GOODBYE HIPSTER, HELLO ADULTSTER

PART ONE

It's fun to see hipsters on the street. The ones who live in Williamsburg, eat Middle-eastern cuisine on Avenue C, wear tailored suit jackets with vintage tee-shirts, and exhibit 1970s Paul McCartney solo period beards.

But if we're not them, then what are we?

Some will say the sound you hear is the last nail being hammered into the coffin of the hipster. Like those that came before him -- the grungster, the goth, the mod, the punk, and the hippie -- the hipster has entered the final stages of its existence.

Time to bring out the "co-opt" word. As we all know, when the media starts co-opting, it's time to start looking for a carcass.

The theory holds that said subculture, with it's anti-social and anti-corporate views, are reappropriated (ahhh, reappropriation, no, no!!) by the mainstream to sell products and quell Suzie's rebellious tendencies.

Let her look like the drummer for the Donnas, she still cares more about her carb intake than exposing the big lie her mother has indoctrinated her into.

What makes the hipster "revolution" unique is that unlike all those other subcultures, it never had an anti-social and anti-corporate view to be co-opted by the media.

Being a hipster was never about rebelling, it was about perfecting the "rebel look". The skin of Greg Allman, the soul of an eggplant.

So did we ever fall into the hipster category? With the exception of those vintage ski turtlenecks with the front zipper we raided from the attic and brought back with us to the city, the clothes would say no.

Lifestyle choices would suggest a closer link, such as going to the cool LES bars. But what made them cool, in part, was the lack of hipsters.

Doesn't the avoidance of hipsters make you something besides a hipster?

Or does it just make you even more of a hipster?