Personality Quiz: Are you a hipster?

7Jan/0922

Personality Quiz: Are you a hipster?

My boy Chris sent me a link to a book called The Hipster Handbook by Robert Lanham. I have no idea if it's any good or not, but the product description included some stereotypical hipster characteristics. So I decided to turn them into a personality quiz.

"What's a hipster?" you ask. According to Lanham: The hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream.

Sounds about right I guess. I spend a fair amount of time with hipsters, but I'm clearly not "cool" enough to fall into that category. I suspect any true hipsters would take offense at any kind of label that defines their subculture. Still, quizzes are fun and silly.

You graduated from a liberal arts school whose football team hasn't won a game since the Reagan administration.

Nope

I never graduated college

Yep

You frequently use the term postmodern (or its commonly used variation PoMo) as an adjective, noun, and verb.

Nope

Yep

Sort of

You carry a shoulder-strap messenger bag and have at one time or another worn a pair of horn-rimmed or Elvis Costello-style glasses.

Nope

Sometimes

Yep

You have refined taste and consider yourself exceptionally cultured, but have one pop vice (ElimiDATE, Quiet Riot, and Entertainment Weekly are popular ones) that helps to define you as well-rounded.

I guess so

Nope

Yep

You have kissed someone of the same gender and often bring this up in casual conversation.

Nope

Yep

Ummm...

You spend much of your leisure time in bars and restaurants with monosyllabic names like Plant, Bound, and Shine.

Nope

Perhaps

Yep

You bought your dishes and a checkered tablecloth at a thrift shop to be kitschy, and often throw vegetarian dinner parties.

Maybe

Yep

Nope

You have one Republican friend whom you always describe as being your one Republican friend.

Nope

Yep

I don't care about politics

You enjoy complaining about gentrification even though you are responsible for it yourself.

Yep

Whatever

Nope

Your hair looks best unwashed and you position your head on your pillow at night in a way that will really maximize your cowlicks.

Yep

I won't admit it

Nope

You own records put out by Matador, DFA, Definitive Jux, Dischord, Warp, Thrill Jockey, Smells Like Records, and Drag City.

Yep

Nope

I can't remember

Tagged as: hipsters, humor, pop culture Leave a comment

Comments (22) Trackbacks (2) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

Tim
January 7th, 2009 - 14:52

pretty funny. i still like aesop rock though.
Jack Mule
January 7th, 2009 - 15:07

wtf? this makes no sense.

Intentionally Unhip

You’re not trying to be hip and you don’t give a shit what hipsters think about you.

I think the only one i answered yes to was owning shit from warp records. everything else was a nope.
Jason
January 7th, 2009 - 16:31

@Tim:
Yeah those are some decent record labels. Matador, Drag City, Dischord – guilty as charged.

@Jack Mule:
Exactly. You answered no to all the stereotypical hipster characteristics – so you’re not a hipster. You’re unhip. (“Intentionally” is an assumption.)
randi
January 7th, 2009 - 18:15

Haha! I’m intentionally unhip. I would prefer unintentionally hip but what can you do….

randiÂ´s last blog post..Look Away
Intentionally Jack Mule
January 8th, 2009 - 03:05

Yeah, I think it’s the assumption that brought forth the wtf. I’m unhip. I know that. I have no disillusions on secretly being hip.

Intentionally seems to imply that i’m a hipster in disguise trying to be unhip.

Reminds me of HST’s fear and loathing in the national district attorney’s association (rough rough “quote”.. book downstairs somewhere and i’m lazy):

Dr Bloomquist on the 4 states of being:

Square – seldom if at ever cool. hasn’t figured it out.
Hip – figures it out.
Groovy – approves of it.
Cool – requires luck and perseverance.

What was i talking about again? Oh yes, constant jacking off.. now where was i.
Jason
January 8th, 2009 - 09:08

@randi:
Haha. I suspect nearly every “hipster” believes they are unintentionally hip. It’s not hip to make an effort.

@Jack Mule:
I removed “intentionally” from the results, because I think you’re right. People who are unhip aren’t necessarily trying to avoid hipness. They just aren’t making an effort (and aren’t unintentionally hip either).

The results from answering with those middle of the road options (Maybe, Whatever, etc) are even more potentially insulting. I can be cruel sometimes.
Intentionally Jack Mule
January 8th, 2009 - 13:55

Random clicking provided:

Fraud

You want to be a hipster so you take on what you believe to be hipster tendencies. Too bad you’re off the mark.

