For a totally different thought (that I promise is related) a friend and I were recently discussing hipsterdom and the whole concept of wearing things that are fashionably unfashionable, using old-fashioned cameras and record players, collecting kitschy shit bought at Urban Outfitters or Anthropologie, liking stuff that isn't too popular, and trying to get some sort of nostalgic rustic aesthetic of simplicity. Except it's all fake, of course; the cheap funky cameras are $120 Holga cameras with an extra fish-eye lens, the homemade-looking quilt cost over a hundred at UO, they look like lumberjacks even though they live in the middle of Brooklyn, or LA, or Atlanta. They have to be *ironic*, because being genuine about mason-jar lamps, or using things that your family has used for the past eighty years, or not being able to afford a nice coordinated set of bedroom linens, or dressing like that because that nice dress your mom bought in 1992 is still wearable and fits is… not cool. It's backwards. You can glamorize a sanitized version of it, and like it ironically, but if you have no shame about living close to the earth and your community, using old patched-up things, drinking in dive bars because there aren't any ritzy ones, putting on a vest and pocket watch because it means that you're not doing hard labor today… then you're not the fashionable shabby-chic urban class. Then you're Boyd Crowder.
And that part of who he is, he doesn't run from. He doesn't pretend he's being ironic about who he is. He genuinely lives as much as himself as he can be. He fucks up in serious ways and he doesn't excuse himself for that; he keeps his tattoos even though he's turned away from the life he had when he got them (which is not something I could ever do, with regards to tattoos). He wants to own a chain of Dairy Queens because he knows the profits can make him respectable, even though he has the ability for his ambition to go in a far more sophisticated direction. He doesn't want that, though. He wants to be himself, with Ava, and live in a house near where he grew up, and have grandkids who can play with anyone else's kids.
And that part of who he is, he doesn't run from. He doesn't pretend he's being ironic about who he is. He genuinely lives as much as himself as he can be. He fucks up in serious ways and he doesn't excuse himself for that; he keeps his tattoos even though he's turned away from the life he had when he got them (which is not something I could ever do, with regards to tattoos). He wants to own a chain of Dairy Queens because he knows the profits can make him respectable, even though he has the ability for his ambition to go in a far more sophisticated direction. He doesn't want that, though. He wants to be himself, with Ava, and live in a house near where he grew up, and have grandkids who can play with anyone else's kids.
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