What a F*&#ing Hipster

I am a hipster. It's something that I've had to come to terms with all my life. Now granted, there are people much worse than I. I'm not really one of those hipsters with their nose in the sky, boasting about their latest "discovered" band. When I was a kid, being the youngest in my family caused me to feel this constant need to fit in with the older crowd, which meant I had to play the part: a hipster. But that bad news is that I started early. Like, really early.

My siblings and cousins were a poor influence on me. At the age of 8, I bought my first Green Day CD. At age 10, I started shopping at Hot Topic instead of Hollister. But most of all... I started watching the OC religiously. It is my favorite show to this day, and it created a huge wave of hipsters. Me included. I bought a Princess Sparkles t-shirt at age 13. (For those of you who don't know who that is, go watch the OC.) In 2006, the "dorky" trend took over so naturally, I joined in.

Yes, those are fake glasses.

This is me in 2007. I'm wearing a Rocket Summer t-shirt (signed by Bryce Avery), red tights, a vest from goodwill and a bow headband, as well as those stupid rubber bracelet things. I am ashamed of this picture.

In 2008 came the "cool hat" vintage-look. This was my first profile picture on Facebook. I am a photographer (no really, I am) but this looks like it came straight out of an Urban Outfitters ad.

Another "cool hat" picture.

The next trend that came along was buying ugly clothes to seem cool. (Yes, I know that's dumb.) I would troll mainstream stores like GAP and Target looking for the ugliest thing I could find. And the summer of 2008, it was this sweater:

Hideous, right? Well, I thought it was gonna make me look like I wasn't trying so hard. But then of course, my cousin Mandy had to sweep in and take the hipster crown. She informed me that she had the same sweater as me. In my head I was like, "score!", but Mandy bought hers at a thrift store. She had won the hipster-off.

The worst thing is that I wasn't aware of my hipster nature until my brother informed me my freshman year of high school. But it still didn't stop, I just became more aware of it! Above is me in another planned outfit complete with Chucks and a vintage 50 mm camera. I disgust even myself.

Throughout high school, despite being on the speech/debate team and theatre and choir, I tried to mainstream and blend in, throwing away my hipster desires. Problem with that was, HIPSTERS BECAME COOL! Like, really popular! And I was screwed. So then I turned to the only other thing I could: I had to become the counterculture and make fun of them. It was easy for me because I secretly had the hipster in me. We even developed the phrase, "What a f#$%ing hipster..." whenever we saw "those people". Also, as fans of How I Met Your Mother, we were avid fans of the fart noise whenever someone got dangerously close to sounding like a hipster.

This is me at prom, in the most hipster place on earth, Mass Ave in Indianapolis. My friends and I decided to take "hipster pics" on this brick wall, and this was the result. Wanna know the funny thing? The only person who commented on this photo was my cousin Mandy who said she loved it (irony at its best).

I'm now making an effort to become less of a hipster and more of a real person. But there are times I fall to temptation.

Photographed in April, I'm wearing a cardigan with patches on the elbows, Toms (not Bobs), and of elusive skinny jeans.

And then there is the trip I took to the East coast where I felt entirely pressured to look on-point.

Think I did?

It was hard to sit through class on Monday because I knew that it was me that we were talking about. I hope everyone enjoyed my trip down memory lane. Maybe I'll bump into some of my fellow hipsters at the Muncie Goodwill (I'm there every week).

If anything, I hope this made you laugh or feel better about being a hipster.