I’m writing this post in Soho whilst peering through my black framed glasses and sipping a salted caramel soya latte, pondering the cliché I have become. Six years ago, I was labelled a hipster by a national newspaper (not by name, but they used my photograph) and I wrote a blog post about the stereotypes that sub editor chose for the piece. In that post I grudgingly admitted that I probably was a hipster, although perhaps not the type so hated by the mainstream media at the time, but still didn’t fully embrace the term until recently.
It was only when Manda bought the Hipster expansion for Munchkin last Christmas that we began to realise the truth. Chunky black glasses, a love of ‘artisan’ coffee and craft beer, visits to the farmers’ market… I even own some black skinny jeans, although I wear them even less than I wear lipstick. So many of the cards were about my life. On top of that, I pretty much work ‘in fashion’, and feel far more at home in east London than west. It has to be said that a great many of the things I like, wear, do or say are marks of the tribe known as hipster.
I enjoyed taking ‘vintage effect’ photographs of seemingly mundane things before it was cool. I was into twisted queer cabaret before it became mainstream, have always liked to belong to an alternative community (but not one that’s too popular), and do love it when my food and drink is made by someone who’s a bit obsessed with making something perfect yet also a bit different. Hell, I was blogging way before it was cool.
Sometimes you just have to give in and accept the inevitable truth. I like to think that I’m individual but I’m actually quite a stereotype, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Caroline O’Donoghue touched on this in her article for The Pool on why it’s OK to accept the cliché of yourself: ‘Some women really do love yoga. Some Irish people really do sip Guinness and worry about sheep. But just because they’re true, it doesn’t necessarily encompass the entirety of what it means to be that thing.’ I may be a hipster, but there’s a lot more to me than a love of sour beers and porter.
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