The Hipster Handbook [Paperback]

If you are reading this book in hopes of becoming a 'hipster', give up, for this book like 'hipster culture' oozes irony and laughs at those who take it at face value. Instead you would become what laymen may term a 'poseur', analogous to the 'fashion punks' who brought punk to the near mainstream in the 80s, and would quickly be revealed by such gaffes as the use of a term like 'deck' with any seriousness or lack of irony.

However, 'real' hipsters need not despair. This book can still be read by them without shame and be prominently displayed on their thrift store used coffee table in their small apartment as long as it is done with an excess of irony. Doing so is in fact essential in some ways to remaining a 'real hipster' in the face of the subculture's sudden commodification.

With the sudden entrance of this book into mainstream consciousness, as once once 'hip' statements of 'hipsterdom' such as the trucker hat and the messenger bag are paraded around on mass media (MTV and NBC respectively--although any self respecting 'hipster' would only ever be caught watching Queer Eye on Bravo), the essential exclusivity and irony of hipsterdom has come under attack.

'Hipsters' of course must defend themselves the only way they can, with further layers of irony. They must show that they get the joke, that they are not the sheeplike wannabe 'hipsters' trying to be like them by copying their fashions and terminologies a day too late, that they can still tell the 'real thing' and keep their 'club' exclusive in the face of scrutiny by the dumb masses. This book can become another obscure reference by those in the know, not to be talked about overtly, but to be subtly slipped into conversation.

And of course a true 'hipster' would never refer to his- or herself as a 'hipster' nor would one identify his- or herself as part of any movement. And of course if you took any of this at face value or learned anything you did not already know in this review, then neither are you a 'hipster' nor will you ever be.

With much 'irony',
'j'

Treading similar ground, Robert Lanham's Hipster Handbook attempts to sate the masses by allowing a fleeting glimpse into an ever changing subculture indigenous to the metropolises of America. Lanham's opus manages to act simultaneously as both a (relatively) accurate satire of progressive urban life, as well as a guide by which one could, conceivably, become a hipster him(or her) self.

It is because of the janus-faced nature of the Handbook that nobody in America could actually take it seriously. On the one hand, Lanham would have us buy into his view that what he sees reflects the true nature of the hipster, while at the same time, he relentlessly parodies such a lifestyle, making it clear to the reader that very few Americans indeed could ever come close to living it. Proof: Lanham makes perfectly lucid the notion that, while a 9-5 job is considered utterly 'fin,' hipsters should possess the wealth necessary for the fast-paced, fashionable, trendy world of hipsterdom. The occasional waitressing shift at your local hipster bar will not pay for your Wicker Park loft, nor will it buy your Manhattan Portage messenger bag, your collection of Kraftwerks and Built To Spill CDs, or your Structure jeans.

This leads us to an important conclusion: Lanham did not write the Handbook for practical use. Although reading it cover to cover will reveal excellent music suggestions, a few fashion tips and some ridiculous hairstyles, deciding to enter the hipster scene by way of the Handbook would be a faux-pas of legendary proportions.

The previous paragraph should lead readers who chastised the book for its' 'how-to' quality to reconsider their scathing reviews; Lanham did not write the Handbook to teach SUV drivers and beer-bonging homophobes how to be socially conscious and modern. Rather, his amusing observations on this small corner of society are meant to reinforce the irony of such a lifestyle, but also to impress upon the rest of America that, contrary to traditional notions, and at a time where the word conservative is as pertinent as ever, it is quickly become ok- and perhaps even the norm in cities- to be distinctly progressive.

Which brings me back to the beginning; Hipsters and Metrosexuals are completely 21st century entities, both revered and ridiculed by the public at large. Lanham realized this, and so he wrote and marketed his book the only way he could: accessable and factual for the layman, but insightful and witty for the urban intellectual. Nobody truly comes out a winner, and no great insights are produced, but everybody feels like they understand a little better, and society as a whole is the wiser for it.