The irony of how much hatred I have for the hipsters in Williamsburg is that I moved here to be surrounded by people that IN THEORY are like these people - people that had read James Joyce, loved the Ramones, and were fuck it, up for anything. If I wanted to sit alone in a bar bitching about young people's haircuts and demanding that all the best music was made before they were born, I could've done it in the fucking sticks I came from; changing my oil every 3000 miles and going to bed at 10pm. But NYC offers the rare opportunity to meet like-minded people from every possible scenario. High school basketball stars that love Westerberg and wanna write STILL Waiting for Godot, private school science wiz kids who wanna make a theremin out of toast after spending 3 years in Africa. Whatever. Any possible scenario you could think of, they're here.
But at some point, coming here to find other people who were being themselves while naively wanting to "change the world!" shifted into finding other people willing to engage in a "who is wispier/got bullied more in high school/can pretend to be cooler" contest while wearing the appropriate uniform, all while trying to show how you and you only know the "real" Brooklyn.
Final straw? Sitting near a bunch of MAYBE 23 year-old hipsters in a restaurant Saturday, faux-ranting about how the "real" Brooklyn is disappearing. Ranting about the very gentrification they themselves are fueling; all while pretending to care about keeping alive some semblance of Brooklyn from the '40s which they 1) don't know about 2) would incinerate in a second if the Fiery Furnaces said to do it. Trying to claim they came here cause of "Brooklyn," not Williamsburg.
I didn't move here to hang a line of wash with a fat 80 year-old Italian woman who's never been east of Union Avenue in her life. I don't give a shit how rough the southside was in the 1980s, I didn't come here to take auto shop with Vinnie Barbarino. I came here to find ex-patriots like myself looking for the goddam sun. I didn't give a shit about the "real" Brooklyn; I wanted to make my own Brooklyn with people like myself who had come not knowing really why they had come HERE, but knowing they had come to the right place. And I know they're out there somewhere; but finding them now is like finding (insert whatever axiom here) thanks to the ocean of pretend hipster fuckwads clogging the airwaves.
I might as well've spent the last 11 goddam years coaching junior varsity ball-scratching at my high school while passing out at Applebees.
7 comments:
"ex-patriots"? ... you mean, like matt cassell?
This post just made my top five!
i STILL got it! :)
Yeah, but Applebees has only been there for like 5 years. . .Didja get banned from Ferebees?
I came here because the rent was cheaper than Manhattan. Well, the drinks were sometimes cheaper. Well, cause all my friends lived here.
And wait...you were in a RESTAURANT?
It's like I don't know you anymore.
scene's changing, cf
You're accusing the hipsters of doing the same thing you want(ed): create your own Brooklyn. You just don't agree with theirs.
I am proud to be friends with people who came here looking to be a part of what this city is all about AND carve their own niche.
They're in Red Hook; not trying to sweep under the rug the folks in the once incredibly dangerous projects but wanting to befriend them. They're in Carroll Gardens; soaking up the stories and traditions of the remaining old-time Italians there. They're in Ft. Greene; purposely wanting their kids to grow up in and be a part of racially-mixed community. They're in Park Slope; acknowledging the presence of and engaging the whites and Puerto Ricans who have solid roots in the neighborhood. I'm pretty sure there are those who fit the same description as my friends in your neck of the Brooklyn woods. Are any of them in the majority? Sadly, no. Not by a long shot. But they are out there.
Seek and ye shall find.
PS: Like "politically correct" and "liberal", we need to reclaim the word "hipster" and find a different term for these characters you speak of. I'm voting for "ignorant douchebag".
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