Hipsters

In classic ADHD style, I just ended up on an internet tangent. What started out as me checking my Email, landed in my looking up the definition for hipster. I mean, I watch "Two Broke Girls" and Max throws out the term all the time in her frustration with customers. Nevertheless, I wondered what really is it? Well, it seems that it's what I would call a village type because in NYC, when you go into the village this is the type that you see. It is the modern day hippie, a mainstream counter culture of like minded individuals who shun cliches but only in favor of their own sub culture, thus becoming a bit of a cliche. I would not be a hipster because I'm too much of an individual to fit into some sort of category like that. Contrary to popular belief, I don't see hipsters living off their parents. I see them having parents who are pissed that they didn't become a doctor, lawyer, investment banker or otherwise successful cliche career like their siblings. I had a study group in college with a girl in it who I would suspect of being a hipster. She was a bartender. I can see them being graphic designers and tattoo artists. I'll bet some work as coffee place baristas and computer nerds.

In the historical sense, they evolved from and somewhat overlapped the goth and skater types of the 90s. The goth and skater types 80s counterparts were punk rockers, glam rockers and even metalheads (I was a metalhead in the late 80s) a little. Before those types were the hippie. The hippie was the first and original counter culture. Before that, you were either part of the majority or just different and there was no special box to put you in if you dared to be free thinking.

Who am I? Well, any one of those groups would consider me a poser because I maintain the ability to blend into society at the drop of a hat. Some might call me a loner, but I don't like the term loner. It implies someone who can't fit in, even if they want to, rather than someone who just doesn't see it as some all important thing. I associate trying to fit in with pathetic people who want to be popular and make fools of themselves trying to get with the "in" crowd. You know the type, they were in most teeny bopper movies in the 80s and often later. I'm pretty comfortable in my own skin and I'm confident that I haven't fit into a category since my days as a metalhead. I'm just me, that's all and I want to stay myself, thank you very much.

Entitlements To Lashon Hara

One of the things that really annoys me about the Jewish is the way everyone talks about me behind my back and somehow they think I don't know. What strikes me as odd is that people I consider mere casual acquaintances somehow think they have the right to tell me how to run my life. I was discussing this with someone who actually tried to justify it. WTF??? I gave her a scenario-not exactly mine. I was at a Shabbos meal one time and the hostess asked me where else I went for Shabbos. When I mentioned a small community that I went to, she asked me if I knew someone who lived there, we'll call her Rachel. I told her I did indeed know her. She immediately spilled this woman's business to me, "she's been married for over 10 years and she doesn't have a kid yet." She didn't know how well I knew Rachel. The truth is that I was pretty good friends with Rachel at the time and I knew that she had been married a while and I saw that she didn't have a kid. However, the hostess didn't know the two of us together at all. The way she told me this seemed to assume that I didn't know. So, UM, wtf, would people have me do to Rachel? I felt uncomfortable and didn't play into her game. It didn't end there. She told me that if we all make Rachel feel bad then maybe suddenly Rachel will be able to have kids. Ummmmmmmmmmmmm WTF? 

So, I tell this story to this teacher at the local Bais Yaakov and she endorses the lashon hara. She said that sometimes it's necessary for the community to pressure people for their own good. This is textbook lashon hara but yet it was being justified to me. It's personal for me because there are decisions I have made that people don't agree with and the community is ganging up on me. Being Jewish is worse than high school. I've pushed so many people out of my life because they refused to shut up with telling me how to run my life. The fact is that since I pay the consequences of my actions, I get to decide those actions. Anyway, all the little manipulation garbage from casual acquaintances in the world isn't going to change things. Oh and all of you are acquaintances. I only have one Jewish friend and she isn't doing it to me.