In case you haven’t heard, today is National Punch a Hipster Day. According to Facebook, almost 10,000 people attending — which sounds like bad news for 20-somethings on bikes wearing feather headdresses. Since we don’t condone violence and hope to dissuade you from wandering through Williamsburg or Silver Lake brandishing brass knuckles, we thought we’d draw your attention to ten famous hipsters who might make better targets. You know, if you have to punch anyone. Which you don’t. OK?
Terry Richardson
As a sought-after photographer, 45-year-old Terry Richardson has snapped everyone from the cast of Glee and the Jersey Shore crew to Kanye West and James Franco in drag. His photos are almost always sexy, boundary-pushing, and controversial — which is fine with us. What’s troubling is that he doesn’t seem to draw the line between art and life. Tons of models and others in the fashion industry have called him out for sexual harassment and coercion. The fact that he remains such a powerful force is, frankly, depressing.
Dov Charney
We imagine that American Apparel founder Dov Charney would have a lot to talk about with Terry Richardson: aviator glasses, ironic facial hair, a fixation on images of largely nude women less than half their age, high-profile sexual misconduct charges… With Charney, what’s especially disappointing is that a guy who’s done so much for the anti-sweatshop movement doesn’t seem to extend the same humanitarian concern to women in general.
The Hipster Grifter
Remember her? Ugh.
Jared Swilley
Listen, we can understand why you might feud with WAVVES. Nathan Williams does, after all, have a history of drug-related meltdowns, which can be super-annoying. But to pick a physical fight with the guy and then call him a “faggot” several times in an interview about the incident? Not cool, Black Lips frontman Jared Swilley!
Maureen Tucker
The Velvet Underground are the ultimate hipster icons, and the hugely influential, undeniably cool Mo Tucker will go down in history as one of the first women to become a well-known rock drummer. That’s why it was so disappointing when the news broke last fall that she supported the radical right-wing Tea Party. In an interview with St. Louis’ Riverfront Times, Tucker insisted, “I’m not a fool, a racist, a Nazi.” And while we wouldn’t call her any of those things, we do think she comes off sounding both crass and misinformed. Another hero bites the dust.
Carles
At first, Hipster Runoff was funny and perceptive satire. (Remember “The Memefication of Your Band”?) But by the time its voice had spread to an entire generation of bloggers who read its entire message as “Irony is cool,” it wasn’t much more than a hipster gossip site that used a bunch of quotation marks. So, when Carles put up a “good-bye” post in March saying, “I think I’ve accomplished everything I wanted to with this project… It’s probably time to move on and find a real career & some challenges that can actually make the world a better place,” we really hoped he wasn’t bluffing. Turns out he was. Yawn.
Paz de la Huerta
When you’re more famous for your whiny voice, frequent nudity, weird clothes and smudgy lipstick, and arrest on assault charges than you are for your acting, you might have to remind us again why we should keep paying attention to you.
Tyler, the Creator
1. Yes, you’re a hipster, even though you keep dissing Pitchfork — actually, partially because you keep dissing Pitchfork. 2. Rape jokes are so funny! And so creative!
Michael Cera
Scott Pilgrim was supposed to reveal how self-aware Michael Cera is about being the precious, male equivalent of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but all it made us want to do was — yup — punch him in the face. Sorry, Michael; Jesse Eisenberg won.
Hipster Ariel
Those Ariel the mermaid/Arial the font jokes were funny the first 20 times we saw them. But now that the meme is still showing up, months later, in cosplay, we’re going to have to break those glasses with our bare fists.