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?
For those of you who may have managed to miss the piles recent of articles about him, Tao Lin has just released a new novel called Richard Yates and starring characters named Dakota Fanning and Haley Joel Osment. Today, Hipster Runoff (a.k.a. the site many suspect Lin actually runs) has excerpted a passage that contains the sentence, “I just want to walk around with you at night and sometimes ass and crotch rape you.” If that doesn’t sell you, seeing as Tao Lin is all about the knowing cultural references (see also: the novel’s title), we thought this list of proper nouns in the except might help you decide whether you’d like to purchase Richard Yates. We’ve also included a handy word cloud for visual learners.
Yesterday Terry Richardson posted some pictures from his photo shoot with a mullet-ed Kanye West and his model girlfriend, Amber Rose. While Hipster Runoff recently speculated that Kanye and Amber are no longer together, these images are pretty intimate — there’s even some head licking involved. Analyze their body language after the jump and decide for yourself whether Kanye and Amber are still Facebook official or if it’s complicated.
With the announcement yesterday that American Apparel lost $17.6 million in the first quarter of 2010, we became worried about the store’s future. (OK, not really. It kind of made us giggle.) Although we realized that we have little power to help the hipster haven, we figured that a few celebrities out there might be able to pull the support needed to save the best place in America for golden tights, striped tube socks, and highlighter yellow V-necks.
Today is the day the hipster universe imploded, like a jumped shark biting its own tale. All well-educated, urban, white 20-somethings who have ever worn a feathered headband or sported a statement mustache must hereby pick a side. Because when you see Hipster Runoff’s Alt Report run a headline like, “Pitchfork writes article about brilliance/shittiness of HIPSTER RUNOFF,” complete with a “Pitchfork vs. Hipster Runoffs Blog Wars” graphic, you know it’s on.
The blog’s response to Nitsuh Abebe’s essay “A Brief History of Knowingness and Irony” is classic HRO, featuring feigned confusion, many unanswerable questions, and this money quote: “Not even sure what the message of the article is about, just feeling ‘incredibly culturally relevant’ after reading the HRO blog name in Pitchfork. Feel like a bro in the 1970s who got blurbed about in Rolling Stone Magazine.” But after we stopped laughing and started thinking, we couldn’t help but wonder: Aren’t Pitchfork and HRO just two occasionally depressing extremes of hipster culture (a.k.a. the culture of “knowingness”) in 2010?
It’s not enough to just be awesome at one thing anymore. More and more artists are multitasking, and we’re seeing a particular amount of crossover between the somewhat unlikely genres of music and literature. But wait — aren’t musicians supposed to be outgoing egomaniacs and aren’t writers supposed to be tweedy shut-ins? Well, the writer/musician isn’t exactly a new trend — remember Tarantula, Dylan’s stream-of-consciousness book of prose-poetry? And don’t forget that Leonard Cohen was actually a writer first. So maybe there’s something to this whole writer turned rock star thing. Here are some multitaskers who make us feel bad about ourselves when we lie around the house all Sunday.
1. Tao Lin and Carles of Hipster Runoff have a new “sound project ” called Jesus Christ (the indie band); listen to their first MP3, “is this really what you want?,” now. [via GvB]
2. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski used Bruce Springsteen song titles to explain the rules of the Internet at a music policy conference. A sample: “The people who built the Internet were working on more than a computer network, they were Working on a Dream. It was a network that was Born to Run in a land of open protocols, (the Promised Land).” [via WSJ]
3. Sony Pictures TV and Mark Burnett are partnering to remake Fantasy Island as a reality show. We doubt it will be a bigger hit than MILF Island. [via Variety]
4. The Swiss Justice Ministry rejected Roman Polanski’s appeal to be released from prison because they think he’s a flight risk. [via HuffPo]
5. Critics say this year’s Turner Prize exhibition is boring. “There’s no sensation, no video, no blood, no outrage.” [via Bloomberg]
Bonus link: The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator
Carles, the blogger behind Hipster Runoff, is a wanted man. After innocently contemplating the eternal question, “Will I kill my BFFs if I text while I am driving?,” in a post last night, Carles was eventually greeted with the following comment: “i purchased your shirt just to burn it. Your site will crumble beneath you and your followers will wander away from your site.” The post was signed by ‘Carles is Burning,’ and with it, a link to a YouTube video and the words, “I’m watching you. Down with Carles. Down With Carles. Down with Carles . . .” and so on and so on. Read More »
**INTRODUCTION**
HIPSTER RUNOFF (HRO) is ‘a blog worth blogging about’. It is written from the perspective of “Carles” (CRLS), 1 bro whose ‘mainstream to alt’ story has inspired an entire generation. No one is sure who Carles ‘is.’ He is ‘just trying 2 b authentic’ in his posts, eArt, and poetry. Carles speaks in ur voice 2 raise evry voice (via hilary duff/disney {subvia walter whitbro}). Anyone can write ‘as’ Carles. Writing ‘like Carles’ aligns ur personal brand w/the HIPSTER RUNOFF and IAMCARLES.com brands. Read More »
Carles is the unidentified blogger of the “blog worth blogging about,” Hipsterrunoff.com. He is known for his commentary/analysis of the alternative world, everything from theorizing about Animal Collective/mob mentality to coining the next music trend — GorillaVsBearCore? Chillwave? PitchforkWaveGaze? Yesterday, he started a clothing brand, I Am Carles. There’s even a coinciding merchandise website, IamCarles.com. Items for sale include the I Am Carles men’s/women’s shirt and the option to have your shirt personally delivered by Carles himself. An up and coming designer is taking the internets by storm, and so we decided to investigate via an IM interview. Read More »
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