Hipsters V Hipster-Haters

The speedy rise of the hipster scene in Ireland has only been superseded by the rise of the Hipster Hater. Both species take up only a small slice of the far ends of Cork’s social spectrum but we’ve documented some blatant characteristics so you can spot them around the Rebel county…


Fashion

 

Hipsters are easily identifiable by their chequered shirts or raggy v-neck t-shirts, pesto flecked six inch beards, pre-worn leather man bags that contain two 7-inch reggae records and an iPad. Also a dead give away during a heat wave is a plain navy woolly hat pulled down to eye-level.

Hipster haters wear shirts tucked into smart pants at work until they get home, turn on the internet, put on their tinfoil hats...and take all their clothes off.

 

   Transport

 

They would ideally like to ride “fixies” – pared-down racing bikes with no gears -  but Leeside hipsters have had to compromise: shaggy old ten speed racers are more practical for the acute inclines of Cork’s hills.

Hipster Haters drive large cars with two litre engines specifically to rev hard when about to be overtaken by cycling hipsters whilst stuck in traffic. 



Beers

 

Buying a drink that gives you change out of a fiver (aside from nettle soup at a Farmers Market) is not for these heavily bearded lips so you’ll only find them drinking something brewed and bottled by two chemists-turned-hippies in a squat in Doneraile. Even quality local beers like Rebel Red, Mi Daza, Shandon Stout, Sunbeam and Stonewell are becoming far too popular for them.

The Hipster Hater dreams of bygone days when city centre pubs gave you a choice of two taps based on whichever two big brands had the most expensive TV ads at the time. He’s livid when he sees anyone drinking a beer that doesn’t have a sexy advert on Sky Sports that implies drinking their brand will hook you up with tanned flahs from Brazil. There’s nothing a hipster-hater deplores more than the freedom of choice.



Music

 

Any song with a ukulele in it versus anything Larry Gogan played before 1978.   



Hobbies

 

Hipsters spend much of their time playing the Ukulele to their fennel plants and “upcycling” old furniture that was stolen or, as they like to say, “rescued” from abandoned country cottages. Also taking classes in beginner’s Sanskrit and listening to heavily scratched records on an upcycled gramophone that cost a grand is big-time cool…man.

Hipster-haters spend their evenings relaxing with a six pack of bland budget lager (with no country of origin but for a statement that it was “specially packed for” the discount-supermarket he bought it from) composing long winded angry rants about hipsters which they post under the Youtube videos of bearded singer-songwriters and on internet chat forums.



Hang Outs

 

Hipsters are obsessed with good coffee and they equate finding  the perfect Americano with surfers’ lifelong search for “the one” – the perfect wave. If you are genuinely in search of good coffee then look out for the cafés with battered racers leaning against the front window that have a copy of ‘Catcher In The Rye’ instead of a saddle.

Hipster Haters don’t like venturing too far outside the route between work and home but you may spot them, alone, in hipster-free safe zones like large multi-national fast food chains.



Politics

 

The hipster is an out-and-out liberal  (once he thought of becoming gay because being hetro was such a cliché) yet generally apolitical so while he might come close to siding with Green Party hopefuls at election time – he’ll only bother voting if he has seen the candidate at a grow-your-own lecture.


Incidentally, the most worked up you’ll ever see a hipster is when he listens to anti-capitalist podcasts about such gut-wrenching topics as the exploitation of Chinese workers by western technology giants….on his made-in-China iPhone.

A Hipster Hater would only vote if he could be absolutely sure that he wouldn’t see any annoying hipsters at the polling station – no doubt voting for some carbon-neutral independent fellow-hipster. He believes that real political reform can only be achieved by posting ‘cool story bro’ in the comments section of politicians’ blogs.



Education

 

The Hipster started out doing a B.Comm in UCC but when he discovered hipsterism he changed tack and signed up for a course in Wood Turning, Bike Maintenance and Organic Cheese Making at a commune near Dunmanway and now works the Friday morning market scene in Bantry for bobs. If you put any food on a fancy wooden board these days you can triple the price of it so that B.Comm certainly wasn’t in vain.   

The Hipster Hater drank his way through a degree in industrial engineering and spent four years working on oil rigs in Scotland. Now he spends most of his day in a daylight-free pharma plant desperately trying to come up with put-downs for hipsters that he’ll post on websites they’ll never visit.  

 

 
 
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