That’s still a bit ambiguous! What could it possibly mean?! (nice!)
Jim Pony
January 8th, 2009 - 15:56

Unhip. My neighbors are total Ringling College hipsters. They hate it when I call them that. They look like Napoleon Dynamite threw up on them.
Omnipotent Poobah
January 12th, 2009 - 21:48

I prefer not to think of myself as unhip so much as “fashionable anti-social”.

Omnipotent PoobahÂ´s last blog post..So Now He Gets Reflective
LC
January 14th, 2009 - 20:54

I love American Idol, Britney Spears, NKOTB and people.com!
Does that make me the anti-hipster?
Jason
January 14th, 2009 - 22:37

@LC:
You just might be. But in a way that’s oddly hip.
Diane
January 17th, 2009 - 00:43

If there had been a pie after hip I’d have it aced

DianeÂ´s last blog post..8 Bucks My Ass
carmen
March 5th, 2009 - 15:38

UNHIP

i dont know how i feel about that.

i think i like it. i never wanted to be “HIP”. i have always though of my slef as kinda cool, but most days i dont give a S*#t, i guess that canceles out my coolness.

what is the difference between cool and hip????????????

i had to google the definition of “gentrification”

i had a pair of thoes elvis costalo sun glasses, but that was before i knew what a hipster was. when i found out, i stoped wearing them.
—-pluse: they dont keep the f*#cking sun out your eyes. that was always really ANNOYING
seth
June 30th, 2010 - 12:08

@carmen,
“i had a pair of thoes elvis costalo sun glasses, but that was before i knew what a hipster was. when i found out, i stoped wearing them.”

this is something a hipster would do.
Ryan
March 9th, 2011 - 17:36

i am 100% hipster…you probably don’t know what that is though.
Required
April 2nd, 2011 - 16:39

I got unhip phew because I have been known too wear vintage clothes, own vinyl (shit it just sounds better!) and wear messenger bags. It’s probably the fact that I am a republican that makes me unhip.
Gideon Graves
April 3rd, 2011 - 13:17

ALL OF YOU PEOPLE BRAGGING ABOUT BEING “UNHIP”: SHUT UP! IT”S A TRAP!
Seriously, dudes. It has become increasingly clear to me that you have not been paying attention.
Because you are TRYING to NOT be hipsters (not wear that clothing, not read those books, keep going into abercrombie even though it makes you puke and you actually like what’s in Urban Outfitters for once, throwing away anything that becomes associated with hipsters, etc.) YOU ARE BECOMING HIPSTERS! Honestly, when you catogorize people by what they wear thaen your efforts might make a spit of difference; but when you’re talking about a counterculture movement that is slowly taking the “normal culture” position then going against it intentionally makes you into a hipster.
Gideon Graves
April 3rd, 2011 - 13:19

I was a hipster before it went mainstream!
TAKE THAT!
jjthom
June 8th, 2011 - 01:49

@Gideon Graves- so everyone is a hipster except for legit nerds? wow.
Gideon Graves
June 8th, 2011 - 13:45

No, everyone is a hipster who isn’t doing their own thing without thinking of what is “mainstream”.
The sheer trying not to be a hipster when being a hipster is the mainstream makes you a hipster.
If you don’t want to be a true hipster, get off this goddamn site and get a life. Wear messenger bags if it’s practical! Wear thick rimmed glasses if you’re too poor to buy anything else! Go to a locally owned coffee shop if it’s closer than that starbucks!
Don’t TRY to be a hipster or not one. Just be yourself.
end of story.
Johnny
September 19th, 2011 - 19:23

I’m guilty of a few of those. Some of you aren’t making any sense though. Such as, mocking certain hipster stereotypes still makes you a hipster? Like if I stop wearing Elvis Costello glasses because they’ve become too trendy is hipster, but if I continue wearing them, is that still not being a trendy hipster? Hipster is not a movement, it’s just another trend that will ultimately be replaced by something equally pretentious. Most of my friends are hipsters though. The bars that have pbr specials, American apparel/Urban Outfitters, being ridiculously liberal, and not liking a good band anymore when they become slightly mainstream. Oh, how can I forget the fawning over beat writers like burroughs and Kerouac? I can’t help but mock them sometimes. They mean well though.
JJ
September 19th, 2011 - 19:28

Yeah the questions are definitely outdated at this point.

I think that in general, hipsters are a self-hating bunch. My hipster friends (who don’t realize they are hipsters) throw around the term “hipster” as an insult. Often, it’s used toward people who shop at Urban Outfitters instead of the thrift store. Or people who drink PBR instead of some other watery cheap beer that’s not as common (National Bohemian perhaps).