Fear and Loathing in Urban Outfitters

             I am using this blog post as a confessional to my family, friends and readers in order to finally clear the air and admit my ongoing personal struggle.

             I have Hipster-itis.

            Hipster-itis is disease that is rampantly affecting college campuses across the nation.

            Within the past few years, the disease has spread from California and New York and is now starting to infect the mid-west. There have even been reports of Hipsters running loose in the Dakotas.

            Although this disease is non-debilitating, or even life threatening, it is highly annoying to people living Hipster free and do not care about a Hipster’s “tweets” or novel they wrote in Star Bucks.           

            Currently, 1-in-5 college students suffers from some sort of Hipster-itis such as wearing horn-rimmed glasses without a prescription, over-valuing Vampire Weekend’s music or giving their opinion on post-modern literature without being prompted.

            Hipster-itis starts slowly and can take years to develop.

            My infection started with a set of aviator sunglasses and faux-hawk hairstyle during my junior year of high school in 1997.

            Since then, ironic tee-shirts, blogging, and a penchant for finding bands before anyone else started to affect my social group, as my snobbish remarks about their lack of pop-culture knowledge became more common.

            I knew I had hit rock bottom on a recent trip to Bloomington. When I didn’t make it in time to check out the sale at Urban Outfitters, I collapsed from withdraws and my body shook from the detoxing.

            It was time to ask for help

            However, I consider myself lucky enough to have a support group of friends and family that made fun of me enough to help me manage the disease before it became a serious problem by developing into full-blown HIPS.

            In its most aggressive stages, HIPS will cause people to buy vinyl records and build a collection without having a record player. It can also warp the infected person’s sense of style and make them believe skinny jeans are still acceptable.

            You may know someone now who is living with Hipster-itis right now and if so, it is important to know the signs of the disease mutating into HIPS before it personally irritates the hell out of you as the infected tell you how the book is always better than the movie.

            Watch our for are people who have and iPads, MacBooks and iPhones with them at all times, wear scarves in the summer and say phrases like, “Well, if you read more Bukowski, then you’d understand,” or, “I liked Wilco’s earlier work, but that’s before they sold out.”

            Be wary of English departments, local coffee shops, tattoo parlors and Apple stores if you want to live Hipster-free.

            I am currently taking donations in order to help pay for my recovery. Anything you can give, such as gift cards to Men’s Warehouse for my new adult wardrobe or money towards a PC to curb my MacBook addiction, is greatly appreciated.

            By working together, we can stop this annoyance.