The Origin of the Vapid Hipster

A couple years back, I took a creative non-fiction class at a local state university.

I needed credit hours to finally finish the B.A. I’d spent the better part of eight years trying to obtain, and couldn’t justify taking another fiction workshop.

Also, I was curious. I thought it might be sort of funny, ha-ha funny, and provide ample opportunity for “This American Life” style essays on such topics as high school politics and cult television and why I like Power Pop. I was writing record reviews at the time, and I thought I could infuse anecdotes with a little uptempo ranting,ala Lester Bangs.

Unfortunately, the creative non-fiction class was subtitled “By Women,” a designation I hadn’t noticed on first blush. And it became clear on Day One, that we were expected to churn out pieces of memoir, not stories about negotiating for the religious art at thrift stores. I was disappointed, but not devastated. I mean, sure, it’s a little premature to write memoir, considering I haven’t climbed Everest, or become an international celebrity or entered rehab or started a revolution or, you know, done anything, but whatever. I can give it a shot. I’m sure my classmates want to read amusing stories about how I used to shoplift bodice rippers and try to smoke rose petals and Opium flavored incense when I was thirteen because I was too nervous to go out and ACTUALLY get high. I’m sure my professor will love my enthusiastic retelling of the night my father got so irritated my mother at a local pizza place, he stood and dumped a Greek Salad on her head. The key would be funny, right? I mean, adolescence in retrospect just gets funnier and funnier with each passing year.

My professor, a mewling, self-important, socially awkward lesbian (we’ll call her Professor H), clearly did not feel that way. Nor did my classmates. Instead, I endured a semester's worth of victim stories from middle class white girls. There were a sexual abuse stories (and I empathize, I really do), there were a few coming-out stories, but mostly these women had been victimized in smaller ways. Dumped by their boyfriend. Cursed with aging grandparents who occasionally made politically incorrect jokes. Oppressed by society. Oppressed by an eating disorder. Oppressed by ballet class. Oppressed by parents. Oppressed by culture. Oppressed by low-level malaise. Oppressed by the existence of penises. Oppressed by the lack of penises. It goes on.

When I suggested that undying devotion to the idea that all women are victims by fact of their sex might perpetuate a fundamental problem, I was labeled a misogynist by my classmates and professor.

I learned early on that neither Professor H nor my fellow classmates felt that humor was at all appropriate. And whenever I turned a story in, I was told that I wasn’t “feeling things fully,” or “conveying the way I felt victimized by society.”

“But I don’t feel victimized by society,” I said. “Not particularly.”

“You’re making light of your truest and realest emotions,” said Professor H. “I want you to dig deep into your soul and come back to me with the harsh disillusionment you felt at thirteen. The way the world privileges the other gender. The ways you felt abused. Troll your conscience and find the visceral sadness that was your adolescence.”

I sat open-mouthed. I mean, sure, being thirteen sucked, but it wasn’t tragic. I was a weirdo. My parents were divorced. I read a lot of Anne Rice and JD Salinger and “The Lives of John Lennon.” I wrote awful poetry and took myself very, very seriously. I liked the word “cacophony” and could use it in a sentence. I talked a lot about the craft of theater. I pretended to be British. I acted in weird local productions. I watched a lot of MTV. I beat “Super Mario Brothers.” I connived my way into A-list pool parties at the country club. I neither started my period, nor lost my virginity, nor found any pot, nor increased in bra-size. I desperately wanted to date skateboarders. I loved the Cure.

Maybe a more imaginative person, a deeper, more emotional woman with a wellspring of melancholy qualifiers could find some way to render my thirteen year old experience as something akin to Sylvia Plath. To be honest, my thirteen year old self would have LOVED that—and that’s what’s funny about it. It’s funny to read my journal from the eighth grade and find passages that read “I’m totally oppressed by my mother and the JV cheerleading squad.” When I was thirteen, I thought my reasonably charming dysfunctional family and kooky suburban life WAS a tale of unmitigated woe, much like a Russian Novel. And I did try to tell it as straight faced as I possibly could. And it was STILL funny. I mean sure, I could try to put some poignant, deeply moving spin on how my grandmother honestly believed the Waffle House was prostitution ring, but let’s face it: This is not the stuff of tragedy.

So, when called upon to present my final essay for the semester I turned in the following, which was neither about my physical adolescence, nor, technically speaking, non-fiction. Sure, some of it's true--the business of my college career, the basic details of the Sara story, the portrayal of my mental health circa 1999. the rest is complete bullshit. Fiction. Therefore, any similarity of any character to real life . . . well, you know the rest. I didn't sleep with anyone in 1999, and if you knew me then, it wouldn't have been hard to figure out why.

I thought this was, at best, black comedy.

Professor H, ignorant of its invention, thought it was a little better than my previous attempts, but, she said, “You’re still not being emotionally honest. And it is not necessary for you to be such a vapid hipster.”

Which was, I believe, the first time I was ever called a vapid hipster to my face.

Since then, my status as vapid hipster has become something of a running joke, and maybe I am, and maybe that’s my problem. I spent a decade and some change more concerned with being cool than being popular or successful or happy. This story is, if nothing else, sort of about how that started to change.

And for the record, the veracity of this tale lies mostly in its “emotional honesty.” This is how I felt when I was twenty-three. And it is, in its fucked up sort of way, pretty damn funny. So read on, if you dare