag.
It is lucky too that I am a writer. Writers do not charge haphazardly towards sword wielding maniacs. I stood at the edge of the ruckus and made notes.
Lenny was slashing wildly. He killed many Hipsters with remarkable swiftness. It is a well-known fact about Hipsters that if you grab one by the beard it will render him useless. He will go into a kind of trance. A good beard can take years to cultivate and they would rather submit than risk damage to a single strand. If you grab one by the beard and then use your free hand to slice off the beard the overwhelming feeling of loss will cause him to lose consciousness. He will be subdued. I knew this and thought I could use this technique to save at least a few of these unfortunate souls.
One of the bearded ones bumped in to me and I took the opportunity. I grabbed him by the beard and he stopped immediately in his tracks. I didn’t have a knife on me so I had no choice but to yank his beard from his face. This saddened me greatly. As much as I can sympathize with Lenny’s point of view I am a big fan of male facial hair, a good beard is particularly pleasing. The site of a significantly manly beard will cause feelings of manliness to dwell up inside me. It makes me want to live in the woods and chop wood, fight bears, and drink warm beer from the bottle. I yanked his beard and it came free with a horrifying Velcro tear. He stared at the hairy mass in my hand. Raised his own hand to his chin. Realization reflected on his features. His eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped to the ground.
Lenny witnessed my act of kindness and mistook it for something else. He figured me for a kindred spirit. A helper to his cause. He killed the last few Hipsters and stood there in front of me. He was drenched in blood. The street around us was a pool of red. Parts of Hipster could be seen floating in the mess. He shook my hand and thanked me for my help. Then he was gone. He just walked away.
Somehow Lenny was never caught. How a man in a blood covered dress and a blonde wig, carrying a sword, can casually walk away from a scene like that and not be found by the police is beyond me. But somehow he managed to get home. He washed off the paint. Burned the dress and the wig. Found the sheaf for his walking-cane sword where the blade would remain concealed forever. He stayed home for a few days and let his beard grow back in. Lenny looked like a Hipster again. The police were not looking for a Hipster. They were looking for a Hipster killer.
I, on the other hand, am in trouble. The only surviving Hipster, the one I saved by yanking his beard out, identified me as one of the assailants.
I was arrested and sentenced to life.
Fucking Hipsters.
Picture Credit: The Urban Trap (Hipster Trap)s were left on the streets of New York by Jeff Greenspan and Hunter Fine. – http://www.UrbanTraps.com
Andrew Chapman / Author and Screenwriter 