Are you deck or fin? Do you despise sports bars? Do you have that one republican friend whom you always refer to as your “one republican friend?” Do you know the difference between a “wally” and a “frado?” If you answered yes to any of these questions you are likely a Hipster.
Hipster, as defined in “The Hipster Handbook” is “One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term ‘cool;’ a Hipster would instead say ‘deck.’) The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. A Hipster ideally possesses no more than 2 percent body fat.”
As ridiculous as that might sound, this recently released satire-infused book has been dedicated to the subject of Hipster and exploring the social habits and pretension of the elitist social click and its sub-categorizations, i.e. “Maxwell’s,” “The Clubber” and “The Polit” — to be explained later.
“The Hipster Handbook,” written by Robert Lanham, is supposed to be taken in jest, but there are present subtle undertones of resentment toward, as the book describes, “non-Hipsters,” otherwise known as frat boys, sorority girls and rednecks.
For example, the book explains the difference between “Bipsters” (blue collar hipsters) and rednecks saying while bipsters prefer steak or ribs, rednecks would eat squirrel and rabbit. Bipsters call gay men “indie-rockers” while rednecks would say fags.
Similar assessments are made using hippies, non-Hipsters such as fraternity guys and poseurs who try to be Hipsters, but never will their style be cool or “fin.”
The book provides long sought after insights into the latest Hipster vernacular, drinks, literature, sardonic greetings and even a guide to Hipsters in history, but what the book fails to explore is why this sort of mockery deserves publication.
For instance, a “Maxwell” would “differentiate themselves from other gay males by not listening to house or music by ‘divas.’ Maxwells never snap their fingers or say, ‘you go, girlfriend.’ They mix well with all Hipster social types and avoid solely gay bars and gyms. Maxwells also steer clear of gay men with embarrassing names like Sharkey or Fabian.”
This sort of pigeonholing could be viewed as offensive and an over exaggeration of a stereotype by the gay community. In other parts of the book Lanham actually refers to lesbians as “Carpets,” which is completely out of line, but within these pages this sort of belittlement is all in good fun.
Of course, not all of “The Hipster Handbook” is impertinent; in fact much of the book is downright hilarious. Such is the case when paging through the glossary.
By now, the word “deck” obviously means cool, where “fin” is the opposite of that slang. Two other Hipster slang terms are “jerry,” meaning hippie or stoner and the term “ishtar,” which means bad. A pairing of the two: “My pits smell totally ishtar. I feel like a jerry.”
Another word in the Hipster language would be “liquid,” which references the orthodox form of saying “sex” or “performing a sexual act with another.” Example: “I saw the way you looked at Marty. Are you two liquid?” or “She’s got such a tight bod. I’d love to liquefy it.”
According to the book, a “wally” is an attractive male Hipster, while a “frado” is “an ugly guy who thinks he’s good looking.”
At the end of the book there is a questionnaire to determine whether one is a Hipster or not. At the conclusion of the quiz one learns if you use AOL, have margarine in the refrigerator, own a Dell computer, use Aquafresh toothpaste or pick “The Hungry Boy Fried Sampler” as an appetizer in a restaurant, you definitely are not deck and therefore not a hipster.
Interesting information if you long to care about any of this propaganda, but not caring is undeniably deck.