Taking inspiration from the blog-to-book deal wunderkind Stuff White People Like (which justlisted Facebook 12 days ago), Williamsburg’s own Stuff Hipsters Don’t Like is an ongoing archive listing things that hipsters just don’t get along with. It’s young, having only started about two weeks ago, but its charm is not yet it’s “stuff”, rather, the ever-familiar conflict that so many Williamsburg residents themselves face. I’ll let the author, Lola Wakefield, explain her “hipster dilemma”:
I began frequenting the local internet cafe and going to Tuesday night movie showings at McCarren, anxious to observe them in their natural setting. ‚”Oh the ridiculous hipsters,” I would think to myself, smiling on the inside. But then something unexpected happened – I began to encounter people who described me – ME!- as a hipster. ‚”Nonsense,” I thought. But I began to worry that what they said was true.
So far, her journey deep into identifying, or denying, her inner hipster do-not-wants include smiling, being spontaneously photographed, and the hipsters themselves. I’m looking forward to seeing extensive listings including bananas, switching guitar hero guitars with rock band’s and vice versa, and Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles, but we’ll just have to wait. Lola, keep us updated. Oh, and if YOU have photographs of hipsters not liking things send them over to El Dubs at lola.wakefield@gmail.com, and tell ‘em FREEwilliamsburg sent ya.
follow closely at Stuff Hipsters Don’t Like
Sunday’s McCarren Park Pool Party was the scene to end all scenes. Seriously, the press line was down the block and from most accounts the regular line ended somewhere in Dumbo. Hipsters, twelve-year-olds, Kirsten Dunst–everyone and their mother was there. Even the rain couldn’t stop the event from being filled to capacity. The Ting Tings got the crowd jumping, causing even diehard concertgoers to throw their usual Williamsburg concert etiquette to the wind. Black Moth Super Rainbow, not so much. Then came the main event. MGMT played a solid set of cosmic Bowie-esque pop, which was appreciated by the hordes of latecomers standing dejectedly outside of the pool’s fences.
Hopefully next week’s free show with the Black Lips, Deerhunter and Tall Firs won’t be such an overcrowded zoo. Also, hopefully I won’t be hung over from free Dewar’s when I write that day’s post.
Plenty of photos after the jump …
God, we sure hope so. You know, so we can make fun of them. From Gothamist
Entering its 21st season, MTV’s The Real World returns to New York for a third time…but for the first time it’s headed to an outer-borough. That’s right, the seven generic, good-looking roommates will be heading to Brooklyn.
Shooting begins this summer, and will result in 12 hour-long episodes. In the press release we received, Jon Murray, co-creator of the show, says “The Brooklyn season, like the Hollywood season, will focus on what people loved about ‘The Real World’ when it launched in 1992 – genuine people, meaningful conflict and powerful stories.” Really Jon? We’re sort of betting it’ll be more about the cast taking over bars, fighting with locals, getting drunk and sleeping with roommates — all as they take their amazingly overpriced living quarters for granted.
The big question now is: Which part of Brooklyn will have the distinct pleasure of welcoming the new residents? Our guess is they’ll be taking over a few luxury condo units in Williamsburg. Perhaps this will unite the hipsters and anti-hipsters of the ‘nabe? Either way, get ready to see the production taking over McCarren Pool Parties this summer.
There’s a suit against Dov Charney, and this time it has nothing to do with his penis. From TMZ
And in true hipster irony, it’s not a sexual harassment case – as AA Chairman Dov Charney has been taken to court for multiple times.
Allen is suing for $10 million saying he was never contacted by and did not give American Apparel his consent to use an image of him dressed as a Hasidic Jew from a scene in “Annie Hall.” Not a very kosher move for AA!
In a U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Monday, Allen stated that he does not endorse commercial products or services in the U.S., which makes the May 2007 American Apparel billboards and website displays “especially egregious and damaging.”
American Apparel billboards are usually clad with skinny young hipsters, often in compromising positions. The company did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment.
Vice takes a stroll down memory lane to remember good times at Williamsburg’s coke-tastically notorious bar, Kokie’s. For all you young-uns out there who don’t remember Larry Tee and Electroclash, Kokie’s was the bar of choice for hipsters wanting to score crappy blow and/or spend the night salsa dancing with sketchy, coked-out middle aged neighborhood locals. Check out Vice’s article here.
Issue Project Room, which has been hosting some amazing shows at a former oil silo on the Gowanus Canal, is about to move to a new location. BrooklynVegan has the story:
SHARE celebrates ISSUE Project Room’s final night in their current location — the unique silo on the banks of the Gowanus Canal. To celebrate IPR’s time in the silo and their move to a new space, SHARE will run a multimedia open-jam, inviting everyone and anyone to join, including those who have performed at, visited, or simply love IPR. It will utilize Stephan Moore’s 16-Channel Hemispherical Speaker System and IPR’s cylinder structure for visual projections both inside and outside the space. Please come to play, hang out, or participate in many toasts! [Issue Project Room]
Turns out, its just gonna get too smelly down there at Gowanus [insert dirty hipsters joke]. We’ll deeply miss seeing shows at this amazing space.
How timely! Does this mean hipster backlash has officially begun? Oh wait, we thought that happened like SIX YEARS AGO on this site. Then again when FREEwilliamsburg founder, Robert Lanham, released his mock anthropological “study” of hipsters, The Hipster Handbook in 2003. The article’s authors asked us to respond to the following question: Whether or not you would identify yourself as such, you are considered a hipster-friendly blog, and we’d like to offer you the chance to respond to our charges. Should hipster culture be defended? If so, will you defend it? Here’s what we said:
“Isn’t hipsterdom dying on its own in New York City? Last time we went to the Lower East Side, it was overrun by smart-casual Coldplay fans wearing jeans and blazers and buying eight dollar Amstel Lights for their anchorwomen-wannabe girlfriends. Or maybe looking like a Hedge-Funder from Connecticut is what passes for hip now in New York.
You ask, ‘Should hipster culture be defended?’ My book The Hipster Handbook was an attempt to call bullshit on this fauxhemian movement nearly five years ago. In the satirical book I claimed that ‘hipsters understand that cultural trends become fin the moment they hit the mainstream.’ The hipster thing hit the mainstream years ago, so by my own definition it hasn’t been cool for a while now.
And let’s be honest, hipsters are getting harder to defend now that they’re all sporting beards. Williamsburg is beginning to look like a tailgate party at a jam band concert.”
–Robert Lanham
A few months ago, Village Voice blogger Tom Breihan posted a concert review titled ‚”The Walkmen Spaz the Fuck Out.” The same tagline could easily be applied to fellow Brooklynites Oxford Collapse; the band’s sound tends to veer towards that of a four cups of coffee and Adderall bender. While it can be argued the terms ‚”angular” and ‚”jittery” are perhaps two of the most overused expressions in modern rock criticism, in this case, they really do seem applicable.
Thu 5/24 8:00 PM Oxford Collapse, Centipede D’Est Union Hall 21+ $8
