The Dream of the 90's...

[JayB]

Is alive in Portland...

 

[video:youtube]

[pink]

:lmao:

[Jim]

A cut from Portlandia I suppose. Heard a couple segment cuts on the radio; pretty funny but how many segments can you have. I give 'em points for effort. If everyone were like me life would be too boring.

[prole]

Gentrification has never been funnier.

[JayB]

If everyone were like me life would be too boring.

 

If only you knew how to visually assert your uniqueness through a tightly proscribed set of widely shared clothing, hair, and eye-glass frame options employed by millions and millions of other people to do the same thing.

 

When "hipster" theme parties become the new 70's parties this jig is up. I hope.

 

 

[olyclimber]

there have always been hipsters, they evolve just like the non-hipsters. it's a bit myopic to pick on this generations hip, like being different just like everyone else is something new.

 

its ok if they are cooler than you are, you don't need to be insecure about it and pick at their scab of awesomeness all the time.

 

but it does make me wonder...are the people who pick on hipsters actually cooler than hipsters? like the average run of the mill skinny jeans wearing single speed riding hipster is at the bottom of the hipster pyramid and at the top you have people looking down and laughing at their puny attempts at cool.

[olyclimber]

additionally, can you even have this conversation without being tied up to the cool wagon and flogged? Like a Heisenberg uncertainty principle of cool.

[prole]

I'm endlessly amused by the fact that Ayn Rand-types, supposedly dedicated to individualism in the abstract, are not only the blandest, most conformist people you'll ever meet, they're also the most disdainful of individual expression in practice.

 

Not that the hipster isn't deserving of all the disdain we can possibly muster.

[G-spotter]

Anyone who is effortlessly cool is worthy of admiration.

Anyone who attempts cool with effort, whether they succeed or fall short, is worthy only of ridicule.

[tvashtarkatena]

There's a level of cool, above it all, that only I occupy.

 

The rest of you could strive for this, but by doing that, you would already have failed.

[olyclimber]

well thats great Dru, but i wasn't asking you to define cool, i was talking about whether or not it was even cool to discuss cool.

[olyclimber]

did you just say or measure cool? psssssfffftttt

[tvashtarkatena]

Cool is a way of moving through the universe, but to describe it as such would be uncool.

[JayB]

Very profound questions. I was pondering them all a few weeks ago when a swarm of bearded "Critical Mass" people enveloped me on my ride home from work.

 

Unfortunately, the only one I can remember was "Why is a grown man with a long-beard, skinny jeans, and a woven rasta hat riding a with a banana seat and plastic mag wheels? At night - in the rain, with no lights, and no helmet? The next one was - why is that guy trying to light a cigarette in the rain with his zippo while no-handsing it on his fixie?

 

Then all of the questions faded away, much like the pack of "Critical Mass" people when we all headed up a steep hill and they reveled in the austere purity of a hill climb on bikes with no gears....

[olyclimber]

so in short, you were way cooler than any of them.

[tvashtarkatena]

When you can build a house out of leaves and a Trader Joes' coffee can seal, come talk to me.

[prole]

Maximizing utility and functional efficiency first, cool later.

[olyclimber]

its just saying that utility and function somehow aren't cool. or that it is impossible to be both hip and utilitarian or functional. or that we all embrace and use a word that means quite the opposite of it's stated definition. like saying "this shit is the shit" when you meant to say "this shit is shit.

[tvashtarkatena]

GOP cool:

 

a) Rebrand failing status quo as iconoclastic

b) Guard it with strawmen

 

Suck is the new cool.

[JayB]

so in short, you were way cooler than any of them.

 

I was definitely 10 levels lamer. Just the fact that I was wearing waterproof shoe covers and using clipless pedals settled that one.

 

I was actually wondering if they were engaged in some kind of self-referentially ironic mobile performance art with a message several levels deeper than anything that I could even begin to understand.

[JayB]

its just saying that utility and function somehow aren't cool. or that it is impossible to be both hip and utilitarian or functional. or that we all embrace and use a word that means quite the opposite of it's stated definition. like saying "this shit is the shit" when you meant to say "this shit is shit.

 

You've developed quite a robust theoretical framework to analyze the meaning of all of this....

[olyclimber]

you didn't get the memo: lame is new cool

[olyclimber]

in fact, someone found the memo at a thrift shop and realized the ironic potential

[JayB]

GOP cool:

 

a) Rebrand failing status quo as iconoclastic

b) Guard it with strawmen

 

Suck is the new cool.

 

Portland is the status quo. No?

 

 

 

[olyclimber]

there has been quite a bit of discussion of williamsburg west, but its safe to say that if there is any talk of it on a board like cc.com, then its day has passed. more than likely the real hipsters are hibernating, waiting for their next port of call.