For years now, the waxed-mustachioed bike messengers and baristas of the Mission have been the reliable butt of a certain kind of joke. The punchline, you see, is that the vinyl collecting, trust funded hordes in Dolores Park in the middle of a weekday afternoon all wear their beliefs and affectations like a clip-on bowtie -- ready to change at a moment's notice when their politics go out of style, and so desperate for non-conformity that they all wind up as one indistinguishable hipster mass.
No matter your particular stance on the archetype -- and let's be honest, the only universal refrain is "I'm not one" -- it's time to retire the cliché, says longtime San Francisco writer Marke B. in a thoughtfully witty, beautifully sad piece for 48 Hills, prompted by news of Mission hipster staple Boogaloo's impending closure.
As he notes, it's an odd feeling to pen a eulogy for a stereotype that served as the target for so much (deserved?) derision. But the new breed of stereotype taking its place is inarguably much harder to stomach:
Like the marginalized communities it was blamed for displacing, the once-overwhelming hipster onslaught has now in turn been over-run by Ivy League business school marketing grads, violently jogging ex-cheerleaders from the Midwest, Bonobos-sporting former frat bros, and Baby Bjorned global arrivistes who have absolutely no idea who Allen Ginsberg or Ariel Pink is, let alone Keyboard Cat...
Not even a robust gap-year trust fund can withstand the skyrocketing rents here. And who can afford anymore to launch a Malian-Icelandic fusion food truck, organic Ayahuasca pop-up, or hand-printed line of Zombie Hannah Montana jeggings? Only bored Google wives have resources for that now, and they’re too busy with toddler yoga. I seriously waited on Valencia Street for three hours last week before I spotted a single acid-wash romper. There were pleated chinos at Zeitgeist. Elbo Room is closing. Hipster’s dead, y’all.
Try as we might to avoid the dystopian death march tone that accompanies so much of the coverage of the city's current rent boom and sweeping gentrification, we have to agree with a lot in this piece -- even if only to give an appreciative nod toward the few delightfully over-stylized freaks who are, somehow, still here.
Mission hipsters, never thought we'd say this, but we hereby don our wayfarers and raise a PBR to you. You were real (if not authentic, but what's authenticity anyway?...wait, sorry, that's an essay for another time). We were here, and we saw you. We will never forget.
