Open letter to all hipsters:

Hella hipsters looking hella obscure and emotional.

I thought Juno was the hipsterist movie I've ever seen, and while I still think it is, DAMN I just saw a pretty fucking hipster movie, The Puffy Chair.

See, there is a movie coming out within the next few weeks called Baghead. It looks awesome, totally Sean of the Dead style in that its looks funny and scary, so I thought I'd rent their first movie, The Puffy Chair, and check out their style (plus it got really good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes).

Well, if Baghead is anything like The Puffy Chair, then I'm going to be sad, because The Puffy Chair is one big pile of hipster indie shit- complete with its hipster indie soundtrack and everything!

Watching this movie made me wonder what it is about hipsters and their expressions of art that I and many others find so offensive. I mean, go around San Francisco, Portland, any city and talk to people in their 20s and 30s and you'll find that everyone hates hipsters and loves to talk about how much they hate them...yet everyone kind of is a hipster. I mean, looking at myself: I go to art school, I look a little slobby sometimes, I live in The Mission in San Francisco. What I'm saying is that unlike athletes or vegans, for instance, hipsters avoid identifying themselves as hipsters...I've never heard anyone boast: "Well I'm more hipster than he is."

Yet I think there really are two ways you can identify a hipster: clothes and music. Hipsters have a very specific way of dressing and very specific musical tastes which reflect their tiny and shriveled brains.

After watching this film I have created a list of questions for The Duplass brothers (directors of The Puffy Chair [big surprise they live in Brooklyn]) and to all hipsters in general:

WHY ARE HIPSTERS SO OBSESSED WITH RELATIONSHIP DRAMA?
Hipsters are not obsessed with relationships, but with relationship drama. Listen to their music or watch their movies and you'll see that their lives center around intra-personal relationships and the turbulence surrounding them. On a personal level, I can understand; I don't mind listening to a hipster friend talk way to long about some relationship and read way too much into everything. Whatever. What I don't understand is this obsession as manifested in art. I mean, it takes a pretty huge ego to think you can make a whole album about your various relationships, your inner feelings about them, and that this is somehow worthy of having the world pay to listen to it.

WHY DO HIPSTERS LOOK FOR MEANING WHERE THERE IS NONE?
What I mean is because of hipsters' bloated sense of self, they dwell on trivial issues that are unimportant to the rest of us. For instance, in Star Wars after the famous "Luke, I am your father" line, there is a pause in the movie to let this monumental bombshell sink in with the viewers, and there should be. In The Puffy Chair, as in many situations with hipsters, there will be vast periods of silence and deep ponderings about such trivial issues as breakfast. Hipsters don't know that you can't just say something mundane and pause for reflection because you come off as either retarded or extremely hallow.

WHY DO HISTERS TALK WEIRD?
Hipsters actually sound different when they talk. For one thing they end every sentence going up in tone. Like everything's a question??? They also talk sloowerr to stretch out their boorringgg thoughhhttss. They also try to talk cutesy at times, especially the female ones. Like in The Puffy Chair this girl keeps slipping into a baby voice when talking to her boyfriend which I just find so disgusting. Hipster musician Joanna Newsome is also guilty of this offense.

WHY ARE HIPSTERS SO SLOVENLY?
Why have hipsters actually made a sloppy appearance a part of their personal style? Actually, hipsters would probably prefer I say lack of style instead of style, because they're soooo busy starting bands and doing obscure craft projects and being different that they just don't have time to wash their shoes.....or comb their hair....or iron their shirt...or shave their unruly beard (many hipsters have unruly beards). This is what hipsters want the world to believe: that they are such authentic, real, confident, unique flowers that spend their time on psychically important stuff that they just don't have time for their appearance; and furthermore that fashion/ personal style itself is a meager and shallow form of expression that is propagated by the mainstream and The Corporations.

WHY ARE HIPSTERS ALWAYS IN SHITTY BANDS?
I know of no other sect of the population that is consistently involved with shitty music like the hipsters are. Not just the content of their songs (whiny intra-personal relationship drama and deep feelings) but actual shitty music. For one thing the male vocals are always so high pitched and often very cutesy as well. That stems from their androgyny. Hipsters lack gender identity when compared to the rest of us. That's why many straight male hipsters seem gay. Their tight black pants, obsession with feelings, and effeminate mannerisms all scream gay homosexual. But I digress. Just because a hipster doesn't have any talent won't stop them from creating a band, like it would for a normal person. Because of their bloated sense of self they think they are owed all the attentions of the world. And to showcase their obscurity a band must have at least one non-tradition instrument, such as a viola or an accordion, and an obscure name that has no relationship to anything, like Architecture in Helsinki. FUCK HIPSTER MUSIC.

WHY DO HIPSTERS PRETEND TO BE POOR?
All hipsters, no matter what their socioeconomic status, pretend to be poor. Why should I care? Because it's dishonest. The thing that bothers me most about hipsters is their dishonesty. Nothing about them is real, it's all gimmicky and hallow. As my friend Will once said about their music: "That's not even real music." In The Puffy Chair, the protagonist makes a point to mention he's poor...but wait wait it's all good because he's a booking agent for bands; i.e. he's doing something cool and real instead of making money- he made a principled choice. I suppose hipsters think that appearing poor will give them an edge, will lend some authenticity or grit to their persona, to their message. They're particularly interested in adopting into kitchy, low-middle class Americana (PBR, late-night diners). And also, to them material wealth represents the aforementioned "mainstream" and The Corporations. Ultimately appearing poor furthers the hipster's everlasting fight to be alternative... anything one can do to be more different; to not fit in- even if all hipsters are straight white people from the suburbs.

I could go on and on but I won't. I have so many questions for the hipsters, not to genuinely find out information, but to engage them in a dialog that I believe they're not having with themselves. I know I should just ignore them but I am surrounded by them. I see them everyday walking down the streets. I hear them at my school. At my critiques. I watch them date the people I have crushes on.

I see them trying so hard, even winning. And I am here to rain on their parade.